‘Bacon’
Often when I eat Italian food out, I am left thinking I could have just made the same dish at home. That’s why I usually go for gnocchi, which seems harder to duplicate at home. Nonetheless, When the wife found a little hole in the wall spot called Luciano’s in Pasadena, I wasn’t expecting anything amazing simply because there was too much on the menu. Not only that, the menu made it seem like everything (pizza, pasta, sandwiches) would be wonderful and that is often a bad sign.
The bar and restaurant once known as Stack’d II quickly became The Ave and has in turn finally become the Tipsy Cow – still in Shadyside of course. And while Stack’d II and The Ave slung cheesesteaks instead of burgers, the Tipsy Cow has taken the original Stack’d’s custom burger concept and upgraded it to make burgers that actually taste like something you want to eat.
In a rare move since moving to Western New York for the summer, I consulted the interwebs to grab a meal at the last-minute. By this I mean that nearly every other spot I’ve hit up so far has been on recommendation from an actual human. On this occasion the interwebs sent me to Savory’s in Hamburg for brunch. We were seated immediately, but not before catching a glimpse of the specials.
Industry Public House is pretty much the first gastropub I have come across in Pittsburgh. This is shocking, because I have been here for more than 9 months and I couldn’t go more than 9 blocks in the last city I lived in without coming across one. And, as much as I tired of every new gastropub’s attempt to find unique craft beers and craft burgers, I must say I was happy to find both at Industry Public House.
Shady Grove is probably best known for it’s messy Wednesday night wine night when they drop their bottle prices by half. But like most other places in Shadyside known for drinks, Shady Grove also sports a sizable food menu and it’s not just bar food. Of course, I still made my way to the menu that was more like bar food and found myself a pretty-looking burger.
I am a man of strong principles and one of these is that beans have no place in chili. Sorry, that’s not how we did it where I’m from and I intend to keep it that way. To see how this would fly, I started looking for food ideas at ThorsFork.com which helped me put together a chili recipe to participate in a chili cookoff and took home the grand prize. So here it is, the Award Winning Unvegan Original No Beans About It Chili Recipe.
Legend has it that once upon a time in the town of Aspinwall there was a dive bar and grill creatively named The Aspinwall. Folks from all over the local suburbs flocked to The Aspinwall for the food, drinks and atmosphere. Slowly, though, the place fell into decline. The service slacked, the food became less appealing and the atmosphere was no longer enough to keep people coming back. Recently, the place has been revamped as Sam’s Tavern in the Wall, maintaining that same atmosphere and attempting to bring back everything else that made The Aspinwall great.
Alas, the road trip had to come to an end someday. But that someday did not have to go without delicious food and our new town of Pittsburgh welcomed us with open arms and a lengthy wait at a burger place called Burgatory, in Fox Chapel. We were taken there by my family in Pittsburgh and they informed us that Burgatory simply had the best burgers in town. It was quite a claim, but one that I was eager to test in city that has “burg” in its name.
Montana. Big sky country. The land of traffic jams caused by cows. Yes, like very few people before us (based on the lack of a line at the border), we returned from the Great White North through Montana. Billings is a long way from the border, but at some point we found ourselves there and in need of eats. Thusly, we discovered the creatively named Montana Brewing Company.
No self-respecting meat blogger can go to Portland and leave without first paying a visit to Voodoo Doughnut. That’s because Voodoo Doughnut is no ordinary doughnut shop. Not content with simply making a few tasty crullers and eclairs, Voodoo Doughnut has come up with doughnuts topped with just about any ingredient that you could ever want on a doughnut, and some you might not. Think Tang, Cap’n Crunch and weird vegan things that simply seem necessary in Portland. Some are even shaped like dongs, but that’s a whole other story. In my story, the line in front of the place only took about a half an hour, which I was informed was not terrible despite that it was mid-afternoon on a Thursday.