While gastropubs may not be a growing industry in Pittsburgh, a quick trip to Brooklyn showed me that they are still alive and kicking. Take, for example, Black Swan, a semi-divey bar that serves a brunch that brought me in. With standard gastropub fare, I made a rare move to not go with the burger that seemed overloaded with vegetables and instead went with wings. And not swan wings like you may expect from a place with such a name.
Perhaps best-known for their pizza, The Porch at Schenley is a semi-gourmet little restaurant perched on the cusp of Schenley Park. Also, it happens to be owned by Eat’n Park, a Denny’s-esque restaurant that The Porch works hard to leave out of any marketing. From what I’ve heard from Eat’n Park, I can’t blame them. Yet, The Porch has a good reputation and I wanted to see whether that rep was founded in truth.
On name alone, Everyday Noodles in Squirrel Hill might draw comparisons to Noodlehead. But, where Noodlehead is Thai, Everyday Noodles is pure Chinese. And I mean pure in the sense that this isn’t some Chinese restaurant catering to the desires of Americans. This is for real. With a near-constant noise of noodles being prepared by hand behind a viewing window that is sometimes displaced by the intricate construction of dumplings, Everyday Noodles is the place to be.
How do you know if an ethnic restaurant is authentic? You look inside and see if people resembling that ethnicity are inside. Or, better yet, you let one of them take you there. At least that’s how it went down for me when a Taiwanese friend of mine invited me to Rose Tea Cafe in Squirrel Hill (supposedly the Oakland location isn’t as good) to get some Taiwanese food. Rose Tea Cafe isn’t just some tea house, it’s a full-on restaurant with almost too many options to choose. So we turned to my friend to figure out what to get.
Noodlehead is a funny name for a restaurant. But then, Deadhead is a weird name for people who follow a band called the Grateful Dead. I know you’re thinking apples and oranges, but hey, if you like noodles, why not be a Noodlehead? In this case, though, the noodles are limited to the Thai variety, but Noodlehead has plenty to offer.
With a school like Carnegie Mellon around, you would expect Pittsburgh to have some good Indian food. It’s not racist, it’s just common sense. Yet, it took me until recently, when a white guy invited me to All India (I apologize in advance for the music that autoplays on this site) to see what kind of Indian the city could muster. And what a mustering it was “” with a menu as long as a case study, I had a hard time deciding what to order, but fortunately I was with a large group and I was going to get to try a lot of things.
Essentially the day I arrived in Pittsburgh, a buddy of mine told me I had to get to Meat & Potatoes in downtown. With an unvegan name like that, I didn’t exactly need convincing. Yet, when I took a look at the menu and prices I quickly realized this was a destination for when parents came to town. After all, that whole being a student thing can make eating out tough. But the parents did come, and to Meat & Potatoes we went.
EDIT: Smoke has since moved to Lawrenceville, and thus there are some updates below.
Outside of the Waterfront, Homestead isn’t exactly a destination in Pittsburgh. Yet, within that sketchy neighborhood lies a restaurant called Smoke. Such a vague name usually would lead someone to believe that it’s doors contain BBQ and that person would be right, but it’s not just regular BBQ, it is something like Mexican BBQ fusion. The menu mostly contains fascinating BBQ tacos, a random duck quesadilla and some interesting sides.
Just like most towns, Pittsburgh has its fair share of sports legends. Roberto Clemente may be the biggest, but unfortunately he did not live long enough to start a Puerto Rican restaurant. Ben Roethlisberger is also pretty huge, but claims of molestation may stop him from opening up his very own burger joint. Then there’s Jerome Bettis. Also known as The Bus, Bettis found his way to Pittsburgh from Detroit and eventually got into the restaurant business with a spot just out of Heinz Field called Jerome Bettis’ Grille 36.
Rock Bottom is a restaurant and brewery that seems to have made its way through much of the US since first opening up in Denver long before I was legally able to drink. Fortunately, one of these locations is in Pittsburgh’s Waterfront. I say fortunate because it gave me the chance to try out their food and beer. After all, I once considered myself fortunate to try BJ’s, until I actually ate their food and drank their beer. I hoped Rock Bottom would treat me better.