Pho Sho!

Friday lunch was a wonderful surprise.  East 4th Street has come into its own at the hip restaurant row in Cleveland.  To me, the movement started when Iron Chef Michael Symon open his restaurant Lola on East 4th.  As I recall, Pickwick and Frolic opened first.  It has a restaurant, martini bar, and Hilarities comedy club.  I remember in law school when I would walk by, East 4th was a rundown alley with this new place.  There are tons of places now: Lola, Flannerys, Wonder Bar, Corner Alley, Chocolate Bar, The House of Blues, the list goes on.  If you are visiting Cleveland, you MUST go to East 4th Street.  You will not believe the amount of fantastic eateries in a small proximity.

Today, my intern Jack and I set out for lunch with no place in mind.  We had no destination set.  Our feet took us to East 4th Street, which is strange since it is not close to the office.  There were hundreds of people eating outside in the patio areas of each restaurant.  Nothing popped out at me for lunch, until I was right up on the sign, Saigon Vietnamese Restaurant & Bar.  Hmm...  The memories came flashing back.


2061 East 4th Street, Cleveland, OH - www.saigoncleveland.com
One of my very dear friends from my grueling, tortuous days at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law is Lynda.  She opened my eyes to her Vietnamese culture by taking me to the Asian district in Cleveland, East 40th and St. Clair area.  We shopped and ate strange, but oddly yummy fare.  After graduation, Lynda took me to the Vietnamese district in the Washington D.C. area.  There I had my first Pho.  It was a large bowl of beef, rice noodles, green onions, bean sprouts, and broth with tasty flavors.  She taught me you eat it with the spoon in the left hand, chopsticks in the other.  Pho is a great cheap eat.

Remembering my last bowl of Pho with Lynda, I decided to take Jack there.  Saigon is a fancy, up-scale place for Pho.  The interior is modern and in line with the surrounding restaurants.  It was packed, but we were seated immediately.  As we passed a booth to our right, Jack said hello to Mark Shapiro, the General Manager for the red-hot Cleveland Indians.  Jack is like that, he engages everyone in conversation.  It's a quality I admire.  Seeing someone of high importance at the restaurant gave me an immediate boost of confidence that our food would be good.  Jack had never had Pho or any Vietnamese food for that matter.  Boy was he in for it.  We both ordered the P3, the Beef and Beef Meatball Noodle Soup and I ordered hot tea.  The tea was piping hot and flavorful.  We were served rather quickly with a very large bowl and a side of bean sprouts, jalapeno slices, and two sauces.  I grabbed my spoon and chopsticks and dove right in.  Hours later, as I write this, I am thinking about my first slurp.  The Pho was warm, comforting, and delicious.  The broth was aromatic and infused with many herbs and spices.  After eating 3/4 of the bowl, I squeezed a little lime that came as a condiment.  That little bit of acidity changed the entire composition of the broth.  The meat was tender and seasoned well.  I did not like the meatballs.  But, that is my fault.  I did not like the meatballs when I had it in D.C., but I forgot how much I disliked the dense texture and ordered it again.  Jack liked the meatballs so to each his own.

I ate that ENTIRE bowl.  I loved it.  I wish I could go back right now for another one.  Alas, Dudo is asleep so I'm not going anywhere.  Funny thing, as we exited Saigon, the street was a ghost town.  It had rained heavily in the short time we were eating.  Ah that Cleveland weather.  If you are in the mood for Pho or would like to try it for the first time, I highly suggest Saigon.  It's fresh, delicious, and you can make it as hot or mild as you like.  I know I will be there again...very soon.

Three Kolachkis before Easter

I apologize for this tardy post.  I was engaged in trial last week.  Now with my head somewhat clear, I can move on to very important matters...kolachkis!

(The box was full of kolachkis or "dainties" as Michael's Bakery called them at the Westside Market.)

I only had four days before Easter to find the best kolachkis in Cleveland.  Unfortunately, I did not find them.  However, I do have a clear favorite of the ones I tried.

On Wednesday before Easter, I went to the Westside Market before work.  The Westside Market is another whole post in and of itself which I will tackle at another time.  For those of you who are not aware, the Westside Market is one of the oldest free standing markets in the U.S.  You can go there Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday to get everything from produce, meats, cheese, candy, Steve's Gyros (which has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives so the wait time is ridiculous), crepes, and coffee.  I like to head there before work on Wednesdays and pick up veggies and my favorite bread.  But, more on that later.

I went to the Market for two Internet recommended kolachkis, Vera's Bakery and Michael's Bakery.  I found Vera's quickly because it is in the center.  They only had about two dozen available.  I picked up a dozen.  The majority was nut and two pineapple, not sprinkled with powder sugar.  Nut is my favorite, followed by cheese.  I then searched for Michael's Bakery.  I was about to give up and get a cup of coffee at City Roast Coffee when I realized that the stand was across from the coffee stand.  Duh.  Anyway, they had an entire box.  They had some huge looking ones that they called kolachkis.  I don't like big kolachkis; it's mostly dough.  The box they had were called 'dainties' but they looked exactly like the ones I had at my Grandma's house for Easter.  I also had to wait 10 minutes in line for my turn.  If you hear other Westside Market workers ordering their morning pastries from there, you assume that it's better than the average.  I was excited so I ordered two dozen in a variety of raspberry, apricot, nut, and cheese.

I brought them into work and dove right in.  They were decent, but not memorable.  In the morning I preferred Michael's.  By the afternoon, I liked Vera's better.  Both had dough that was light and tasty, but not overpowering.  The downfalls was the fillings.  They were not as flavorful as I hoped.  Vera's nut and two pineapple did not have robust fillings.  They were good, but not what I was looking for.  Michael's raspberry kolachki was good, but the rest had somewhat bland fillings compared to the kolachkis in my dreams.  Do not fear, I did not let those kolachkis go to waste though.  I shared about four out of three dozen and the rest disappeared as I prepared for trial.

Now I have a very good friend...I will call...Officer Whitehair.  We go to lunch at some of Cleveland's ethnic or out-of-the-way eateries.  Because he read my blog, he brought me a huge container of assorted kolachkis from K&K Meat Market in Warren Village Shopping Center in the Westpark area of Cleveland.  I like going to K&K for meat and their chocolate chip cookies are good when I had pregnancy cravings.  Their pre-made food of stuffed cabbage, fried chicken, and kielbasi and sauerkraut are awesome.  It's very good food.  K&K is a family owned shop for many, many years.  Love it.  Anyway, these kolachkis were the best out of the three.  The dough was light and moist.  The former cookies lacked moisture.  The kolachkis were sprinkled with power sugar too.  Most importantly all the fillings were yummy.  I would definitely eat these again.  After eating half the container without sharing one, I realized that my perfect kolachki had more of a cream cheese taste to the dough.  The dough is made of cream cheese after all.  But these were very good.

Now that Easter is over, I will put my kolachki search on the back burner.  I plan to hunt for more in the coming months, but right now, my waistline is tattling to the world of my weak will power.

Please remember that I am searching for a kolachki that I remember from my childhood.  The above mentioned kolachkis were delicious in their own right.  If you like kolachkis, I implore you to seek these and others in Cleveland to search for your favorite.  Ethnic food is what kept this place going for decades and will continue to do so for decades to come.