Day 2 of Steeler Country

Pittsburg's Strip District

October 11, 2009

12ish

We woke up Sunday to a simply beautiful, quintessential, Midwestern fall day. The air was crisp and cool, but you still felt comfortable in just a light jacket. This is my type of day! The trees had turned and the hills looked so warm with their oranges, yellows, and reds in contrast to the cool water of the Allegheny river.

We were definitely happy to be in Pittsburgh on such a day! We quickly got dressed for an after the wedding brunch at the Omni William-Penn and met our family. We leisurely ate pastries and yogurt, drank enough coffee to compensate for our late night, and then offered congratulations and good-byes to everyone before checking out and taking off the explore the Strip District for a few hours before heading back to Ohio.

We got to the strip district around 12 pm and parking was a little more difficult to find than the previous day, but still not a problem. The Steelers were playing away in Detroit, but there were still plenty of people selling Steeler gear and plenty of people wearing Steeler gear as they worked on finding the perfect place to watch the game. These are people just as serious about their NFL football team as we are about OSU!

As we walked around what I noticed most was how eclectic this district is. There are the sports fans trying to find a bar, there were teenagers hanging out in line for a concert to be held later that night, there were people doing some grocery shopping, and there were families out just exploring. The mix of people around also spoke to the mix of businesses that call The Strip home. The warehouse and train track background speak to the working class roots of the District and some of these merchants are still around. You can see the history in places like Stan's Market that still features fresh produce, the Italian American roots of the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, and a classic breakfast diner in DeLuca's. However, interspersed with these classics are some signs of change. In between the history is a mingling with the future. There are Asian markets, gourmet spice stores, gourmet kitchen supplies, dried flower shops, homemade pottery stores, coffee shops, and upscale chocolatiers.

I really appreciated this diversity, especially given that I can be as happy attacking a burger from Thurman's as I can dining at The Refectory. It's a mingling of 2 very fine worlds.

The upcoming descriptions of places are by no means an extensive list of great places on the strip, but it is a sampling of the things that were open (it was Sunday so some places were closed) and that impressed me. First, Stan's Market had a ton of fresh produce ready to go and I noticed the prices were great (at least much less than I'm used to spending in Columbus)! We also noticed there were some people selling fresh flowers on the street that were beautiful and also priced less than I'm used to seeing at farmer's markets around here. If I didn't have to worry about fresh flowers getting squashed by all the luggage I HAD to bring with us, I definitely would have bought a few bunches to spruce up our house with some fall color.

The first place we ducked into was In The Kitchen, a gourmet kitchen supply store. We loved browsing through all the specialty cookware items and ended up buying some Steeler colored chocolate covered sunflower seeds and fall shaped cookie cutters for our friend who was house sitting and watching our dogs. We were definitely tempted to buy more by the samples of pumpkin whoopie pies and pumpkin butter. One friendly staff member even gave me a tip on how to get the whoopie pies to have extra flavor!

From there we explored Penzey's spices and ducked into Mancini's bread to get a closer look at the pepperoni rolls we saw so many people enjoying. Granted the roll looked very good and was tempting, but ultimately we decided we'd prefer somewhere we could sit down and relax for a bit before driving home.

We loved the expressions on the clay pumpkins at Penn Ave Pottery, but were unwilling to spend around $40 to take one home. Maybe we'll reconsider when economy turns back around. :)

DeLuca's Restaurant looked amazing and had a line out the door! We figured it had to be good diner fair, but considering we had already eaten breakfast we were looking more for a lunch spot.

We ducked in Roxanne's Dried Flowers and were immediately enchanted with the fun displays of flowers mingled with antique looking Halloween decor. We bought a whimsical butterfly ornament for our Christmas tree that reminded me of some antique ornaments my great grandmother had.

We were impressed and enticed by the rich chocolately smell of Mon Aimee Chocolat. However, looking was about all we could afford to do here. I was in awe of the decadent display cases, chocolate bars from around the word, and different mixes of cocoa powder. They even had the chocolate covered bacon I had heard so much about a few months ago! However, the prices were hard for me to swallow. The chocolate covered bacon, I think, was around $8 and we found a regular sized candy bar for $24! Suddenly the $40 pottery pumpkin was looking like a steal.

But eventually the heady chocolate smell of the store did get the better of us and we ended up buying 2 small truffles, one peanut butter flavored and one pumpkin flavored. The peanut butter one was divine and reminded me of a very soft and velvety cross between a buckeye and a Reese's cup. The chocolate in the pumpkin flavored one was had a equally soft, velvety mouth feel. However, the flavor of the pumpkin was just not as good as the peanut butter.

We then explored the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company. Now this is an Italian grocery! The cheeses, the pastas, the meats, the oils, the olives... I could go on and on about this place of beauty. If I lived in Pittsburgh this would be a favorite stop of mine and I'm sure my Italian dishes would never be the same! Since actually traveling in Italy this is the closest I've seen to a true grocery like in the "old country".

With seeing everyone eat the pepperoni rolls and then seeing all the Italian food staples, we decided we needed Italian food for lunch. The day before, as we sauntered around trying to find Primanti Brothers, we drooled over a table enjoying a pizza. We ended up trying our own for lunch at Bella Notte. Stay tuned for my next to hear how that went!

Bill Total (for food): $1.20 for the 2 chocolates, samples at In the Kitchen were free, and for the rest of the places we just looked!

Overall Strip Rating: 5 buckeyes~This place is a food paradise!

The Buckeye Goes to Steeler Country

Primanti Brothers
Strip District

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

October 10, 2009

This past weekend we attended a beautiful wedding at the Fox Chapel Golf Club in Pittsburgh. It was truly an elegant affair and it was great catching up with family and friends. We had a great time, but while all of this was going on, we were also itching to explore some of the city. For me food is the heart of all travel, so we attempted to take a whirlwind bite out of Pittsburgh! Since we only had a few open hours we focused our attention on Pittsburgh's famous Strip District.

While doing some pre-travel internet searching I came across the famous Primanti Brothers sandwiches. I think I first had heard of this place on the Travel Channel show, Man V Food. Seeing the segment about them on TV made me laugh, because the sandwiches reminded me so much of the famous overstuffed sandwiches from Panini's that my friends and I would share after a fun night of dancing (and of course I only mean dancing :) ) during our college days. This, of course, was when Panini's was still located on South campus. It has since moved more north on High Street to the location of a past bank and past Counterfeit Heist restaurant. But I digress, I LOVED these sandwiches in college and nothing tasted better at 1 or 2 in the morning. Well actually, maybe TJ's, Cluck-U-Chicken, or Catfish Biffs were more often top choices; but Panini's was definitely in my top 5!

I also thought Panini sandwiches were so unique. However, this TV special showed me that they're not so unique after all. It turns out that Primanti Brothers have been over stuffing their sandwiches with fries and coleslaw since around the time of the Great Depression. The Primanti Brothers opened their restaurant to feed the workers in the produce and warehouse strip of Pittsburgh late at night or in the early morning. Because of their jobs they needed something filling, fast, and easy to eat. There's not as much warehouse and produce work going on in the strip as there once was, but Primanti Brothers has kept their late hours and now also have an after clubbing following. They also have a lunch following, after work following, food to eat during the games following, have to eat here if you're only going to be in Pittsburgh for a few hours before a wedding following etc. etc. This just makes me wonder if the founders of Panini's were from around the Pittsburgh area and trying to bring a bit of their memories to Ohio? Or did they just try the sandwich while on a trip and figured this was something Ohio just had to have? My research on this, thus far, has turned up nada. If anybody out there has the answer, please enlighten me!

Primanti Brothers is such a Pittsburgh institution that is has expanded to include 15 Pittsburgh area restaurants, including Heinz Field and the airport, and 2 locations in Florida! However, I feel like you generally get the best understanding about what a restaurant is all about from the origininal, so that's immediately where we went upon arrival in Pittsburgh. The wedding didn't start until 7:00 pm so when we arrived in Pittsburgh around 4, we figured we could fit in a "snack", especially since we'd be eating dinner much later.

I had heard mixed reviews about The Strip. Some complain that it's just a street filled with cheesy Steeler paraphernalia, while others rave about the classic Pittsburgh institutions. With such mixed reviews, I didn't know exactly what to expect. We quickly found parking behind an old warehouse and I admit that the area looked a bit sketchy from the get go. I also quickly understood where the complaints about the tons of Steeler gear came from since the Steeler vendors line the street with quality products such as yellow and black Mardi Gras beads and slippers. But then again, I also feel those nay-sayers didn't take the time to look past a little grit and appreciate the true spirit of the place. But more on that later. Sunday afternoon Erik and I spent the afternoon exploring The Strip and I'll write about that in my next post.

For now I'll get back to Primanti Brothers.

First off the restaurant is just off the main strip. You look down a side street and this sign welcomes you from the side of the building. You get a little closer and you see beautiful old wood doors just welcoming you to grab a bite to eat!

You immediately know it's going to be good when you see people pushing to get in and a police officer managing the door.

We lucked out with a great seat at the counter. However, the cook was super busy and it took about 20 minutes to get our order in. This is no complaint though! The servers and cook NEVER stopped moving. They just were that busy.

Since this was supposed to be just a "snack" before a wedding we opted to share the Pitts-burgher Cheese Steak, which they call their number 2 bestseller. (Their number 1 bestseller is the beer!) I ate my half with a refreshing Coke, but Erik couldn't pass up an opportunity to have a Yuengling, which is another Pennsylvania tradition. Unfortunately, Yuengling is not sold in Ohio. How happy we would be if it were! But instead, it gives us something to forward to when we travel.

Once our order was in drinks came fast and the sandwich was ready in just about 5 minutes. I will say this sandwich is a thing of beauty. The layers of flavor, the sides dishes placed on the sandwich; simply genius
The breakdown is a sirloin beef patty, provolone cheese, french fries similar to fair fries, a vinegary sweet and sour coleslaw, and tomato slices. This is all sandwiched between white Italian bread and served in classic wax paper. Yum! The acidic bite of the coleslaw and tomato nicely balances the fat and juiciness from the rest of the sandwich. And the thick Italian bread does a nice job of holding everything together and soaking up the excess.

And to top it all off our server liked the fact we ran in just to have a sandwich before the wedding so much, he gave us one more to take to another lucky guest! Apparently someone ordered a sandwich, but didn't have cash to pay for it (the restaurant is cash only). Lucky for us, but we did feel baldly about the person missing out on his/her sandwich.

Erik and I were extremely happy with our sandwich and would have loved to sample some more items. We left really wishing we had tried the corn beef or at least one of their other "shaved meat" sandwiches. We were interested in how that type of texture would work with the rest of the sandwich. I have to say the patty on the Cheese Steak was good, but it wasn't amazing. I'm thinking the corn beef or ham could be amazing. I guess there's always next time!

Bill total: $12 (1 Cheese Steak, 1 Yuengling, 1 Coke, tip)

Overall Rating: 4 buckeyes

I really wrestled with this one, but I think it comes down to personal taste and the fact that this is my blog! I know I gave Skyline 5 buckeyes and Primanti Brothers has an equal fan following. But it isn't my history, and I don't crave it. I'd drive out of my way many miles to get a Skyline fix, but I wouldn't make a trip to Pittsburgh just for this sandwich. I'll let the Pittsburg restaurant bloggers give this one a 5 and critique Skyline ;)

Pizza, Fire, and Art!

Enrico's Pizza and Restaurant

5788 Frantz Road

Dublin, Ohio 43016

September 19, 2009

6ish pm

My husband and I were looking for more of a low key dining out experience before going downtown to see Waterfire and explore the Riverfront Arts Festival. We thought a mom and pop pizza place would be just the ticket and had heard Enrico's just might fit the bill. A friend of ours had insisted we put it on our evergrowing list of restaurants to try and as I looked up reviews online I noticed, by far, the majority were favorable; with one even stating the pizza was the best they've ever had, even when comparing it to pizza from Sicily! If this is pizza better than how the Sicilian's do it, then I need to try it :)

As you walk in the restaurant the first thing I noticed was the wonderful smell of a true pizzeria. This is the smell of a blend of homemade crust baking, family dining, and Italian spices. While those big named chains can crank out a decent pizza, the places just don't have the same smell. It took me back to this pizza place my parents would take me to on Friday nights, named Chester's. I remember standing in line to order our pizza, my head just reaching the top of the counter, and smelling this same smell. Then we'd walk back to dark wooden tables to patiently (actually impatiently and complaining was probably more the case since I was 5-7 years old, but that's beside the point) wait for the pizza to be brought out. I also remember how awesome I thought it was that this restaurant actually had TVs in it. Can you imagine now being impressed by TVs in a restaurant? How things have changed, and how old does saying things like this make me feel! But I digress, back to Enrico's.

The server told us to sit wherever and then another server quickly came over to take our drink orders. She was possibly the mother of the family because she was definitely professional, friendly, and seemed invested in the place. She knew her job and did it well.

A weird quirk of mine is absolutely having to have some sort of soft drink with pizza and Coke is definitely my preference. I just can't drink anything else with it; so that's what I ordered. The husband is much more flexible and thought an Italian beer would be fitting, so he ordered a Peroni. We took a minute to look around the place and noticed that the place was busy, but not overly crowded. There were about 8 couples, mainly people in their 30's and up enjoying what seemed to be "date night". There was one family with kids. The restuarant definitely had a family friendly vibe, but this night it was mostly couples. It seemed like many people were regulars and knew the family. You could see the grandmother (at least I assume it was the grandmother) cooking in the back, while the mother chatted up a few of the guests and ensured they were having an enjoyable time. If you're looking for a mom and pop classic pizzeria, this is definitely your place!

We then went over the menu and the typical Italian entrees of spaghetti and lasagna definitely tempted us, but overall we decided we came here for the pizza and that's what we were going to try! We both got side salads, mine with ranch and Erik's with house made Italian. We couldn't agree on pizza toppings so I decided to go vegetarian on my half with onions, green peppers, and black olives; while Erik went with capicola on his half. I was happy to see such authentically Italian topping choices.

Our salads came out quickly and we immediately dug in. The salad was very basic with iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots, and a tomato. My ranch was a packet of Marzetti's. I'm never fond of restaurants presenting dressing this way. I realize most restaurants don't make all of their dressings homemade, but is it really too difficult to either put the dressing on the salad or serve it in a ramekin on the side? To me, this extra minute of prep work helps presentation and the overall vibe of the restaurant. Getting a packet of dressing in a restaurant just reminds me too much of a fast food chain. But while this is a negative to me I do realize I'm being pretty picky, and it's definitely not something that makes or breaks my experience either :)

Erik's homemade Italian dressing was served on his salad and we both sampled it. It had a surprisingly sweeter taste than most Italian dressings. However, the sweetness coupled with the oil were really the only flavors that came through for me. Overall, the taste was fairly bland. I would have preferred more Italian spices. Erik agreed.

My ranch was classic (Thanks Marzetti's!) and overall my salad was a typical side salad. Not bad, not great.

We finished our salads and our pizza was out momentarily. The pizza looked great and as you picked up your slice there were those great strings of melted cheese hanging on. I couldn't wait to try it. Of course I tried my veggie side first and I really hate to say it, but I was disappointed. The crust was great with a nice crunch, not too thick and not too thin. The cheese was perfectly ooey and gooey. The veggies were well cooked and not too heavily or skimpily topped. However, everything together just did not make me feel like this was the best pizza ever, or really anything close. It definitely wasn't bad, but I've had many better (including those in Italy)! I tried to think about what was missing, what was wrong, why I didn't love this pizza and I just couldn't place it right away. I decided to try a piece of my husband's side while I contemplated...

Now this is what pizza is all about. Erik's side obviously had the same nice crust and ooey gooey cheese. However, his was topped with the capicola which added a wonderful spiciness to the pizza. This was what was missing on my side! Not the meat (even though it was definitely high quality and I'd love to know who the supplier is), but the extra spice in the capicola added the flavor punch that my side didn't have. Enrico's seems to use basic, good quality crust, sauce, and cheese as a blank canvas for the spiced meat toppings (or maybe they were just out of Italian seasonings this day given the same problem with the dressing :) ). But this strategy works out wonderfully when you order a pizza with meat, but not as fabulously on a veggie pizza. If they asked me, and I'm not sure they would really care about my opinion since, based on the reviews, so many people love their pizza. But if they did, I would tell them to leave their meat topped pizza alone. It's done completely right. But if someone orders cheese only or veggie toppings, take a couple more seconds to shake on some Italian spices! We need flavor. This could help elevate their vegetarian pizzas to the same satisfaction level of their meat pizzas.

We downed the majority of our large pizza, paid, and took off in just enough time to make it downtown, park and run to the river to see the lighting of waterfire. Sorry about the picture quality, Waterfire did look more impressive than this in person.

I had heard about Waterfire sometime last summer, but missed it every time. I was happy we finally were able to make it to one this season. But I must say it wasn't what I had expected. Somehow I had anticipated a bigger fire display or maybe it organized more artfully. However, it still was very nice and something different to experience in Columbus. It kind of reminded me of a city version of the bonfires people have when they're camping or just hanging out in someone's backyard. Groups of friends, families, and couples all sat on the riverbank, talked, and watched the fire. Erik and I took a moment to first stand on the bridge and take the display in and then we moved down to the riverbank to sit for awhile and enjoy the warm glow close up. On a cool evening, sitting close to a fire is so comforting, homey, and relaxing! After we had our fill of the fire (and before the food coma from the pizza could sit in) we walked back up the riverbank to walk through the arts festival. I must say this is definitely one of Columbus's more classier festivals and for a minute I thought that surely I was in a different city. The opera was putting on a free performance which we enjoyed for a few minutes before progressing on. There was a wine booth and a mixed drinks vendor. We ordered 2 glasses of their white wine and it was so nice to sip as we strolled through the art booths and heard opera singing in the background. Now this reminded me of being in Italy. A perfect end to an evening out!

Bill total (for Enrico's only): 2 Peroni's, Coke, 2 side salads, large pizza, and tip: $37

Bill total (for Arts Festival): 2 glasses of white wine: $8

Overall Rating for Enrico's: 3 buckeyes

Overall Rating for and evening in Columbus: 4 buckeyes