Ok, so this weekend we went up to Cleveland and met my parents there, who drove over from Philadelphia. My mom has for years obsessed over the idea of going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so we finally gave in to her whining and agreed to go.
PART I: CLEVELAND
On a barfometer scale of 1 to 10, Cleveland gets 9 barfs. It's probably the crappiest city I've ever been to, but it's crappy in a very odd way. The downtown district looks pretty sparkling and new, but there's nobody there but aggressive panhandlers and tons of this newish-looking shit is actually boarded up. After we got done at the Rock Hall Princesca and I decided to wander into the city to try to find a place to eat, and walked for over an hour and could not find one single fucking restaurant and in fact barely any signs of life at all. The few people we saw were invariably of the chocolate persuasion and looked lean and hungry. I had googled around looking for a place that sold the famous Polish Boy (don't get excited Mart, it's a sammich not a rentboy :) ) and found one about five blocks from the hotel. We walked there only to discover it was boarded up. Right in front of the abandoned storefront was a group of men loading trash bags into an ice cream truck, so we thought maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to investigate further.
We finally wandered into a gyro shop run by an old Turkish woman who seemed shocked to see any other living humans, and she agreed to make us gyros... which took a while since she hadn't even bothered to switch her oven on. They actually turned out to be pretty good. We asked her where we could get a Polish Boy and she said "Why you want eat this... they sell on truck and trucks dirty? I make you more gyro you can take with!" We politely declined and wandered through the post-apocalyptic wasteland to the hotel.
That night I found a Polish Boy place with rave reviews on google and convinced my dad to drive us there. But we got there and discovered it was a fucking parking lot and realized based on the sandwich board there that, indeed, the 'best polish boy in Cleveland' was served from a lunch truck that likes to park in the lot of a furniture warehouse. :bleeding: It was Saturday night so he wasn't there, of course.
So I go back to furious googling and discover that the place we went to earlier in the day that was boarded up actually had moved to a new location in the Cleveland suburb of Lyndhurst, so my annoyed dad agrees to try that, but makes me agree that we're getting Taco Bell if that doesn't work out.
Fortunately, it DID work out:
Freddie's Rib House did in fact serve the Polish Boy, along with the Polish Girl and alot of other assorted soul food like ribs and chicken. So I finally had my Polish Boy, and as I mentioned in the 'What are you eating?' thread, this turned out to be THE GREATEST SANDWICH OF ALL TIME.
Here's how this masterpiece is made: you take a spicy smoked kielbasa and grill it till it's black on the outside, and then dip it into a deep fryer until the skin is crispy. The kielbasa is then stuffed into an oversized bun, topped with hot barbecue sauce, then with cole slaw, and then with french fries. The Polish Girl also gets smoked pulled pork thrown on top of all that. I decided I didn't want to have a heart attack right then and there so I just got the Boy.
Here it is after I had devoured most of it and rendered my pants a dairy factory:
I do love these AAR's. :)
I need to go water my orchard but when I return I'll put up PART II: SAUSAGE IN COLUMBUS.
Looks like awesomely disgusting great tasting food. :mmm:
Quote from: 11B4V on May 27, 2012, 07:36:40 PM
Looks like awesomely disgusting great tasting food. :mmm:
Look up the Rutgers food trucks. Disgustingly awesome. :)
Quotemen loading trash bags into an ice cream truck, so we thought maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to investigate further.
:lol: Good call.
I spent a week in Cleveland once and yes, it's a fucking wasteland. I never even heard of the Polish Boy the whole time I was there, but it's just the kind of trash I like to try.
There were two decent restaurants in Cleveland that I ate at, there's an Italian place just north and across from the Indians baseball field, and then there's a Hyde Park steak house (which I think is a chain with a few locations in the mid-west, but they have good steak.)
Shit, even I knew 20 years ago when we had season tickets for the Browns to never expect to find anything decent downtown.
Find Euclid Avenue, go east, and don't stop until you get past the Dazzling Urbanites at Cleveland State and start seeing signs for CWRU.
Quote from: Caliga on May 27, 2012, 07:32:15 PM
I need to go water my orchard but when I return I'll put up PART II: SAUSAGE IN COLUMBUS.
Schmidt's Sausage Haus. End of story. Fin.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 09:07:46 PM
Shit, even I knew 20 years ago when we had season tickets for the Browns to never expect to find anything decent downtown.
Find Euclid Avenue, go east, and don't stop until you get past the Dazzling Urbanites at Cleveland State and start seeing signs for CWRU.
Wait. You had season tickets for the browns 20 years ago? Did you follow the team to Mobtown?
Quote from: sbr on May 27, 2012, 09:12:52 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 09:07:46 PM
Shit, even I knew 20 years ago when we had season tickets for the Browns to never expect to find anything decent downtown.
Find Euclid Avenue, go east, and don't stop until you get past the Dazzling Urbanites at Cleveland State and start seeing signs for CWRU.
Wait. You had season tickets for the browns 20 years ago? Did you follow the team to Mobtown?
I adopted the Browns when my team was stolen in the middle of the night by a filthy lying Jew. Curtis Dickey signed with them, and they drafted THE GREATEST COLLEGIATE QUARTERBACK OF ALL TIME EVAH, and my heart was taken. :wub:
Some guys I knew and I went in for season tickets for the Browns in college. Dog Pound, Section E, Row 11, 1988-1992 seasons. Good times. Man, what a dump Cleveland Municipal was. It was like Memorial Stadium
after a nuclear detonation.
Let's just say that when they moved here, it didn't break my heart all that much.
QuoteI adopted the Browns when my team was stolen in the middle of the night by a filthy lying Jew. Curtis Dickey signed with them, and they drafted THE GREATEST COLLEGIATE QUARTERBACK OF ALL TIME EVAH, and my heart was taken. :wub:
Did you ever check out his daughter's porn?
Quote from: katmai on May 27, 2012, 09:37:13 PM
QuoteI adopted the Browns when my team was stolen in the middle of the night by a filthy lying Jew. Curtis Dickey signed with them, and they drafted THE GREATEST COLLEGIATE QUARTERBACK OF ALL TIME EVAH, and my heart was taken. :wub:
Did you ever check out his daughter's porn?
Couldn't find it. Not sure if I want to see it. It just doesn't...feel right. :unsure:
That sandwich doesn't sound appetizing to me at all.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 09:23:08 PM
Quote from: sbr on May 27, 2012, 09:12:52 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 09:07:46 PM
Shit, even I knew 20 years ago when we had season tickets for the Browns to never expect to find anything decent downtown.
Find Euclid Avenue, go east, and don't stop until you get past the Dazzling Urbanites at Cleveland State and start seeing signs for CWRU.
Wait. You had season tickets for the browns 20 years ago? Did you follow the team to Mobtown?
I adopted the Browns when my team was stolen in the middle of the night by a filthy lying Jew. Curtis Dickey signed with them, and they drafted THE GREATEST COLLEGIATE QUARTERBACK OF ALL TIME EVAH, and my heart was taken. :wub:
Some guys I knew and I went in for season tickets for the Browns in college. Dog Pound, Section E, Row 11, 1988-1992 seasons. Good times. Man, what a dump Cleveland Municipal was. It was like Memorial Stadium after a nuclear detonation.
Let's just say that when they moved here, it didn't break my heart all that much.
You went to college in Ohio?
Quote from: sbr on May 27, 2012, 09:48:03 PM
You went to college in Ohio?
Nope. We'd drive out Friday night or Saturday morning, stay at the Stouffer Tower City Plaza, stalk the visiting team in the lobby (got Dan Hampton's, Dick Enberg's and Merlin Olsen's autographs buried somewhere), goof around Saturday night hitting John Q's Steakhouse and hanging out at The Flats when it actually had shit there, hit the stadium early enough in the morning for the Club Level brunch, and drive straight home after. Be back in Mobtown around 1 or 2am.
And honestly, all that was still cheaper to do than today's PSL racket, man.
My sister went to Case, I'd crash with her for the occasional game from 93 to 95. Last one I saw there was Tampa Bay in '95, about 2 weeks or so before the announcement of the move to Baltimore. Figured Maryland plates was a really, really bad idea at the time. :ph34r:
PART II: SAUSAGE IN COLUMBUS
So today on the way home I realized that we would be passing thru Columbus right around lunchtime. I remembered seeing a thing on Man vs. Food once about... yes, that's right, Schmidt's Sausage Haus und Restaurant, so we got off the interstate and headed over to Columbus's German Village. I was pleasantly surprised to discover two things: a) Columbus is not nearly as shitty as Cleveland, and b) the German Village is actually not a black ghetto, unlike Germantown in Louisville and Over-The-Rhine in Cincinnati... it's actually managed to maintain its status as a nice neighborhood with a distinct ethnic flavor. The streets are cobblestone and the architecture even looks quasi-German.
So we pull into this desperately overcrowded parking lot where people are double-parked and somehow manage to find an empty spot, and wander around a little bit because there isn't really a sign telling you where to go to actually find the restaurant, but eventually stumble upon it:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 10:00:15 PM
My sister went to Case, I'd crash with her for the occasional game from 93 to 95. Last one I saw there was Tampa Bay in '95, about 2 weeks or so before the announcement of the move to Baltimore. Figured Maryland plates was a really, really bad idea at the time. :ph34r:
This weekend we drove thru CWRU's campus on the way out to Freddie's Rib House. It seemed like a surprisingly nice campus given the wasteland that basically totally surrounded it. :hmm:
At Schmidt's we got:
pretzel bites mit sweet mustard... these were different than any others I've had since they seem to have been deep-fried and may have been dusted with sugar.
I then got a bahama mama sausage sandwich with grilled onions und sauerkraut, with a side of potato pancakes and applesauce:
For dessert we split a Bavarian vanilla cream puff:
After we got done there I went next door to Schmidt's Fudge Haus and bought a box of buckeyes, since I hadn't had any of those in a while. Princesca picked up some of that Kinder stuff you can get all over Europe for herself.
Then we drove home. I've been having chest pains ever since. The End.
Quote from: Caliga on May 27, 2012, 10:02:38 PM
This weekend we drove thru CWRU's campus on the way out to Freddie's Rib House. It seemed like a surprisingly nice campus given the wasteland that basically totally surrounded it. :hmm:
Yeah, actually that entire university neighborhood is nice, bordering their Little Italy and Shaker Heights. Very bohemian and "collegey", sorta like a Georgetown with more coffee shops and less trust funds. I'm pretty sure paying for something at Revolution Books with a debit card put me on a government list somewhere.
My sister was still living on campus when they were doing shooting for
Air Force One; the opening scene where Spec Ops are parachuting onto the Khazak Presidential Palace? That's the orchestra hall for the Cleveland Symphony, and you can see a ton of the campus buildings in the shots. :D
Quote from: Caliga on May 27, 2012, 10:12:24 PM
For dessert we split a Bavarian vanilla cream puff:
God, it's like eating a little cloud of heavenly cream. Or Amy Grant's pussy. AND asshole.
I can't believe you got a platter, and not the all-you-can-eat wurst buffet with alll those meats available. Disappointing, young man. Very disappointing. :tsk:
So Yip what odds giving on when Cal's coronary kicks in?
Quote from: Caliga on May 27, 2012, 10:09:51 PM
I then got a bahama mama sausage sandwich with grilled onions und sauerkraut, with a side of potato pancakes and applesauce:
My heart skipped a beat just looking at that. :licklips:
Quote from: katmai on May 27, 2012, 10:28:30 PM
So Yip what odds giving on when Cal's coronary kicks in?
40-1 against by 12/31/12.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 09:08:13 PM
Schmidt's Sausage Haus. End of story. Fin.
Should be bolded and in thirty point font. I miss going to Columbus strictly due to missing out on this place.
Quote from: Caliga on May 27, 2012, 07:25:23 PM
PART I: CLEVELAND
On a barfometer scale of 1 to 10, Cleveland gets 9 barfs. It's probably the crappiest city I've ever been to, but it's crappy in a very odd way.
I've been to Cleveland twice and enjoyed it a lot. Never went downtown or to the Rock Hall, though. My gay Polish-American native friend played host. Drove around and saw the locations of famous crimes including the source of the "The Fugitive." Then drank Molson Golden for $1.50 a bottle at a bar where a one-armed man threatened us when we made a half-assed attempt to go for an empty pool table. Went to a very weird gay bar that was kind of exactly what you'd think a Cleveland gay bar would be like. Ate great fresh kielbasi and pierogi and bigos in the old neighborhood. Went to the art museum which was being renovated and quite impressive. Walked through some of the huge Metroparks greenbelt with those exercise stations along the way, and climbed hundreds of stairs up some big hill teeming with schoolkids on a field trip. Bought some crap at a hippie kitsch store in a pretty lively young neighborhood. Oh, and spent a long time wandering around James Garfield's massive tomb complex, which was awesome. Planned to go to this little island off the coast that is famous for its frozen Brandy Alexanders, but the weather was too bad.
All in all, very worthwhile. But everything is going on outside downtown. I recall Lakewood being a cool place.
In the battle of Cal versus food, Cal always wins :cool:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 10:20:58 PM
I can't believe you got a platter, and not the all-you-can-eat wurst buffet with alll those meats available. Disappointing, young man. Very disappointing. :tsk:
I thought about the buffet, but knew I'd have to poop on the way home if I got that and (believe it or not) I don't like to shit at gas stations.
Quote from: Caliga on May 28, 2012, 06:45:08 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 10:20:58 PM
I can't believe you got a platter, and not the all-you-can-eat wurst buffet with alll those meats available. Disappointing, young man. Very disappointing. :tsk:
I thought about the buffet, but knew I'd have to poop on the way home if I got that and (believe it or not) I don't like to shit at gas stations.
Do you like to eat shit at gas stations? Get it! ^_^
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 10:18:38 PM
Yeah, actually that entire university neighborhood is nice, bordering their Little Italy and Shaker Heights. Very bohemian and "collegey", sorta like a Georgetown with more coffee shops and less trust funds. I'm pretty sure paying for something at Revolution Books with a debit card put me on a government list somewhere.
Yeah, we drove thru Little Italy too... I'd forgotten about that. We also saw that Revolution Books store and my dad muttered something about "damn hippies" when we passed it.
Quote from: Caliga on May 28, 2012, 06:45:08 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 27, 2012, 10:20:58 PM
I can't believe you got a platter, and not the all-you-can-eat wurst buffet with alll those meats available. Disappointing, young man. Very disappointing. :tsk:
I thought about the buffet, but knew I'd have to poop on the way home if I got that and (believe it or not) I don't like to shit at gas stations.
:lol: girl
Quote from: Jaron on May 28, 2012, 06:45:51 AM
Do you like to eat shit at gas stations? Get it! ^_^
Define the word 'shit'. :hmm:
Quote from: Caliga on May 28, 2012, 06:46:35 AM
We also saw that Revolution Books store and my dad muttered something about "damn hippies" when we passed it.
Down the street, about 1/2 block away, is a collector's toy store; can't remember the name of it, but it's the kid of place where you can buy lunchboxes, or the Six Million Dollar Man and old Star Trek stuff still in their boxes.
I almost walked out with a Guns of Navarone playset last time I was there. :ph34r:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 28, 2012, 06:56:27 AM
Quote from: Caliga on May 28, 2012, 06:46:35 AM
We also saw that Revolution Books store and my dad muttered something about "damn hippies" when we passed it.
Down the street, about 1/2 block away, is a collector's toy store; can't remember the name of it, but it's the kid of place where you can buy lunchboxes, or the Six Million Dollar Man and old Star Trek stuff still in their boxes.
I almost walked out with a Guns of Navarone playset last time I was there. :ph34r:
The mountain with the two cannons and the elevator? You missed out big time if that is the case.
Cleveland is a fucking hole. When I was at my cousin's wedding four years ago, we had a fucking trial finding a goddamn beaner bar to shoot some tequila at on the way to the reception. Tragical.
Quote from: PDH on May 28, 2012, 08:19:04 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 28, 2012, 06:56:27 AM
I almost walked out with a Guns of Navarone playset last time I was there. :ph34r:
The mountain with the two cannons and the elevator? You missed out big time if that is the case.
Don't think I don't regret it, either. Been giving my parents shit about not getting that from Santa since 1974.
Quote from: Caliga on May 27, 2012, 07:25:23 PM
Ok, so this weekend we went up to Cleveland and met my parents there, who drove over from Philadelphia. My mom has for years obsessed over the idea of going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so we finally gave in to her whining and agreed to go.
PART I: CLEVELAND
On a barfometer scale of 1 to 10, Cleveland gets 9 barfs. It's probably the crappiest city I've ever been to, but it's crappy in a very odd way. The downtown district looks pretty sparkling and new, but there's nobody there but aggressive panhandlers and tons of this newish-looking shit is actually boarded up. After we got done at the Rock Hall Princesca and I decided to wander into the city to try to find a place to eat, and walked for over an hour and could not find one single fucking restaurant and in fact barely any signs of life at all. The few people we saw were invariably of the chocolate persuasion and looked lean and hungry. I had googled around looking for a place that sold the famous Polish Boy (don't get excited Mart, it's a sammich not a rentboy :) ) and found one about five blocks from the hotel. We walked there only to discover it was boarded up. Right in front of the abandoned storefront was a group of men loading trash bags into an ice cream truck, so we thought maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to investigate further.
We finally wandered into a gyro shop run by an old Turkish woman who seemed shocked to see any other living humans, and she agreed to make us gyros... which took a while since she hadn't even bothered to switch her oven on. They actually turned out to be pretty good. We asked her where we could get a Polish Boy and she said "Why you want eat this... they sell on truck and trucks dirty? I make you more gyro you can take with!" We politely declined and wandered through the post-apocalyptic wasteland to the hotel.
That night I found a Polish Boy place with rave reviews on google and convinced my dad to drive us there. But we got there and discovered it was a fucking parking lot and realized based on the sandwich board there that, indeed, the 'best polish boy in Cleveland' was served from a lunch truck that likes to park in the lot of a furniture warehouse. :bleeding: It was Saturday night so he wasn't there, of course.
So I go back to furious googling and discover that the place we went to earlier in the day that was boarded up actually had moved to a new location in the Cleveland suburb of Lyndhurst, so my annoyed dad agrees to try that, but makes me agree that we're getting Taco Bell if that doesn't work out.
Fortunately, it DID work out:
Lebron destroyed the city's desire to live.
Quote from: PDH on May 28, 2012, 08:19:04 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 28, 2012, 06:56:27 AM
Quote from: Caliga on May 28, 2012, 06:46:35 AM
We also saw that Revolution Books store and my dad muttered something about "damn hippies" when we passed it.
Down the street, about 1/2 block away, is a collector's toy store; can't remember the name of it, but it's the kid of place where you can buy lunchboxes, or the Six Million Dollar Man and old Star Trek stuff still in their boxes.
I almost walked out with a Guns of Navarone playset last time I was there. :ph34r:
The mountain with the two cannons and the elevator? You missed out big time if that is the case.
I had that. The big gray one with all of the yellow parts and furniture?
Quote from: sbr on May 28, 2012, 12:29:49 PM
Quote from: PDH on May 28, 2012, 08:19:04 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 28, 2012, 06:56:27 AM
Quote from: Caliga on May 28, 2012, 06:46:35 AM
We also saw that Revolution Books store and my dad muttered something about "damn hippies" when we passed it.
Down the street, about 1/2 block away, is a collector's toy store; can't remember the name of it, but it's the kid of place where you can buy lunchboxes, or the Six Million Dollar Man and old Star Trek stuff still in their boxes.
I almost walked out with a Guns of Navarone playset last time I was there. :ph34r:
The mountain with the two cannons and the elevator? You missed out big time if that is the case.
I had that. The big gray one with all of the yellow parts and furniture?
STFU. :mad:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.babble.com%2Fdadding%2Ffiles%2F2011%2F12%2Fnavarone-playset-denied.jpg&hash=33f0aee4d5275ff84c3add4fd94d15d6e7108e1b)
Quote from: sbr on May 28, 2012, 12:29:49 PM
I had that. The big gray one with all of the yellow parts and furniture?
You know it. It kicked ass, especially since it came with a squad of goose-stepping Nazis.
I would like to thank all of you for turning this thread into my own personal hell of unfulfilled childhood dreams.
It's what we do.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 28, 2012, 12:57:09 PM
I would like to thank all of you for turning this thread into my own personal hell of unfulfilled childhood dreams.
Hey, I wish I still had my playset. All my childhood toys got destroyed by my nephew.
Parents: Let him play with your old toys
*nephew smashes old Hot wheels*
Me: :cry:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 28, 2012, 12:57:09 PM
I would like to thank all of you for turning this thread into my own personal hell of unfulfilled childhood dreams.
If you would have gotten everything you wanted as a kid you would have ended up like me: Middle Aged, no debt, and with a 24 year old girlfriend...
Ok, maybe not the best example.
Quote from: PDH on May 28, 2012, 01:09:28 PM
If you would have gotten everything you wanted as a kid you would have ended up like me: Middle Aged, no debt, and with a 24 year old girlfriend...
Ok, maybe not the best example.
I thought this was every man's dream. Well, every teenager's dream for when he's an old man, anyway.