Published: Friday, September 02, 2011, 2:00 PM

Thomas Ondrey, The Plain DealerCheck out the rich flavors at La Boca’s Margarita pizza. Get it for much less at happy hour.

WE WANT YOUR REVIEW

Have you been to La Boca Barrio in Cleveland? Email us your review of the food, service and atmosphere. Include your full name and where you live. We’ll publish a sampling on Cleveland.com and in The Plain Dealer. Email food@plaind.com to sound off.

Food surveys now call us a nation of snackers — not a bad thing, depending on what we’re nibbling. In Spain, snacking is a fine art, with tapas or “small plates” that fit deliciously into the slower-paced culture.

So we downshifted and pulled up some chairs on the patio at La Boca Barrio, a new (and old) tapas place a few doors down from Minh Anh and Latitude 41 North on Cleveland’s West Side.

La Boca was previously short-lived as Roseangel, a fancy taco joint (and before that, an Argentine-styled La Boca, and before that, Snickers, and before that, Krazy Mac’s, and before that . . .).

Then Roseangel co-owner (and founder of the original La Boca) Rosita Kutkut went solo again and back to her more traditional Hispanic roots.

I’d like to say summer weather borrowed from the Iberian Peninsula played no part of this review, but it sure does make things easy. We arrived at the patio on a warm, dry early evening and seated ourselves in the slanting rays of the sun under handsome, billowing greenery. It was a night-shifting companion’s rare weeknight off, and a chance to go to town.

“How are my beautiful ladies doing?” said our server. Without her warmth and Spanish accent, it might have sounded hokey and overworked. But her voice had an intuitive ring to it, like when hospitality is really kindness in a professional disguise. It was a shock to hear it, frankly, with the businesslike manner of most dining these days.

We settled in to the menu and found intuitive talent there as well. Spain’s traditional hallmarks are the comforts of the Mediterranean palate and the richness of essential flavors, rather than sparkly add-ons. Garlic is there, but more often as a layered cloud than a strike of lightning.

The list of tapas was staggering, even the somewhat abbreviated list offered during the smartly priced happy hour. The high points started with “Little Oranges,” freshly fried rice balls with peas served on roasted eggplant sauce ($5.50). They were as golden outside and as they were luxuriously creamy inside. Bet you can’t eat just two.

A Margarita flatbread ($15) outdid most things called pizza. I looked at the thin little thing and worried. But one bite and the tomato-based combo showed a piquant lift from cheese, capers and whatever magic dust the kitchen scatters. It’s not about the dough, but it’s one of the best.

Garlic shrimp with sweet pepper relish ($7.50) slapped tired shrimp cocktail out of the box. The kitchen knows how to maintain a fresh texture in shrimp, and with a steeping in garlic and a flashy sweet-hot-sour relish, it was almost candy.

Bacalao (salt cod) croquettes with garlic aioli ($6.50) were, like the Little Oranges, expertly fried. But I would have liked more rustic textures in the filling, and more fish flavor. Pepper-and-basil-dressed pan-seared artichokes ($5) could have used a sign of caramelization. Similarly, the flavor of the Manchego cheese with sherry and fresh thyme ($4.75) had a paleness to it.

Along with the trio of tapenades ($6.50), which were refreshing and varied — pickled vegetable, olive, white bean with thyme — but individually short on complex flavor.

Sandwiches and salads are also on the menu. While our well-endowed mixed greens ($4.50) had housemade dressing, deep green lettuce and garden-fresh tomatoes, it was served in a little bowl that made it hard to maneuver anything.

A Saturday visit turned up a couple of surprises. Salsa dancing takes place later in the evening, and a full entree is sometimes offered. We snatched up the chance to try the paella ($17), a saffron-seasoned rice dish bejeweled with seafood, sausage and chicken. All pieces and parts checked in, but we had a hard time detecting the warm, glowing look and flavor of the golden saffron. As a savory, dense, earthy looking pilaf, though, it had everything else going for it, including a layer of shrimp and fresh mussels.

The house makes a special effort to search out good wines from Portugal, Spain and Argentina, and dessert is no small dish. A silky ginger creme brulee ($8) topped the choices.

La Boca Barrio is named after a city in Brazil known for its nightlife. We didn’t stay for the salsa but were glad that people do. This is a place that reaches for a vibrancy that it sometimes grabs and sometimes does not. But the comfort level of everything on our visits was gracious, warm and dependable.

 

TASTE BITES

La Boca Barrio

Where: 5800 Detroit Ave., Cleveland.

Contact: 216-961-5800; website under construction.

Hours: 5-11 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Bar open until 1 p.m. through Friday, and until 2:30 a.m. Saturday for salsa dancing.

Prices: Tapas, $4.75-$9.50; flat breads, $14-$15; sandwiches, $10-$13; desserts, $8.

Reservations: Taken.

Credit cards: Most major cards accepted.

Cuisine: Spanish tapas.

Kid-friendliness: No kids menu but flatbread pizzas and sandwiches. High chairs and booster seats.

Bar service: Full.

Accessibility: Through back patio or, with an advance call, on ramp at front door. Restroom wheelchair accessible.

Grade: * *

Ratings: One star means fair; 2 stars, good; 3 stars, very good; 4 stars, ex ceptional. Zero stars: not recom mended.) Plain Dealer reviewers make at least two anonymous visits to each restaurant and do not accept compli mentary meals. Read past reviews at cleveland.com/dining.

[Cleveland.com Article] | [PDF]

Published: Saturday, July 23, 2011, 11:08 AM     Updated: Saturday, July 23, 2011, 9:52 PM

By Grant Segall

Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer

Raymond Bobgan has helped to revive a traditional neighborhood with very untraditional plays.

The award-winning Bobgan, 44, leads Cleveland Public Theatre. He shared last year’s Cleveland Arts Prize not just for directing admired shows but restoring landmark buildings and helping to turn around Detroit-Shoreway.

He also helps urban youths and homeless people turn around their lives.

Tell us about your background.

I’m from Santa Barbara. My dad’s Armenian. My mom’s Swedish. She directed plays in our church. I created my first play in sixth grade.

How’d you end up in Cleveland?

Came to Akron in 1991 to do what I thought was a one- or two-year director’s apprenticeship. I drove by the beautiful Carnegie library on Fulton. I went to Pilgrim Church in Tremont and saw “Marat/Sade.” I couldn’t believe someone was doing “Marat/Sade” in Cleveland.

So have you learned to cope with Cleveland weather?

I love the snow. When I grew up, I’d see snow in picture books. To me, it’s magical.

You miss anything about California?

I miss the ocean, and I miss the mountains. But I feel so much more at home in Cleveland. Cleveland’s an awesome community.

Californians have a vibe of falseness. There’s such an emphasis on material and physical things. Not a real sense of community.

In Cleveland, people’s cousins live in town. I like being in a community where people have to be accountable because somebody knows somebody who knows their brother.

How else is the North Coast different from the West Coast?

Cleveland’s a great place for traveling to other cities. It’s central. You can get to New York in a seven-, eight-hour drive, depending how fast. You can get to Chicago or Toronto.

Low cost of living, too. We could afford a house. We were able to bring artists here, and they could live with us. We moved again, right by Don’s on Lake.

It’s incredible to have a kid in Cleveland. We’re members of the Natural History Museum, the Science Center and the Zoo. Edgewater’s across the street. I can go on a bike ride there with my son, Raziel, who’s 10.

I went to the downtown library a lot with my son in the winter. I’m very fond of the sculpture garden there, with the little guys.

I also love the guy I call the basketball player on Mall A.

You mean the war memorial?

Is that a war memorial? I think he looks like a basketball player going for the rebound.

So what brought your wife, Holly Holsinger, to town?

We were just friends at UC Irvine. Then she came here and played romantic leads with me at CPT.

Favorite local band?

I’m a big fan of Lost State of Franklin, which is this hybrid country rock band.

Local heroes?

Matt Zone, my councilman, is going to kill me, but Joe Cimperman is one of my heroes. He’s done so much for the arts. He’s one of those pols who does it for the right reason. For the partner registry, he had to go to bat time and time again and find a way to reach. Rather than create divisions, he furthered discussions.

Is Cleveland’s theater cooler than California’s?

The theater in Santa Barbara was incredibly conservative. The CPT style of theater is really wide. Most of the work I do personally, it’s devised theater. That’s like being in a band that doesn’t do covers. We collaborate. We’re working it out together.

Do Clevelanders go for it?

I love Cleveland audiences. The broader culture has no idea what’s going on at CPT and no idea of our national reputation. But audiences who come here get it.

Artists from other communities are blown away by the support here. I had two friends come from New York and Philadelphia. As usual, they were going on and on about why I should be making art in those cities. I asked, “In either of those cities, is there a county fund that gives artists $20,000 fellowships?”

Do people expect cutting-edge work on the supposedly humdrum West Side?

I continue not to understand the East Side-West Side thing. It’s one city.

Tell us about your programs with homeless people and urban youths.

Theater gives them a space. They can be themselves and feel safe here and have their stories championed.

Tell us a success story.

Years ago, a 16-, 17-year-old disappeared and showed up halfway through the third or fourth day. He looks horrible. Police had arrested him on a warrant for his dad, an addict, who had the same name. The next day, they realize the mistake. He goes home. His wallet and clothes are all gone. He’d been robbed by his own father.

I got an email from him the other day. “I’m 32 years old, I’m married and have a job and I’m doing good, all because of CPT.”

Tell us about CPT’s digs.

The Gordon Square Theater’s 100 years old. We also own the old West Side Irish American Club building and the 1907 home of the first Romanian orthodox church in the U.S.

Where do you go for food?

I never have to leave my neighborhood. I’ve got XYZ now and Latitude. I like the pizza at Luxe. They have a European-style pizza, with less sauce.

I get the falafel sandwich at Nate’s and the jambalaya at The Souper Market on West 25th. At the Liquid Planet on Clifton: a blues factor smoothie.

One of my favorite restaurants is Jaipur Junction out in North Royalton. It’s the best Indian food in Cleveland.

Where do you shop?

There’s amazing antique stores on the West Side: Sweet Lorain and the others. Flower Child is a cool antique store on Clifton.

Tell us more about Gordon Square’s boom.

Forty-seven new businesses in the district since 2006. The data proves again and again: The arts make a huge difference to the economy. Young, creative professionals are buying homes in Battery Park and other parts of the neighborhood because they want to be connected to the arts.

[Original Article on Cleveland.com] [PDF]

[Original Article]

For more information regarding this weekend’s events please visit : discover.gordonsquare.org

The Happy Dog hosts Gordon Square Goes to the Art Museum!

This event was inspired by the fun trip to watch Third Friday’s at the Cleveland Orchestra.  Where will Gordon Square go next? Stay tuned, or leave your suggestions in this posts comments!  Enjoy the photos from the event!

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Then there’s the bookseller I met one afternoon in a run-down section of the West Side that has recently transformed itself into the hopping Gordon Square Arts District. The shop (which has since closed) had an intriguing name—84 Charing Cross Bookstore. Inside, I discovered a wall of volumes devoted to Cleveland history: books about the Connecticut surveyor Moses Cleaveland who founded the city in 1796; the 19th-century colony of Shakers who imbued the region with its value of industriousness; and “Millionaire’s Row,” a stretch of 40 mansions along Euclid Avenue that once housed some of America’s richest industrialists, including John D. Rockefeller.

10:09 am, March 24, 2011
The already-bustling Gordon Square Arts District is getting a little busier with the addition of three new retail businesses.

Wednesday marked the official opening of Sweet Moses, a soda fountain and treat shop at 6800 Detroit Avenue, one block west of the Gordon Square Arcade.

The owner is Jeff Moreau, who’s offering a turn-of-the-century soda shop experience. Sweet Moses serves homemade ice cream dishes and handmade confections. Coming soon will be peanut butter sandwiches that can be topped with options including bacon, marshmallow cream, Nutella, sliced bananas and potato chips.

In addition, two women’s boutiques soon will open at the West 65th Street and Detroit Avenue intersection.

One of the businesses, Turnstyle, will sell a mix of vintage and contemporary items. The other business comes from “Project Runway” fashion designer Valerie Mayen, who is creating a “pop-up” store of her fashions next to the Capitol Theatre on West 65th Street.

[Original Crain's Cleveland Business Article][PDF]

Published: Thursday, March 17, 2011, 11:25 AM     Updated: Thursday, March 17, 2011, 11:26 AM

By Tony Brown, The Plain Dealer

View full sizeGus Chan l The Plain DealerRobert “J.R.” Easterly says a state-supported program at Cleveland Public Theatre has played a big role in helping him give up a life of drugs and crime.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The street was his home. Crack cocaine made do for an occupation. Six prison stretches and a dishonorable discharge from the Army defined his career.

That was all before Robert “J.R.” Easterly got involved in 2006 in the Y-Haven Project, an annual program at Cleveland Public Theatre.

Now Easterly, 53, has a home and works as a theater technician. He’s got his sobriety and a measure of dignity, too.

But the future of the Y-Haven Project — which in the 12 years of its existence has helped more than 200 men in similar straits — is uncertain in the wake of Gov. John Kasich’s proposed 19.5 percent cut in the budget of the Ohio Arts Council.

Kasich’s proposal could create a “perfect storm” for Ohio cultural organizations that depend on both state and federal funding. The latest proposed OAC cuts were announced Tuesday as some in Congress want to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts.

View full sizePDCleveland Public Theatre.

In the case of the Y-Haven Project, the state arts council contributed $9,100 to the inner-city program’s $54,000 budget for the 2010 fiscal year, and the NEA another $10,000. Together, state and federal money comprised more than 35 percent of the project’s budget last year.

Kasich’s proposed OAC reduction comes as the beleaguered state agency is still reeling from a 47 percent decrease in fiscal years 2010 and 2011.

Under Kasich’s proposal, the OAC budget would fall to $10.6 million for fiscal years 2012 and 2013, down from a high of more than $32 million in the 2000-01 biennium.

Ohio Arts Council grants to cultural organizations in Cuyahoga County dropped from $3.8 million in 2000 to $1.3 million in the current fiscal year. The governor’s proposed cuts could reduce state arts funding in the county in fiscal 2012 to the $1 million mark.

The OAC has been a staunch supporter of the Y-Haven Project, a partnership between Cleveland Public Theatre and a program run by the YMCA of Greater Cleveland that houses up to 133 homeless men recovering from substance abuse.

In August, CPT selected 20 of the men at Y-Haven to work with nine theater professionals for three months in developing a play about themselves.

Last year’s “Taking Care of Business” told the story of Eddie, who surrenders to police in a fencing operation investigation, an act symbolizing the men’s willingness to admit failure in order to get help.

The show played for one weekend at CPT and toured area universities, a juvenile-detention center and a treatment facility.

“It’s an amazing project for the men, and it’s just an amazing piece of theater,” CPT executive artistic director Raymond Bobgan said. “The Ohio Arts Council money is important in itself, and it is a seal of approval that helps us raise other money.”

As for Easterly, the Y-Haven Project awakened an inner thespian.

After appearing in the show twice and stage-managing another two years, Easterly became a backstage regular at CPT, worked with Boston-based lighting designer Trad A Burns on an installation at Cedar Point, and can be found behind the scenes at Cleveland’s annual Ingenuityfest.

“I’ve been acting all my life, doing things I shouldn’t have been doing,” Easterly said this week at CPT. “Now I can get paid to do it, and I can pay something back to this theater that took a big chance on me.”

To reach Tony Brown: tbrown@plaind.com, 216-999-4181

[Original Cleveland.com Article] [PDF]