West Side Market : Sampling the Food

As I mentioned back on Monday, a couple of weekends ago my wife and I had a chance to visit the historic West Side Market in Cleveland, Ohio. It has been running for over 110 years and is home to over 70 family owned businesses and more than 250 employees. If you are the sort of person who likes to keep their money local and avoid the big chain retailers, this is definitely the place for you!

We decided to go a little later in the morning so we could pick something up for lunch and enjoy it in the downtown area. As I mentioned in my previous post, it was quite hot in Cleveland during the weekend we visited and I'm sure the other people in the market thought there was something wrong with me given my constant sweating. I was practically dripping by the time we finished up in the market.

@mrsbozz and I decided to grab a stromboli to share for lunch. We ended up picking a chicken parmesan stromboli and the vendor was happy to heat it up for us. We waited around for about ten minutes while they did that.

Meanwhile, my niece and brother in law decided to go back to one of the other stands and get some Mexican food. We had stopped at this booth earlier in our exploration of the market when we picked up some chips and pico de gallo that they had for sale. I didn't get a photo of it, but believe me when I say they honestly had about ten or fifteen different flavors of pico de gallo. It was almost an impossible task to decide which one to choose.

Just in case you think it was all savory food they had at the market, they also had several vendors with a tempting selection of sweet treats. If you know me, you know I have a massive sweet tooth, so it was a true lesson in will power for me to walk past most of these vendors and not buy anything. In fact, it was @mrsbozz who suggested we pick up a couple brownies from one of the first booths we passed on our initial circuit of the building.

As I pointed out in the other post, @mrsbozz and I both agreed if we had more time, money, and we weren't heading to softball games for the rest of the day we likely could have spent a lot of money here. Just look at the different variety of bratwurst in the photo above. I could have filled an entire cooler with just sausages!

As we were heading back to that previously mentioned booth to get our brownies, the power cut off to the entire building. Given the age, I wasn't too surprised. When you consider just how many coolers, ovens, and other equipment is running in such a confined space, you have to imagine it is a load on the electrical system.

Luckily, I had cash on me which isn't usually the case, so I was able to pay for our brownies and be on our way.

As we were walking across the street to find a place to eat, I noticed that the traffic lights were out as well. It turns out the whole block was blacked out. We noticed this apartment building across the street with a nice public sitting area complete with picnic tables, so we sat down to enjoy our food.

As I said before, @mrsbozz and I got a garlic parmesan stromboli to share complete with a little cup of marinara sauce. It was fantastic. I honestly don't have much to say beyond that. The flavors were absolutely amazing. We also opened up our pico de gallo to try a bit of that and I know I sound like a broken record, but it was amazing as well. The vegetables were so fresh and the flavors so bright.

Actually, it was so good we ate all of the pico before we even got home. The good thing is, we realized we could pretty easily duplicate it ourselves at home and @mrsbozz has been snacking on our batch for the past week.

Of course I had to take a shot of the aforementioned brownies though we saved those for later, we didn't bust into them while we were sitting at the table. About halfway through our meal, we suddenly heard a massive shout of excitement come from across the road at the market and we realized the power must have come back on.

While most of us got the stromboli, I did mention that my niece and brother in law got some stuff from one of the other vendors. They tried Tamale and Empinada for the first time and they were quite impressed with them. I didn't try any myself, but I trust their judgement. Plus, it was from the same vendor the pico came from, so I am sure it was fantastic!

If I lived in the building across the street, I could easily see myself walking over to the market for all of my culinary needs.

If you ever get the chance to visit Cleveland, make sure you stop at the West Side Market. It's a foodies dream!