Things Going on in Cleveland this weekend

Be sure to check out "Essential CLE" — cleveland.com's new searchable guide to the best "Eat, " Drink" and "Play" options in Northeast Ohio. When it comes to eating, drinking and playing, not many Midwest towns can compare to Cleveland. The array of great restaurants, bars and cultural attractions in Northeast Ohio is dizzying, so dizzying that it pays to have a guide like this.

Think of it as your in-the-know online Cleveland concierge. We didn't want a run-of-the-mill entertainment calendar, or a collection of simple listings. We built "Essential CLE" as a guide capable of serving up smart, instant and trusted recommendations for the very best restaurants, bars and things to do in the region.

To do that, we enlisted the help of writers and critics at cleveland.com and our partners at The Plain Dealer, folks with with decades of experience covering restaurants, bars and culture in the CLE. They know the city, the region and its secrets. So, we built the database around their recommendations, with an eye on capturing "The Best of Cleveland."

We think the result is pretty cool — a robust collection of more than 1, 100 Restaurant, Bar and Things to Do entries, organized in 10 "neighborhoods" and searchable in a variety of other ways, too.