We have a winner!

Congratulations to commenter Sarah whose memories of extra chocolate chip pancakes from Perkins made her the randomly selected winner of 2 tickets to Pittsburgh Magazine’s Best Restaurant Party! You know what I like to put extra chocolate chips on? Ice cream. A big bowl of vanilla ice cream covered with so many chocolate chips that you can’t even see the ice cream below. 

Enjoy your night out on June 6, Sarah (and report back what your favorite dishes were)!

Thanks to everyone who commented. Great fun reading all of your first restaurant memories. To those who didn’t win the tickets: turn that frown upside down and go buy your tickets with promo code MIKEEATS to save $20 per ticket.

MIKEEATS. All caps. I like that. It’s like people are cheering for my blog.

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Giveaway! Two tickets to Pittsburgh Magazine’s Best Restaurants Party!

Last year I went to Pittsburgh Magazine’s Best Restaurants Party and I’m pretty certain that I’m still carrying around a couple pounds of excess chub as a result. Two+ hours of grazing at what is essentially a buffet of the best food Pittsburgh has to offer isn’t good for the waistline…but it’s certainly an incredible way to spend an evening. 

This year’s event–to be held on June 6th at 6pm at the home  of our 6-time Super Bowl winning Steelers, Heinz Field–promises to be even better than last year’s. Why? Let me give you 6 reasons, because it’s not sitting well with me that I have three sixes in a row just kinda sitting out there right now…

1. Bado’s Cucina will be there and that’s probably the best restaurant down here in the deep South Hills. Representin’.

2. No fewer than 55 of Pittsburghers’ favorite restaurants will be serving samples of their food. That’s a lot of delicious eats. Some noteworthy participants: multiple big Burrito restaurants, Best New Restaurant 2011 winner Salt of the Earth, Girasole, Tessaro’s, and about a billion other places I’d love to check out if I wasn’t a Basement Troll. A post-party party from 8:30 till 10:30 will keep the party partying over at the Rivers Casino where there will be prizes and somesuch for those in attendance.

3. Proceeds from the event benefit WQED, a truly wonderful local institution that’s brought us Mr. Rogers, the old Great TV Auction, and “Kennywood Memories.” They deserve some of your hard-earned cash, if only for recently replaying Ken Burns’ “Civil War” documentary in its entirety. And there will be no pledge breaks during the party.

4. You may very well run into local celebrities. Last year I saw Chris Fennimore. And Ginny from That’s Church. Doesn’t get much more legit than that.

5. Everyone loves a deal, and if you check back here on June 1 I’ll be posting a special code that’ll get you in the door at a 22.222222(etc.)% discount.

6. Free tickets. How? One lucky reader will receive a pair of tickets to Pittsburgh Magazine’s Best Restaurants Party (courtesy of the fine folks at Pittsburgh Magazine), a $180 value. Just leave a comment below with the name of the first restaurant you remember going to as a kid* and you will be entered to win. I’ll randomly select a winner around noon Mountain time (which is the time zone in which I’ll be…that’s 2pm for those of you who will be here in the EDT) on Wednesday, June 1 using mathematically mind-boggling internet-enabled tools. Or maybe I’ll draw a name from a hat. Either way, the winner will be randomly selected. Be sure to comment with a valid email address so we can contact you if you win. One entry per person, por favor.

If you aren’t one for games of chance, click on over and buy your tickets today.

Now, click on “Leave a comment” below and get commenting for your chance to win a pair of tickets to Pittsburgh Magazine’s Best Restaurants Party. You gotta play to win.

*First restaurant I remember going to as a kid: Bimbo’s. I was probably the only kid in the world who hated that place. More about that some other time.

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Cupcakes!

Given the choice between cupcakes and just about any other dessert, 99% of the time I’m going with that other dessert option. Pie. Definitely. Ice cream. Certainly. Cookies. You betcha. Cake in standard cake format. Happy to oblige.

Cupcakes just don’t capture my fancy. They’d probably beat out carrot cake because, really, who wants carrots in a cake? Not this guy. But on any given day, the cupcake is last on my list of favored desserts. Often too dry, always too small, difficult to eat. Taking a regular bite leaves you with an icing mustache. Eating the icing first leaves you with boring old cake in an annoying paper skirt. Eating the cake first leaves you with a mouthful of sickly sweet icing.

See what I’m saying? Cupcakes are a headache.

Unless we’re talking about these…

Those beauties were a little Facebook contest prize I scored from Save The Date Cakes, a local Pittsburgh custom cake (and cupcake…and cookie) baker. Light, moist almond batter–the king of all batters. Vanilla buttercream icing. Hefty enough to keep my big belly happy, but not piled too high with icing, so no threat of icing ‘stache. I figured the fondant decorations were merely a whimsical addition rather than a flavor enhancer. And I was right…they didn’t bring much flavor the party. Yet they added a fantastic chewiness that was wholly unexpected. Add in the crunchy tiny silver balls and these were no ordinary cupcakes. They were delicious and fun to eat. Cupcakes redeemed!

Want to get your hands on some delicious Save The Date cupcakes? My lovely wife featured Tina from Save The Date Cakes on her Work-at-Home Mom blog this week. Click on over to see how you can enter to win a dozen cupcakes (but only if you live in Pittsburgh).

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Sentimental…gentleman?

Loafers Bread isn’t the best bread bakery in the city. That title goes to Mediterra and second place is so far behind that I can’t even see who is back there. The breads from Loafers are tasty enough, mind you; they just have a uniformity across types that’s a little puzzling. Their wheat tastes like their white. Their white tastes like their rye. Their snozzberries taste like snozzberries. 

Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. Or just forget that last part.

Some breads are darker, others have more (or less) seeds. Across the bread board, though, there’s a striking similarity in flavor, crumb, and texture. Close your eyes, take a bite, and you could be eating honey whole wheat or challah (which made for a very excellent French toast for tonight’s dinner, I must relay) or dark Russian rye.

Of course this mini-complaint ignores one bread from Loafers that deserves a seat at the “best bread in the world” table: English Muffin Bread. Oh yeah. Toasted with three, four slabs of melty butter pooling up in nooks and seeping through crannies. And jelly. Yeah, Mrs. B, I said butter WITH JELLY! (She hates the idea of butter and jelly together. Weirdo.)

That, my friends, is just about as good as breakfast gets outside of a diner.

Still, Loafers holds a special place in my heart. It’s a great local business that does things the right way…they mill their own flour, focus on freshness and quality ingredients, slice off ample samples from daily loaves if you want to give something a try. In what is presumably an act of living out the faith of the owners (whose stated purpose for operating Loafers includes “Treat[ing] each person with the respect and dignity they deserve as a unique creation of God”), Loafers is closed on Sundays. As a guy with painfully passive faith and an inability to commit to just about anything with my whole self, I truly admire any company that gives up potential profits–like the ten loaves or so of Loafers bread I’d have bought over the past year when driving past their store on my way back from church–to actively live their beliefs. Same way with Salem’s Market, which closes on Friday afternoons for prayers. Mad respect, no matter the underlying dogma.

Back in our courting days, Girlfriend B and I would stop at the old Loafers down on Cochran Road three, four times a week for crumbly scones or sticky-topped triple berry muffins. We ate Loafers German struan in the car on our first trip to the Finger Lakes. It was our first mutual favorite local place to get food. When it closed we were sad. When we moved to South Fayette–just minutes from the Peters Township Loafers–we rejoiced. We don’t go there often, but it’s most certainly a special treat when we stop in for a loaf or a breakfast treat.

When I was thinking about how sentimental Loafers makes me, this 70s song popped into my head:



Why? Because I am a freak for soft rock. Sirius channel 33 is my go-to station in the car. Think Fogelberg, Jackson Browne, Van the Man, groovy CSN-and-sometimes-Y harmonies, and JT. James Taylor, not the ubiquitous guy who used to call in to Lynn Cullen and Uncle Dougie on Pittsburgh’s AM dial. Mrs. B calls it dentist’s office music. I call it a little slice of still-warm cinnamon bread. It mellows me out, like Nick Jr. animated star Moose A. Moose’s voice, whose lyrics like “I’d love to share a sarsaparilla with a good-natured goat or a friendly gorilla” should chill you out, too.

Back to that “Sentimental Lady” song (which was also performed by Fleetwood Mac, probably making it a lot cooler than I’m giving it credit for). I always found it strange that the song was called “Sentimental Lady” when the refrain so clearly says “Sentimental Gentleman…”

Well, uh, it actually doesn’t. Misheard lyric. Bob Welch really says “Sentimental gentle wind.” Huh. Learn something new every day. Doesn’t change my sentimental nature, though, or my love of Loafers. I’d recommend stopping in to one of their four Pittsburgh locations on a Friday morning soon to get that English Muffin Bread. Then mellow out with some Simon, Garfunkel, butter, and jelly.

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Salem’s can do no wrong

As far as I can tell, Salem’s Market & Grill way down at the end of the Strip is the greatest place in the world. Alright, maybe I’m overstating things a little bit–the Finger Lakes in New York is better than Salem’s. But really, I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather grab a bite to eat these days. Or shop for meat.

On Saturday I tucked into this tray of delicious on a dad/son outing with Luke:

That’s biryani, an Indian rice dish. Fluffy, fragrant rice with thick chunks of chicken thigh and halved hard-boiled egg. Eating this biryani is living on the edge…little land mines of whole spices–cloves, cardamom pods, peppercorns, bay leaves–lurk throughout, making each bite a potential toothbreaker unless the utmost care is taken. Care is tossed to the wayside when I’m confronted with something that tastes this good so I had a couple potential choking moments and an ouch or two. There’s some cinnamon in there, but it’s a phantom presence lurking in the background. 

The taste builds from subtle and mouthfilling to slow burn as you dig through your plate. This is an amazing meal, especially given that it comes from a steam table and it costs like seven bucks.

Luke enjoyed a gyro: lamb-ier and more subtly spiced than the processed elephant leg cones you find in most gyro shops. A sign at the steam table says they make everything on premise with items they sell in the market next door. I imagine–or at least want to believe–this means that the gyro meat is hand ground and formed from the large primal cuts of meat that you’ll find in the attached butcher shop, where meats of the highest quality are A) amazingly priced and B) cut to your specifications right when you order. No antibiotics, no hormones, from small farmers. Other than buying direct from local farms, this is the only place I  plan on buying meat* from now on.

Other great items I’ve enjoyed from the restaurant portion of Salem’s: goat/lamb curry, spinach/feta pie, ground lamb pie, chili chicken. All most excellent. All well worth your time if you like Middle Eastern or Indian sub-continent cuisines.

The market’s shelves are sparsely populated with an Middle Eastern packaged goods at seemingly reasonable prices, though much of it is packaged in quantities that are overwhelming to a guy like me who rarely prepares meals of this provenance. I’d love to buy my tahini from Salem’s, but alas I don’t need a jar big enough to house Oscar the Grouch.

Salem’s is bright, the staff is extremely friendly, and the food is awesome. Make it a stop on your next trip to the Strip.

*Except pork…Salem’s is a halal butcher shop and seeing as swine isn’t halal, I’ll need to go elsewhere for a porcine fix.

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Food Jobs

Working in the food industry is in my blood. My father, his brother, and their father before them were food brokers, that dying breed of middleman between food manufacturers and grocery stores. Recently, on a family tour of local cemeteries (our own little Dia de los muertos), my mom revealed that my great-grandmother at one point owned a sno-cone truck that my mom and her cousins worked on during the summer. How cool is that?

Pretty much my entire family worked at the Village Dairy, the long-lived but now-gone deli and diner at the Lebanon Shops. Co-owners Don Village and Jerry Dairy were like uncles to me…slave-driving uncles who made my tenure working at “The Dairy” both painful and short-lived. Two Saturdays of scrubbing floors to their exacting standards, cleaning steam tables, and earning a “training wage” of something like $2.50 an hour was more than this soft-handed youth could handle. It was my first job in the food biz (not my first job…that was the paper route with another tyrant boss), but certainly not my last.

I’ve slung gyros and overpriced Pepsis at fairs and farm shows. I’ve repped frozen novelties and stalked dank back rooms of grocery stores across the tri-state region to write up damaged boxes of foodstuffs. One time I picked up and transported out-of-date broken jars of pickled herring. That’s a stink you’ll never forget. Early morning grocery store shelf resets, overnights doing the same, flanked by tired and broken men and women who smelled of coffee and smokes. I bussed tables and ran food at the long-gone Santa Fe restaurant in Upper St. Clair, whose claim to fame was serving real-deal Primanti sandwiches (2 for $5 on Monday nights!).

But I got out of the game. My last job handling food was almost 15 years ago and I’ll tell you, I don’t miss it one bit. Coming home smelling of hot sausage, pores caked with grease, hands cut up, cheek burnt from running sizzling fajitas to grumpy diners. Not my idea of fun, but I admire those who find joy and fulfillment in the food biz.

So I ask you, what food-related jobs have you had?

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Man it’s hot…

Last night we took the kids out for a curry, as they say in curry-crazy ol’ England. Tamarind in the Bourse Shops–errrr, Scott Towne Center–is, in my humble opinion, the best Indian restaurant in the Greentree/Mt. Lebanon area. That may sound like faint praise, but with four Indian restaurants within about a two-mile radius, it’s actually quite a compliment.

The food was judged by the kiddos to be too spicy from top to bottom…the complimentary pappadam had a kick (they were right about that), the mild (as we ordered it) saag paneer forced protest, and even the not-spicy-at-all ground lamb kabobs from the mixed grill brought literal tears to Katie’s eyes. We chalked it up to a lesson learned: kids aren’t keen on curries, at least at Tamarind. They filled up on rice and a variety of naan bread.

Now if you want to talk spice, I present you with Cut Mirchi (pardon the poor quality photo)…

What’s that, you ask? Pinky-sized chiles–perhaps Thai green?–cut into bite-sized pieces, battered and fried. They don’t waste time removing seeds or stems or the internal ribs which create the heat. For reference, a jalapeño measures at most about 5,000 on the Scoville scale used to measure heat in chiles. A Thai green chile? 50,000 to 100,000 Scoville units.

Imagine, if you will, fire ants salsa dancing on your tongue. It’s like ingesting the depths of Hades with a side Sriracha. Like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn’t take this hot. If you deep-fried my smokin’ hot wife you’d have a close approximation of how damn hot these were.

Cut Mirchi laughed in the face of my Taj Majal lager, which I’d hoped might tame the heat.

But the amazing thing: about five minutes after I’d called it quits (about six or seven pieces into the order), I got the elusive chile high. Endorphins coursed through my body and though my mouth was on fire I felt great. Mellowed out, relaxed…like when I had a really bad cough last year and the doc prescribed cough meds with codeine. I guess that’s the body’s way of coping with the sheer insanity of eating lava.

It’s a good thing that I have that pleasant memory of that portion of the meal because, to spare the details, let’s say that the scorching heat that goes into the body…well, yeah, it wasn’t a pleasant night late last night.

Consider this your warning. Do not order Cut Mirchi.

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Judge, Jury, and Ribsecutioner

Labor Day is meant to be a day to celebrate the working man–not “Working Man“, by Rush, which should be celebrated every day as a great prog rock anthem*. A day of rest to reflect on “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” (as the wikipedia entry on Labor Day tells me). A noble concept, Labor Day.

But let’s be honest: Labor Day is about BBQ. End-of-summer picnics, coleslaw, and dinner on the deck one last time with family and friends before we have to get back to the grind of school and cooler weather. On Monday I honored this secondary meaning of the day by judging smoked and fried meat at the South Park Rib & Wing Challenge.

I’d love to give a play-by-play on each of the ribs and wings we sampled, but that’s impossible. By the time I’d finished sampling the first of the ten rib entries, my hands were a sticky mess (so I couldn’t use a pen) and my focus was squarely on evaluating the ribs in five categories: taste, texture, sauce, rub, and smokiness. No time for notes.  

So what can I tell you? Well, the process itself was legit. We tasted “blind” so we didn’t know what came from who. (That was maybe the most poorly constructed sentence I’ve ever written.) We were secreted away in a dark corner of the clock building at the South Park Fairgrounds, away from the prying eyes of the public. There, the judges individually scored each rib on the aforementioned categories. After we’d sampled and scored all ten entries, the organizer tallied top scores and we re-tasted the top three to come to a consensus winner.

And the winner: Hogfather’s BBQ from down in (what old folks call) Little Washington. This makes me happy–their smokey goodness is but a short drive from Casa Burghertime.

Other top entries came from 2 Fat Guys (home to the longest lines at the festival and the best thing to come out of Massillon, OH since, well…they are the only good thing to come out Massillon, OH) and Hog Wild Bar-B-Que, who brought their big silver cylindrical smoker up from Ronceverte, WV.

What put these ribs at the top of the mountain of discarded bones? The first thing that hit me was how perfectly cooked they were. Fall-off-the-bone tender is cliché, and meat that’s falling off without any prodding can be mushy and unappealing. All three top entries pulled away with just the slightest tug, revealing a deep smoke ring, tender meat, and a thin layer of melting fat. Rubs were all unassuming, acting as flavor enhancers and crust creaters rather than playing first chair in the flavor orchestra that is a great rib. Sauces for all three of my favorites were pretty straight-forward Kansas City style, though Hog Wild’s had a touch of vinegar–maybe apple cider?–that gave it a nice tang.

Wings, with only two entries, was a quick tasting and judgement. Winner Mulligan’s presented a bright yellow, mustard-y wing flecked with what appeared to be diced black olives.

Judging isn’t for the faint of heart. I ate a lot of meat of varying quality in a short period of time. The experience, though, was fantastic and enlightening. So many variations on the theme of ribs and lots of ideas for how I can make mine better at home.

Many thanks to the organizers of the South Park Rib & Wing Challenge for the opportunity to throw my stomach into the ring to help judge. With this experience under my belt–or more accurately, spilling over my belt–I’m going to look into becoming a certified BBQ judge. That would be the crowning achievement in my education, vastly more important and relevant than either of my other higher ed credentials.

The festival appeared to be a resounding success and I imagine it’ll be back next year over Labor Day weekend. We had a very nice time there as a family on Saturday when we stopped by to check out the lay of the land before Monday’s judging. Kids activities and people watching on a beautiful late summer evening, with the added bonus that the promised clowns were nowhere to be seen, makes for a great end to the summer. Check it out next year…and be sure to get some ribs from Hogfather’s while you are there.   

*Contrary to how it may seem with my frequent posts referencing Styx and Rush, I am not a prog rock fan. My freshman roomie Howard was. He arrived the first day of the semester with two boxes full of Dream Theater cassettes and cassingles of songs like “Silent Lucidity.” Mr. Wiener–yes, it was pronounced like that–also had the entire catalog of New Kids on the Block on tape which was puzzling on a number of levels. As a music major he should have known that NKOTB was just plain musical silliness (expected backlash from Mrs. B in 5…4…3…2…1). And as a devoutly Jewish person, his ownership of their Christmas album confused me greatly. Oh well…different strokes, I guess. 

 But that’s all beside the point, which is that I don’t want to be tagged a progressive rock fan. My apologies to any Supertramp fans who might be reading this.

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Birthday Donuts

When we went in to get Luke out of bed this morning he greeted us with a joyful “Me three now!” Being a day for celebration (my little boy’s 3rd birthday), I made a very early morning run for donuts. Like 5:30 AM early. Doing a little online research yesterday pointed me towards the West End and Better-Maid Donuts, a beat-up old house that’s been cranking out donuts for 65 years. What a hidden gem. How I haven’t happened upon this place in my 34 years of donut-lovin’ existence is a great mystery. Maybe it has something to do with how nondescript the place is. At the pre-dawn hour when I arrived, the only sign that this house of donuts was more than just some dude’s house was this sign on the side of the building:

Obviously others are more donut savvy because three or four cars stopped by looking to see if it was open as I was waiting outside for the owner–at least that’s what I’m assuming he was–to get back from an errand; the handwritten sign on the door said he’d be back around 6:10; they typically open at 6.

The selection of donuts is focused without the excess of options that many donut shops put on the shelf. Think your classic donuts and that’s what you’ll find at Better-Maid…various cake, a couple raised, iced cruellers, filled (custard, jelly, cream), and one of my newfound favorites, apple fritters. The most unusual choices were a glazed strawberry cake donut reminiscent of the blueberry donut you probably know and love, as well as a cinnamon-sugared apple-filled donut. Just the right number of choices to put together a nice mixed dozen for a little over $8, which is what I did.

The birthday boy chose the white-iced crueller. Katie ate a custard-filled, chocolate-iced monster of a donut that was about as big as her head. Mrs. Burghertime had the donut I’d hand-selected for her: a chocolate-iced cake donut with chopped peanuts. I know what my lady loves. And me?

Apple fritter and cinnamon-sugar cake. The latter is usually pretty far down on my list of donut favorites, but Better-Maid’s looked too good to pass up…the sugary coating was crispy, almost like a protective shell.

Better-Maid donuts are hefty; a sensible person needs only one, which is why I ate two. Dense and chewy, with a beautifully crunchy exterior.

An extra special touch was the little bag of donut holes the guy gave me for Luke after I told him the celebratory reason for my trek down to the West End at that ungodly hour. What a birthday present…free donuts from what I’m going to call the best donut shop in town.

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Weekend review

Just a quick report about some weekend food adventures…

• Saturday morning Katie and I hit up the Uptown Lebo farmer’s market to pick up steaks for dinner last night. Being a cheapo, I asked about the two lowest priced steaks on the list of cuts available from Logan Family Farms and ended up with a Denver cut. Apparently this is some newfangled cut that butchers just recently started marketing. Good choice. Tender, with a bite not far removed from beef tenderloin. Not as tasty as a Strip or Delmonico, mind you, but for the price I paid I was quite happy.
• I made tomato jam, which is really kinda just chunky ketchup. Then I forgot to put it on the table with the steaks, so now it’ll go with burgers later this week. Unless I forget to put it out again, in which case I’m the biggest dope in the South Hills.
• Rice pudding made with leftover rice is endlessly delicious and super easy. 2 cups cooked rice, 3 cups milk, let’s call it a 1/2 cup of sugar, teaspoon of vanilla, and cinnamon to taste. Put it all in a pot, bring it to a boil, then simmer for 30-45 minutes until it’s reached your desired consistency. If raisins are your thing, throw a handful in with everything else.
• Today I took the kids down to Rachel’s Sustainable Feast on the Rachel Carson Bridge (née 9th Street Bridge), a celebration of local food and sustainable eating. Quite a few heavy hitters from the local restaurant scene were dishing up samples: big Burrito, Six Penn Kitchen, Seviche/Sonoma Grille, soon-to-open Salt. I’m drawing a blank on who else was there–it was hot and I was kid wrangling. The $10 entry fee (for me only…kids were free) entitled you to five tastes at five different food booths. Most weren’t collecting the tickets, though, so it was somewhat of a free-for-all. Six Penn Kitchen’s ample half sandwich (a take on a Cuban) and pesto gnocchi “potato” salad were most excellent. Honorable mention to Seviche for their sustainable shrimp seviche.
• East End Brewing‘s Big Hop Harvest is a spectacular beer. As is their BluebeRye Ale. Sadly neither was available when I hit the brewery a couple weekends ago. I must find them on tap.
• As a local foodster, I have started trying to buy local milk from Turner Dairy even though it means a separate trip to 7-11 or Portman’s. The quality is really worth the effort. Yeah, I know, it’s milk…how different can it be? That’s what I used to think. It really is tastier. Today they once again shined with chocolate milk for the kids at the feast on the bridge.

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