Toledo, Ohio and Tony Packo's Cafe

So last last weekend, I was sent to Toledo, Ohio for some business fun. It was one of the greatest experiences I ever had. Tell you on Thursday night that something might be happening, kept in the dark for hours, tell you that you got to go away for business on Friday and for the entire weekend. Wait some more in the dark and not sure what is going on, tell you to hope on the plane as early as possible, not sure where the office is, where to go, how long to stay, but just go. So went I did, and cancelled my plans for the whole weekend I did. Gee, my employer is so kind and so nice. Business travel is a pain for some people, but I don't really mind it really, as long it was not last minute notice, but even that is fine, but as long as it is not over the weekend, since people have lives that just don't evolve around work, and work that is not that important to me anyway. Nonetheless, I think I made the best out of my time in Toledo as I possibly can. It was actually a smaller town than I thought and a much deader town too. I thought downtown for a mid sized town USA should still be somewhat happening, but apparently that was not the case. There were just rows of empty shops and office buildings that lies empty (the tallest building in Toledo too). Not a lot of bars and restaurants. The first day I was there, which was a Friday, was Cinco de Mayo, and there was a tent set up at downtown Toledo where a party is happening. Unfortunately, I cannot go since I was stuck in a room doing work. Also, my buddy, another unfortunate soul from the office who also came on this pleasant trip, and I both had about 2 hours of sleep the night before, and just were too tired to go.

So what is there in Toledo? Nothing really. There is a farm league baseball team, the Toledo Mud Hens, which I think won the minor league champion last year, and is the farm team of the Detroit Tigers. Two games were played during the time we were down there, but we couldn't go to either, would have been nice though. Firework display happened after the end of the game on Saturday night, which was nice to look at out of the window in the office that I was in.

There is a restaurant called Tony Packo's Cafe in Toledo, which is apparently pretty famous. It suppose to has one of the best hot dogs in the US, and was linked to the M*A*S*H character Max Klinger, who played a cross-dressing medical corpsman from Toledo. Max Klinger said in one of the episodes that Packo's Hungarian hotdog is the greatest he ever had or something like that. Apparently, Packo's and its hotdog was then subsequently mentioned in the show several other times as well. By the way, someone told me all these things about Packo's, it is not like I went and did research about the city and where to hang out while I was there. I did do some research for like 20 minutes, but couldn't find anything, and I gave up. So I went to Packo's, twice actually, and got some hotdogs and took some pictures. It was not bad, a lot of meat, and a special Packo's sauce which taste to me like ground pork sauce with chili, or something like that. It was pretty decent as far as hotdog goes, but kind of fattening though. I mean, just check out the pictures. Also, while I was there, I went to several of their local restaurants that people recommended, and I have to say, there is a reason why Toledo is not exactly on the gourmet map in the US. Lot of fried food, and my buddy, who is vegetarian, had a lot of trouble finding things to eat. I mean, they do have fried pickles, fried jalapenos and a bunch of other fried veggies, which actually taste pretty decent though. I also tried the apple dumpling with vanilla ice cream, ummm, not bad, I always like dessert. While I am there, I was trying to eat what the locals eat, but haha, I don't think it was exactly healthy. I think I gained about 5 lbs in the span of those 4 days. I am still trying to lose those weights today.

I guess beside Packo's, nothing else too exciting, but I did bought some souvenirs from the farm team, which has red and bright yellow as team color, and I happen to like those colors, very catchy. It's an experience, but hopefully something I won’t repeat again.