‘Bacon’
Breakfast is definitely a meal for bowls. Cereal, yogurt and oatmeal all call for bowls or bowl-like conduits. The Breakfast Club in Commerce, Michigan, though, is breaking that mold just like its namesake movie broke the mold of teen movies in the ’80s. You see, they offer savory breakfast bowls and I just couldn’t wait to get one for myself.
Hough’s in Greenfield (pronounced huff’s for all yinz amateurs) is a pretty special place. In addition to having an awesome beer selection, they have a backroom that can be used to brew your own beer. Because, you know, hundreds of beers just aren’t enough. Yet, as much as I love beer, this is a meaty food blog, so let’s get down to the meat of the matter. Hough’s food menu is pretty short, mostly filled with burgers and sandwiches, and this is just fine by me. My group of friends gave me mixed reviews of their Smoked Reuben, so I took the burger route.
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.
I know, I know. Brunch is getting boring. It’s a little ridiculous covering three of these in a row, but that’s just how my life works sometimes. So, for yet another brunch, I headed to E2 over in Highland Park, but this was a brunch unlike any other. You see, this brunch happened on Passover and thus my options were limited, but not so much that I would have chosen anything differently [EDIT: I have now returned to E2 and had some non-Passover goodness, see below].
Just outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania is a minor league baseball team called the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. Of course, being named after an animal that is seemingly delicious and good for blood-flow does not make a team Unvegan Heroes, but what they have done with that name surely does.
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.
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).
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.