Tremont Revisited

Tremont is a cool place and always an adventure for us. Sometimes you feel like you’ve stepped into New York City. It’s hard for me to believe I have this little piece of NYC in my backyard. We love being able to walk the city streets and hang out with a diverse and friendly crowd. If only we had more cabs like NYC because parking, as always, is not easy. It helps to have a small car and be a supremely skilled parallel parker. (I have an SUV and successfully parallel parked it once.) Oh, and wear comfortable shoes – because you will do quite a bit of walking to hit all the cool spots - twice! (I wore four-inch stilettos.) Finally, don’t worry if you take the wrong side street (even though you have a map). We seem to take a different one every trek down but always end up in the vicinity of one gallery or another. It's all good.

This trek, we decided to brave a new gallery. Now let me explain. We opted to do this once before and it was a terrible, terrible idea. I will not mention the gallery by name nor give it any credit whatsoever. All I will say is what you already know, art is subjective. What one person considers “art” the other might consider “junk” (and that’s being kind on my part since this particular place creeped me out.) We did however, put that dreadful experience behind us and braved a new venue! It was a terrible, terrible idea. I will say that one of the upstairs paintings was extremely thought provoking and we commented on it in depth however, the “downstairs/basement” art was not my idea of art at all. Most of it was quite eerie or ghastly. I just don’t believe that art should scare me and one particular room of this musty “basement” did just that. It was beyond time to go.

Off to the main event…

Steve Torkar is an artist who does abstract cat faces on canvas. My friend digs his work big time so imagine my surprise when I found out he was displaying his artwork at our favorite Tremont gallery, Ginkgo’s! I e-mailed my friend about it and the rest just fell into place. We inquired if Mr. Torkar would be joining the event as my friend bought one of his paintings on the spot and was hoping to meet him. Apparently he is a landscaper by day, (ah yes, the real job!) and then was asked to help out some neighbors and was running late. They said he would stop by later but we had reservations and never did get to meet him. Maybe next time.

It was a hot night, literally, and the upstairs of the galleries were sweltering. We were grateful for the cooling nightfall until Parallax Restaurant tried to seat us outside – it was going down to 50 degrees and the winds were picking up! We opted for a booth in the bar area and that was just fine – a little loud from a group of guys singing New York, New York (off key) but everyone sort of joined in (off key) and made the best of it. After our harrowing ordeal at the unnamed gallery, they could not have brought the wine fast enough! Following up with bread and dipping oil was (nearly) equally pleasing. (We asked for seconds!)

Parallax is definitely a cool place especially if you like sushi…I don’t. I checked the menu out ahead of time and found 3 items I might enjoy. I opted for the grilled chicken and fully expected it to be subpar. After all, this is a sushi joint, right? Right …and wrong. The chicken melted in my mouth. It was the best-grilled chicken I have ever had. Thinking about it now makes my mouth water (like Pavlov’s dog!) Yes, it was THAT good.

By the time we walked back to the car, it was formidably chilly, my feet ached (see paragraph one, line six), and I was exhausted. We had the A/C blasting on the way down but now had to crank up the heat in order to regain any sensation in our fingers and toes! If nothing else, you’ve got to appreciate Ohio’s weird weather! If nothing else, you’ve got to appreciate Tremont and the diversity and artistical freedom it encompasses.