‘Sandwiches’
Despite Pittsburgh’s up-and-coming food scene, there are some spots that seem like they were here back when George Washington come here to save the world from Indians or something like that. One of these places is Big Jim’s in Greenfield, which has spared every expense at keeping up the place and instead invests in food. Like a lot of food.
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.
EDIT: Stack’d II quickly became The Ave which quickly became the Tipsy Cow. Gone are the sandwiches, but you can read about the Tipsy Cow here.
While the list of great sequels is quite short, a few stand out. And joining the ranks of X-Men 2 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze is Stack’d II (hopefully someday they’ll update their site to include this). As you may recall, I once paid a visit to Stack’d in Shadyside, a build-your-own burger concept that found success on sales of beer, keeping their burgers cheap and not by the quality of burgers being pumped out. In fact, this was so successful that they made a sequel that swapped burgers for cheesesteaks.
EDIT: The place has been bought out and is going to be converted to a Southern Restaurant called Buford’s. Hopefully it still appreciates its Michigan folk.
We Michigan people are everywhere. And I mean everywhere. So it stands to reason that my brethren can be found in Pittsburgh, which is just a few short hours on the turnpike from America’s High Five. Owned by a fellow Michigander, Blue Line Grille sits across the street from Consol Arena and has decided to play host to Michigan games. As you might expect, this place was already a winner in my heart, but I still had to try the food to ensure I would be coming back for meals or just drink specials.
Having kids must be tough. You raise them, do the best you can and at some point you let them go and hope for the best. Such was the feeling I had when leaving LA, knowing that I had played a vital role in the emergence of a pretty amazing food culture in just under five years of food blogging. But when I left, I have to admit I feared at least a small amount of anarchy to foment. Upon my return, however, I learned there was nothing to fear and I had clearly done a good job of setting the city up for the future. Case in point: Top Round.
The city that never sleeps wouldn’t be the city that never sleeps without late-night food. And on the Upper West Side, the late night eating options seem to be pretty limited. Yet, there is Big Nick’s Too (the sequel to Big Nick’s, although the original has since left this earth), a pizza, sandwich, burger and countless other things restaurant. The menu is, in fact kind of dizzying, but we were guided by the bro-in-law and his soon-to-be wife.
Randomly placed in California, Washington and Illinois is a sandwich cafe called Specialty’s. Why it is placed so sporadically throughout the United States is surely a question someone in their strategy team can answer, but for me the only thing that matters is that when I needed a quick bite in Bellevue, Washington, Specialty’s was there for me.
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.
Where Philly has cheesesteaks, Pittsburgh has Primanti Brothers, which is both a restaurant and a term for the sandwich style that represents the city. Rather than just throwing cheese and steak into a hoagie bun and calling it a day like on the other side of the state (I mean seriously, cheesesteak is delicious but hardly revolutionary), Primanti Brothers sandwiches are rich with blue collar history and innovation.
With a name like Bites and Brews, you kind of know what to expect when walking into the place. And let me tell you right here: the place does not disappoint. If all you are seeking is something to eat and something to drink, Bites and Brews has you covered. With a beer menu including about 30 brews starting at $3 and a food menu ranging from bar staples to hoagies, the name of the place is certainly apt.