After a busy morning spent filling in for a bike messenger whose band was playing SXSW, my replacement radioed me that he had just hit downtown. I met up with said replacement, handed off my radio and paperwork and some packages picked from out east, and headed back over the Detroit-Superior Bridge. As I was fighting the wind, I realized -- it's Wednesday! It's market day!

The West Side Market is about three blocks from my house in Ohio City. I headed south on West 25th, locked my bike to a tree, and anticipated falafel. There's a good amount of falafel to be consumed in Cleveland, but you get any falafel aficionado around, and he'll tell you Maha's in the market has the best by far. "Oh, the place in the back? By the fish stand? Ohhhhh..."

So jeans cuffed, hair unkempt, I joined the line at the counter, asked for one regular with hot sauce. "Okay, make the next three with hot sauce," my man tells the girl assembling the treats. Treats they are, loaded with lettuce, tomato, tzatziki, those crispy fried falafel, and the not-so-secret ingredient -- hot sauce. He handed me the warm, foil-wrapped pita and I headed to the coolest of all spots in town, the market balcony. I devoured my falafel, watched the people below, then went home to shower.