French fries and Pittsburgh

Hi kids just spent the weekend in sunny (NOT) Pittsburgh
And here is what I have learned

Pittsburgh is an excellent place to visit if you say, have a big problem choosing between your two fave foods and said foods happen to be Pierogies and Pizza
Yes in Polish meets, Irish meets Italy Pittsburgh one simply orders a pierogie pizza with a pint of beer of course!

Now let’s say you really don’t have the hands or the plates to tackle a cheese-steak style sandwich with coleslaw and a side of fries, again Pittsburgh your dream town
offers a sandwich by the Primanti brothers that has all of the above inside the bread and oh, do ask for extra cheese whiz.

“It’s gross but delicious” said Nancy our lovely tour guide

Folks who know me, know I happen to love a nice salad with an order of fries, well in the land of the potato, I had it all; a Pittsburgh salad. This is a huge salad, covered in fries, topped with chicken, then topped with cheese and ranch dressing. It was the most sinful salad I’ve ever eaten.
And speaking of sin, there are so many ex-churches in this city that they often wind up being used for other things. One huge Cathedral was turned into the joint that served me the humongo French fry salad and where the altar was, now sits a giant brewery. Well honeys if you can’t worship god, you might as well worship a great micro-brew!

Beer is clearly an important part of Pittsburgh so much so that they held their St Patty’s day five days early on a Saturday so folks had a chance to recuperate before work on Monday. A good portion of the parade watchers were blitzed by 10Am thanks to another Pittsburgh tradition “KEGS N EGGS”!

When I asked Nancy what her fave part of Pittsburgh was, she responded the quirky quaint old town things like a place you can go to watch them make candy canes. Well we had a good dose of this when we passed what I thought was an animal clinic. It was in fact THE TEDDY BEAR HOSPITAL!

Yes if your little stuffed bear is feeling tattered it can be revitalized here.

We also had the delight of dining at a wacko little joint at which the proprietor decided that rather then put the place mats at our tables he would simply staple them to the walls!
He also served us a soup that I would not care to try again which was mostly mushy rice, cheese and tomatoes but hey it’s all an adventure.

The accent in Pitts is also fun. Like the phrase “Yinzers” which I think means something like “you guys.”

I had a little trouble adjusting to the cab drivers. The one who picked us up was friendly, clean, did not talk on his cell phone, let other drivers pass him and did not speed. It was downright irritating!

We adored the Andy Warhol museum and after having checked out the place-mat malls, teddy bear hospital and Yinzers bar, I figured out where some of Andy’s eccentricities might have come from. Did you know Andy had such a thing for taxidermy that he kept a giant stuffed Great Dane and a Lion in his collection.

Here’s a OH MY GOD part of the weekend. At the Warhol museum, you check your coats and nobody watches them and get this, NOBODY STEALS THEM!! My Gf J left her wallet in her coat and it was GASP still there, hours later!?

Just unreal.

Oh and three cheers for C, Nancy’s gal and a fantastic tour guide. My fave part was, “Oh yeah and there’s the park and the fountain. You can’t see them right now, they’re under water!”

So all in all Pittsburgh a great little city with a touch of New York edge and a lot of down-home cooking by way of Poland, Italy and Ireland and certainly, most definitely, a supremely excellent place to down a pint before noon.

Oh I forgot to mention the hot cakes- sorta like if a pancake and a crepe had a baby, covered in blueberries or filled with chocolate chips, Yinzers would love it!