At the ripe age of 29, I can proudly say that meat has only positively affected my aging. And now there’s even a study supporting my mostly-biased claim. The study comes from Japan, and we all know to trust the people that brought us Nintendo.
It seems like oh so long ago that I paid a visit to Point Brugge, a nice little Belgian spot in my neighborhood. At the time, I was perfectly aware that the place had a sister restaurant called Park Bruges (so tricky with those mixed up spellings) in Highland Park, but saw no reason to drive to a place so similar to one in walking distance. But, when attempting to grab brunch at the former on Saturday, we were informed that the two restaurants split up their brunch days and only Park Bruges would be serving brunch that day. So, like any brunch seekers, we packed into the car and made our way to the park side of Belgium.
Perched on a corner in East Liberty is a fancy little spot called Spoon. Apparently it comes from the same people behind BRGR, which is supposed to have some pretty good burgers, but I haven’t gotten around to reviewing it yet. But, without knowing Spoon’s origins and simply taking a look at the fancy prices of the place, I decided to order their burger.
With a name like Tessaro’s, you’d kind of expect a place to be Italian. In Bloomfield, Pittsburgh, that is simply not the case. Here, Tessaro’s is an old-fashioned bar with some old-fashioned American food to join with the drinks. The place is pretty well-known for the their burger, but just for a moment I was tempted to order some ribs because it turned out Thursday night was rib night. I quickly came to my senses and narrowed down my burger order.
A quick look at a map may make you think that Indianapolis is a part of The North. You know, the part of the country that won the Civil War. But just a weekend in the city made me think otherwise. When we went to restaurants, we were lambasted for wearing Michigan shirts, because everyone (even the locals) seemed to be Kentucky fans. Yet, there are benefits to The South. Like BBQ. And Indianapolis had a spot called Squealers Barbeque that I just had to try.
Widely considered the chain restaurant capital of the country, I was impressed to find a number of unique restaurants in Indianapolis after a quick browse of my favorite sites. This in no way disputes the claim to chain restaurants, as you can’t throw a stone in Indianapolis without hitting one, but there is certainly something more to the place. The first spot we hit up was creatively named The Tamale Place and it was in an area that seemed to have its fair share of Mexican food.
The moment I heard Taco Bell was testing markets for breakfast, I began counting down the days until I could have some for myself. Of course, at the time, there was no date to count down to because of the whole test market thing. Nonetheless, a date came: March 27, 2014. And when I arrived at Taco Bell at 11:01 am I was promptly turn sent packing for being one minute past the breakfast deadline. Somewhat deterred, I returned a week later, but this time before the clock could run out on me.
Why would anyone go to Indianapolis? Well, outside of sports, I never saw any reason to until last weekend when I went for sports of the Michigan variety. But before said sporting could occur, I needed some food and headed to O’Reilly’s downtown, which was playing host to all of my fellow Wolverines. O’Reilly’s is pretty much an Irish Pub, but of reasonable size and we managed to find some comfy couch seats to get our eating going.
One might think that pho would be a little too “wintry” of a food for the springtime. But in Pittsburgh, that is certainly not the case. So when, on a chilly spring evening we were invited to try out a supposedly delicious Vietnamese pho spot in Bloomfield, we couldn’t say no. Called Tram’s Kitchen, the menu featured more than just pho, but we were there for one reason only (okay maybe two if you count spring rolls).
Like a sidekick to Legume in Oakland, Butterjoint hangs out next to the former restaurant serving up cocktails and a menu only available to those in the area while still serving the full Legume menu. Come to think of it, if it weren’t for the relatively small size of Butterjoint it would be the Batman to Legume’s Robin. Nonetheless, size or not, I was here for one thing: a burger.