Exquisite Eats from the Sunday Market at Hingetown

Recently my friend Fred (@IncogFredo) tweeted "If you're not proud to be from #CLE, you don't leave your house enough. So many amazing, talented, inspiring people doing great things here." I couldn't agree with Fred more! The Sunday Market in Hingetown is a great example of local people doing great things. I worked my way from one end to the other sampling incredibly exquisite eats from many talented local food entrepreneurs. Stephanie Sheldon, of the Cleveland Flea and the Indie Foundry, has created another sensational event that everyone is excited to be apart of.  She is a force in Cleveland! I am always excited to be involved in any event she is putting on and I hear that constantly from others who work with her. Stephanie knows how to create a truly #ThisisCLE experience and she does it in a way that promotes small business. I never feel bad spending a day indulging when I know my money is staying local. And indulge I did!

Who doesn't love fresh hot malty boiled hand-rolled bagels infused with personality? The Cleveland Bagel Co. guys are always fun to chat up and their fresh delicious bagels with creative smears are more than worth tracking down at Rising Star Coffee and Fears' Confections.

Did you hear!? Brewnuts is now open in Tremont!! Brewnuts are more than just a genius idea, they make an incredibly moist and tasty product. They're full of hustle and fun as hell to know. If you see them, buy immediately because they'll sell out!

Clark Pope is a master in the kitchen! He always keeps me laughing and gives great advice that comes from his years of experience. I'm always impressed with the complexity and deliciousness of what he pulls off cooking in the outdoors. His hand cut pomme frites with orange ginger aioli were masterful work. His Bloody Mary mix is a must try! It is the perfect balance of tomatoes and spices to kick up brunch cocktails.

Coquette Patisserie came with more than just their beautifully decorated french macarons, they had an entire oyster bar!

Even Chef Doug Katz of the Katz Club Diner was on hand greeting everyone as he passed out delightfully delicious BLTs.

Did you know Cleveland now has a Brunch Food Truck?! Off the GRIDdle is slinging some unique waffle sandwiches, like my Acapulco Pulled, on the streets of Cleveland. Very fun menu and great #clebrunch addition.

While you're in Hingetown you might as well visit a few of the businesses that call this block home! Cleveland Tea Revival is a popular hang. I rarely find it not packed to the brim. They have high quality product and a prime people watching spot.

Of course no vegan, raw, or health food junky should be in Hingetown without stopping by Beet Jar juice Bar. I dare people who turn their nose up at vegan food to try one of their sandwiches! You'll be hooked. They are additively delicious.

And being the ice coffee addict I am, I can't not stop by Rising Star Coffee Roasters.

Back out at the market there are still more foodie treats to discover! Sweet Bean owners recent trip to France has inspired some incredible new creations. Their Pate de Fruits are light as air and packet with flavor. I couldn't wait to get my hands on some and they were 100x's better than my mind had even conjured.

Olivia Rose has been teasing me for months with pictures of her eclairs. I finally got mine! I love catching up with her and her beautiful daughters who are always nearby to help their mom.

While I focus on the food there is a lot more to see. You'll find all things handmade at the market. One of my favorite stops is Liza Michelle Jewelry. I couldn't help but ogle some of her new pieces. This is not your average handmade market jewelry. She makes extremely beautiful high-end wearable art. She has a great eye and loads of talent. Do yourself a favor and forgo the cheesy mall kiosk jewelery store and buy a real local handmade work of art.

And last, but certainly not least...you won't just hear it from me, you'll hear it from everyone, you don't leave the market without your Mason's Creamery. Never fear their unusual flavors or combinations. When they say balsamic for your strawberry ice cream, trust them, they're the ice cream experts! You won't be disappointed.

I highly recommend checking out one of the upcoming Sunday Market's in Hingetown as well as all the great local businesses above! Bring a friend or a dog, grab a bite and watch all the great things going on in Cleveland.

Cleveland Culinary Launch Tasting

It's been a fun foodie journey starting this blog. I have met so many great Cleveland people and of course enjoyed so much Cleveland food. One of the best things to have come from this blog is being a part of the pilot program of the Cleveland Culinary Launch & Kitchen, LLC Food Business Incubator Program. We were lucky enough to get a heads up about the program from Sylvie, who runs the awesomely fun Dishcrawl here in Cleveland. We mentioned our interest in starting a food truck when talking during the Tremont Dishcrawl and she tweeted us a link to info about the program. We submitted our application and a presentation to ECDI and we made it in! Monday was week two of our classes - product development week. All 10 businesses in the program brought in food for testing. The evening started with some great talks. The first one by Tom from Cleveland Whiskey and then Terri of the Kitchen's Bounty. Terri even brought in a little gift bag with a sample of her Amazing Rub.

Here is a glimpse of the 10 awesome businesses in the program and the food being produced in Cleveland.

Mason's Creamery  Mason's handed out samples of their Cleveland Whiskey Ice Cream. While I have been lucky enough to have had it before I was more than excited to try it again. I love getting a taste of that Cleveland Whiskey flavor without the overpowering heat of alcohol. It's pure flavor and it's delicious. If you have a chance to try it in a Coke Float you will not regret it.

HooftyPlates I care greatly about where my food comes from and I know that a lot of other people do too. HooftyPlates has extensively researched to find the best local food sources and has created some amazing and healthy food from the best of the best. They brought in a sample of their Sweet Broccoli Salad. The best broccoli salads I have had are covered in mayonnaise and topped with bacon, but this was far better than any of those without using either!

Clark Pope Catering Clark is like the jack of all trades in the kitchen. He has created a ton of products for Fresh Fork Market so he had a lot for us to sample. He is a master of tomato so he brought in a BBQ Sauce, Tomato Sauce, Blueberry Sauce and a Bloody Mary Mix. I am a big fan of fruit sauces so I was really drawn to the Blueberry Sauce. It was nicely balanced and not overly sweet like you find in a fruit sauce all too often.

Chill Pop Shop I have had a lot of popsicles in my life and I figured a popsicle is a popsicle. That is until I put one of these in my mouth! I was immediately blown away by these Watermelon Lime Pops. There is a very powerful freshness built into these. My husband loves watermelon, but hates artificial watermelon flavors. I have learned to steer clear of giving him watermelon treats, but he LOVED these because it is actual watermelon vs watermelonish flavoring.

Randy's Pickles Pickles are just so much fun to eat! Randy's brought in their Pepper Chips, Hungarian Peppers and Dill Pickles for us to try. Any pickle fan would love these. If you've never had hungarian peppers they are a must try. They are currently working on a mega hot new pickle recipe.

Olivia Rose Confections I take pictures constantly so I always appreciate when my food is also beautiful. Olivia's food is incredibly photogenic. She brought in Cupcakes and one of her beautiful Fat Baby Cakes. The cupcake was so pretty I didn't want to eat it, but I am glad I did because it was incredibly light and moist.

Sweet Bean I love that Sweet Bean is named after their dog, who's nickname is Sweet Bean. They also call their round candy bars bark as a play on words. Too cute! I was so excited that they brought in some dark chocolate items. That is my favorite! These little candies pack a ton of big flavor. The little dark round ones are filled with a peanut butter and jelly mix that is oh so good.

Really Good Bacon From the moment I heard that name I was excited to try this bacon. As soon as my husband and I finished our first bite all we could say was "that is really good bacon." The name really says it all. David also brought in some amazing sliders. They were a mix of ground beef and bacon and I could not stop eating them! Best slider I've ever had.

Bay Branch Farms Bay Branch does urban farming in Lakewood. They have some amazing produce you can pick up at the Lakewood Farmers Market and LEAF. They brought in a beautiful and fresh salad made from their garden veggies and a blueberry fruit leather. We've all had an over-processed fruit rollup, but you'd think of fruit rollup differently after trying one of Bay Branch's fruit leathers. You get all the real fruit flavor in the familiar rollup form. I've had high quality fruit leathers from the grocery store before, but they were far closer to cardboard than fruit rollups. These were the real deal.

Wok 'n' Roll Yes, that's the name of our future food truck! :) We are hoping to launch in Spring 2014. For now we are just a concept, but by the end of program we want to have a solid business plan to get us started building our truck. We brought in a few treats that represent us. BBQ Pork Cookies and Mini Vegan Curry Pies. What was so great about this tasting was hearing peoples descriptions of our food. People are very curious about the Pork Cookies, but as someone said, "they are exactly as they sound." The Pork Cookies are a sweet cookie with an even sweeter pork inside. I enjoy the crumbly cookie dough. The pies were described as similar to a samosa. The cool thing about these are that they are a baked version of a samosa instead of fried.

At the end of the program we will have a graduation type event that will be open to the public. I'll be sure to tweet info when the time comes. Foodies and bacon lovers alike should come out to sample these local goodies and support these Cleveland businesses!

The Chomp | The Pour

I love food trucks! I especially love when multiple food trucks are gathered so I can try things from multiple trucks and/or grab something to take home for later. Obviously, I am not alone, if you've been to Walnut Wednesday you've seen the crowds lining up to grab lunch at our awesome Cleveland food trucks. Now we also have the Chomp and the Pour at East 46th and Euclid! The Chomp is there every Tuesday and the Pour is the last Thursday of each month. Since these are new events they don't have the long lines of Walnut Wednesday yet, so get while the gettin is good! There were tons of tables and places to chill while eating. They had an awesome portable jukebox at the Pour, plus a little potty/handwash station. And the food of course, was AWESOME!

The Chomp The line up for the Chomp on 5/28/2013: - The Orange Trük - The Nosh Box - Pigaliscious - Mobile Sushi Bar- Sushi on the Roll - Mason's Creamery - Cleveland Baking Company

Mobile Sushi is the first mobile sushi bar in the Midwest! They have lots of different sushi rolls as well as wheat tortilla wraps. I love sushi so I was all over this. I ordered the spider roll they had on special. Excellent sushi! You'd never imagine this quality of sushi from a food truck. They also had some creative desserts I am excited to try. I'm a fan!

The Orange Trük has a great pulled pork sandwich topped with a nice fresh slaw. The trük balls are an awesome little side with a nice kickin' sauce.

There is nothing better on a hot Cleveland day than some ice cream. We had the pleasure of trying some Mason's Creamery ice cream at the Asian Festival and loved it! No way were we passing up a chance to have it again. They have great unique flavors and offer vegan choices as well. The Vietnamese coffee ice cream (top) is out of this world! Sweetened condensed milk is a beautiful thing. Early Grey ice cream (bottom) is not something I have ever encountered before. It was lovely! It had a subtle berry flavor to it which I loved.

We also grabbed some Pigaliscious cubans to take home for dinner. Amazing cubans! Can't wait to pick up some of those again.

The Pour The line up for the Pour on 5/30/2013: - Cleveland BBQ Company - Mobile Sushi Bar- Sushi on the Roll - The Nosh Box - StrEat Mobile Bistro - The Rolling Stove (If you've got a link for them please let me know) - Wholly Frijoles Mexican Street Foods - Sweet! Mobile Cupcakery - Mason's Creamery - Portside Distillery

Cleveland BBQ Company is a must try truck! Look at the smoke rings on that brisket!! Don't worry, it's hard to miss since it is a giant green military vehicle that stands so high you need to stand on a big metal box to order. It looked so cool I couldn't resist and the food was amazing. Brisket, corned beef and sriracha potato salad. You had me a sriracha! They also make their own sauces which are all tasty. The Cleveland Gold on the smoked corned beef was an excellent combo. Love this truck!

The best thing about the Pour is drinking outside! I love to get my drink on outdoors. Portside Distillery had two beers on hand for the event.  The "216" Dry Hopped Session Ale (left) and Maelstrom Scotch Ale (right). You couldn't go wrong with either one, but the Maelstrom rocked my world! It was incredibly sweet and went down easy. I must have more!

Our love of great ice cream sent us back to Mason's Creamery again! They truly have wonderful ice cream. Seek them out for sure. This time we went for the olive oil ice cream, which is vegan, and had these great little candied oranges.

We topped off this food truck feast with a strawberry lemonade cupcake from Sweet! Mobile Cupcakery, which tasted every bit as good as it looked! You can have your cupcake and eat it too at the Chomp and the Pour! I hope to see more people join in for the upcoming Chomp and Pour. I know I will be there!

Do you have a favorite Cleveland Food Truck? What is it?

The Very First Cleveland Flea

The Cleveland Flea is a cool event! I am totally trying out one of the makers classes next month. Lots of CLE creativity and love put into making cool works of art. I picked up an Ohio shaped Polka record for my rock'n'roll basement.

What makes it even cooler is the food trucks that roll out to feed the crowd. :]

I grabbed a Pulled Pork Sandwich from Pig Lickin Good Food Truck. It was covered in a sweet BBQ and had a bun that could hold up under all that meat! Great stuff! Check out owner Jim Kuhn on Facebook.

Then I picked up a Korean BBQ Pork Loin from Krav. They said this is their most popular item and I can see why! Big juicy chunks of delicious pork loin in a fresh and warm flatbread.  Follow them on Facebook and Twitter to get location info.

Great event! Can't wait for the next one!

CLEVELAND FLEA - SECOND SATURDAYS ON ST. CLAIR 10A-4P

MAY 11 / JUNE 8 / JULY 13 / AUGUST 10 / SEPTEMBER 14 / OCTOBER 12 / NOVEMBER 9 / DECEMBER 14

I Hate Tacos Said No Juan Eve

Living in North Olmsted, land of all things chain store, you don’t often get the pleasure of having food trucks come nearby. When I saw Fired Up Taco Truck tweet that they were in Brookpark I opted for a Taco Tuesday over my simple salami sandwich. Left to Right – Pulled Pork/Veggie/Chicken

Pulled Pork:Lime Cream, Slaw, Sweet Peppers/Onions, Jackcheddar, Fried Onions Juicy and meaty! Fuck getting double meat at Chipotle. This has all the meat you’ll need.

Veggie: Smoky Cinnamon Salsa, Balckbeans/Pineapple, Jackcheddar, Seasoned Fries Now this is a veggie taco that even anti-vegans could appreciate! It had a nice little kick to it as well.

Chicken: Chipotle Aioli, Slaw, Corn Salsa, Jackcheddar, Fried Onions If you’re a sauce lover you’ve got to try this for the Chipotle Aioli.

Keep an eye out for this bad ass food truck:Website  Facebook  Twitter