Keep Smiling: Celebrating Our Anniversary (Part 2)

One of the great things about Erie is that it's close to a lot of "big" cities. Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland are all within a couple hours away. We had been talking about doing a weekend getaway for a while, and since we had enough hotel points for a free night, we decided to go to Cleveland to extend our anniversary celebration. Plus, Dan had been wanting to take me to Michael Symon's restaurant, Lola Bistro. Our good friends Sarah and Drew were kind enough to watch Sydney while we were gone.

It never fails, every time we've gone to Cleveland in the winter, we've hit snow (even if there isn't any snow in the forecast).

In truth, we planned our entire weekend around the food we would consume...

When we first arrived, we ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (courtesy of a Christmas gift card) and then enjoyed walking around some of the shops of Legacy Village. Crate and Barrel is one of my all-time favorite stores...mostly to look and dream... rarely to shop.

After a fun afternoon, we headed downtown for our 9 pm dinner reservation at Lola Bistro. Dan and I love watching the Food Network and especially love "Iron Chef." Michael Symon is one of our favorites, and when Dan heard that one of his restaurants was close by, he knew we had to visit while we still lived in Erie. The atmosphere was very cool, and the food was delicious.

East 4th Street, Downtown Cleveland

Michael Symon loves pork, hence the pigs in the entrance.

Super fancy - the drink menu was delivered to our table on an iPad.

So many choices

Dan's meal. I ordered Wild Boar Ragu (the picture didn't come out that well) Both dishes were amazing!

When they brought the check, they also brought two chocolate-chip cookies. Very nice touch.

The next morning, we stopped at Bruegger's for breakfast. Since Erie doesn't have Bruegger's, I was super excited to go.

Before heading to meet some friends for lunch (see, food again), we drove to Crocker Park, another nice shopping center in the Cleveland area.

The book/gift section in Urban Outfitters is always good for a laugh.

Here are some of our favorite finds:

Our final stop of the weekend was Fat Head's Brewery to meet our friend Shaun and his fiance for lunch. Shaun is a brewer there, so not only did we enjoy a delicious lunch with the company of friends, but we also got a tour of the facility and learned about the brewing process.