Steak steak steak. Steak steak. Steak. Survival. As far as I’m concerned, these are the thoughts that run through Gloria Gaynor’s head constantly.
At some point, the world decided that the best bagels in the world are in New York. As with the pizza, the claim is that it has something to do with the water. I, however, think this does not do justice to the quality of cooking that goes into the production of these things. Obviously not all bagels and pizza in New York are good, so there is much more going on than meets the eye. In my own search for a tasty bagel, I was sent to Murray’s Bagels in Chelsea.
We can probably all agree that aside from silt, floods are pretty bad. But if there is one thing that can make a flood better, it’s meat. More specifically, moose meat.
New York’s Chelsea Market is definitely a fun place to grab some lunch. It’s like LA’s Grand Central Market, but far fancier. And like any similar market, each food stall has a specialty. Like any good human that has spent a significant amount of time in Southern California, I need good tacos every once in a while and Pittsburgh has not yet delivered. So when I saw Los Tacos No. 1 in the Chelsea Market, I knew I had to make their tacos mine.
After imbibing in a few beverages and wandering the streets of New York in search of ramen to no avail, I found myself at a place called Glaze in Union Square. Contrary to what you might expect, Glaze is not a donut shop. Rather, it is a teriyaki fast-casual concept, the concept being that teriyaki is a glaze. The options for the glaze included more than just your typical chicken and I went for the Hanger Steak.
Michigan people are everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Not only that, but those people have a lot of pride, and as one of them I can’t say I blame them. That’s why, when I was in New York and was told a restaurant called The Grey Dog was run by Wolverines, I had to offer them my patronage. The highlight of its menu is a section called Michigan Sandwiches and despite the fact that none of them seemed to have any correlation with Michigan itself, I knew one of them had to get in me.
EDIT: This location is closed, but if you still want fried pizza there are other Forcellas to be found.
While in New York, I ended up making my way to Forcella in the East Village to grab some pizza. After all, no trip to New York really counts unless pizza is involved. Forcella’s pizza, though, was much more Italian than New York-style and even that Italian had a twist to it. That twist was a little something called Montanara, which is more than just a combination of the state of Montana and marinara.
Casual dining chains are a weird thing. Applebee’s gets a bad rap, but somehow Chili’s seems to be immune from negativity. Then there are places like Olive Garden and Red Robin that people sincerely love. It’s a strange world. But after a few people in my life talked about the goodness of Red Robin’s burgers (myself having not eaten there since the age of 10), I found myself at one of those restaurants and in need of a burger (as always).
In an afternoon filled with wandering around Lawrenceville for food and drink, a group of us finally found ourselves at Franktuary. With a church-esque theme, Franktuary fits right in to Pittsburgh, which seems to have more churches per capita than Vatican City. And it’s not just a little hot dog joint. Franktuary is a full-on restaurant specializing in hot dogs, but with a lot else to offer.
As I’ve mentioned before, the Big Burrito restaurant mafia in Pittsburgh is kind of a big deal. Such a big deal, in fact, that I recently visited a third member of their family: Casbah. Featuring a menu with dubious claims of Mediterranean origin, there could be no doubt that the ever-changing menu looked nothing short of delicious. It also looked nothing short of beyond a student’s budget, which is why I found myself there with the in-laws.