event recap: #GlimpsesofAsia Tweetup at Cleveland Museum of Art

A few weeks back, The Cleveland Museum of Art tweeted to their followers, asking why they would want to attend a tweetup featuring Asian artwork and cuisine. I tweeted something about trying not to get noodles all over the beautiful artwork that filled their halls. Surprisingly, even with my panache for messy eating, my tweet made their cut and I was selected to attend @ClevelandArt’s first tweetup: #GlimpsesofAsia featuring treats from Jonathon Sawyer’s new restaurant Noodlecat:

Since I always over estimate the drive from the East side to University Circle, I arrived at the museum a bit early, running into @EatDrinkClev and @MaryLeeS. After traversing some very intimidating hallways, we found ourselves checked in and tweeting it up:

I took a moment to look around the wing of the building that reopened in 2008 after extensive renovations, finding a timeline showing how the renovations started and how they continue into the future.

After some initial socializing, our guide kindly lead us to The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall to see The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art exhibition, which “highlighted Korean and Japanese artistic efforts to fuse the genres of art and poetry in works as diverse as landscape painting, figure painting, and calligraphy.”

The museum guide asked us not to take pictures of the artwork as we made our way around the tour, but encouraged us to tweet away. We saw some beautiful pieces – some of which you can see here at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s website. One fun fact we learned was as we looked at a set of pottery used to serve chrysanthemum tea:

You know what I’ll be chugging that day. Upon our arrival back to the gathering space, we were ready to dive into some good eats provided by Noodlecat:

I could have used this handy diagram to know what to do with the components provided to us:

(picture c/o noodlecat’s Facebook page)

…but luckily @KaseyCrabree and I had @JoeG2001 and @jseabury to explain the proper way to consume our noodles. Thanks again guys!

Chef Brian Reilly kindly provided a gluten free alternative for those of us that needed it. Instead of the chilled mori soba noodles that the masses received, I received a box of rice noodles and the base both spiked with some pepper vinegar:

I would do an injustice in even pretending to properly describe the ingredients that went into the broth and garnishes. Just know I ate the entire thing and I promised Chef Reilly that I’d be heading downtown to East 4th for more very soon. Post noshing, Chef Reilly and Chef Sawyer both took moments with me to chat about how they ensure everyone’s experience at the restaurant is as enjoyable as possible, even if that means taking a moment to sub out some ingredients.

Unfortunately, I had to check out of the tweetup early and missed the Indian Kalighat paintings. I encourage you to head over to EatDrinkCleveland to get a glimpse on what she enjoyed in that section.

LONG STORY SHORT: What an unique experience: to be able to learn so much about a culture while enjoying some authentic cuisine in an inspiring environment while meeting some new friends. I had a great time and plan to visit the museum again very soon. Thank you again to The Cleveland Museum of Art for their hospitality and to Noodlecat for the tasty treats!

Make sure to follow them both on Twitter at @ClevelandArt and @Noodlecat – social media FTW!