Ohio - Cincinnati
No road is long with good company.
Except maybe the eight-and-a-half hour road trip from Maryland to Ohio - that road is long.
My mom and I made our more-than-annual trip to Cincinnati on Saturday, February 19. The same trip that we’ve made at least once a year since I was born - although during my four years as a student at the University of Dayton, we were driving to and from about four times a year. While we always visit family, this time we decided to be tourists in our own city for the week and explore all that Cincinnati has to offer.
The first few days of our trip were filled with catching up with family, celebrating a two-year-old’s birthday with an all-day party, going shopping at Kenwood Towne Centre and indulging in homemade appetizers, lunches, dinners and desserts.
Tuesday began our sight-seeing adventure, driving a rainy 30 minutes into downtown Cincinnati to check out Findlay Market - filled with stalls of fresh produce, meats, desserts and ready-made meals, we grabbed a hot green tea at the Urbana Cafe stall to support the vendor whose profits benefit local animal shelters.
We then strolled around the shops just outside of the market, where we bought a tea ball infuser from Churchill’s Fine Teas and a decorative watering can from the home decor shop called Lucca.
A short seven-minute drive later past beautiful historic buildings and newly painted murals and we were in the Over-The-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati. We walked up and down the Main Street - Vine Street - of OTR and quickly discovered that little to no restaurants were open for lunch on a Tuesday, so we ended up eating at Taste of Belgium: the first dining option we saw after we had initially parked, that we had had no interest in going to.
Our initial impression was proven wrong; we ordered the Harvest Salad and the Southwestern Stack which consisted of turkey, pepper jack cheese spring mix and chipotle mayo on a freshly made waffle, and was one of the most deliciously deceiving meals we’d had in a long time.
We continued on our downtown day by doing some shopping at the boutiques on Vine Street - Simply Zero, The Native One - and passed Imagination Alley, a ‘pocket park’ pathway between two buildings that is decorated with eclectic community-engagement mosaics, before we headed back to relax.
For dinner that evening, we went to Oakley Kitchen, a food hall where we ordered meals from two different vendors: Khana Gourmet Indian - chicken and beef sampler platters with rice - and Olive Tree Middle Eastern - falafel and chicken gyros, which were tasty although they appeared to be constructed as paninis rather than a traditional gyro.
The following day, we had lunch at Belterra Park and played a slot machine two times - which is evidentially enough times to win a profit of $1.11.
On Thursday, we walked around Hyde Park Square - one of the city’s oldest shopping areas - where we went in and out of boutiques and sat in Graeters Ice Cream shop for my favorite: Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip. We then drove through Cincinnati’s Mount Lookout neighborhood and to Alms Park, overlooking the city and its Ohio River. For dinner, we went to North High Brewing, located right in Hyde Park, and split the charcuterie board appetizer along with two pizzas: buffalo chicken and a balsamic white cheese.
Our final full day in Ohio began at the Cincinnati Riverfront, where we parked in the Red’s Stadium garage located in the neighborhood called The Banks, which is filled with sports bars and restaurants; situated right off the water. We went to Yard House for lunch and split a tasty appetizer of poke nachos and shrimp tacos - surprisingly good for seafood in Ohio eaten by East-Coasters.
After lunch we drove through Smale Riverfront Park and onto the historic Mount Adams neighborhood, past the Cincinnati Art Museum and Krohn Conservatory, and then to Eden Park’s overlook, featuring views of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky, separated by the Ohio River.
On Saturday morning, we picked up Marcella’s homemade gourmet donuts and headed on the (long) road toward Maryland - at least we had good company.