Pittsburgh Paradise

A few weeks ago Michael and I made a weekend trip to Pittsburgh to visit old friends.  Since we aren’t sure how long we will be living so close to the east coast, we want to take advantage of it and travel to as many cities on this side of the country as possible.

Friday night after a short drive we arrived to our hotel, (that was right on the “point” of the city!) and got ready for a dinner with an old professor.  In college Michael and I took a couple courses with the same professor and we have maintained a relationship with her throughout the years.  We were so thankful to be able to reconnect with her since we are currently living a short 2 hours apart.

I didn’t want to be rude and take pictures of my food while out to dinner.  So this is the only pic I have of the night. But we ate at a restaurant called UP! and I ordered the fish bowl (fish, potatoes, capers, onions, peppers, etc.)  and it was delicious!

By the time we got back to the hotel our friends had arrived from DC to spend the rest of the weekend together.  We spent the rest of the night catching up in the hotel room and kicking back some brewskis.

Saturday morning I woke up with a big ol’ grin on my face because I knew it was the day that my life dream was finally going to be met.  Eating at PRIMANTI BROTHERS!  I am a foodie freakzoid and have been dreaming (literally, dreaming) about eating this sandwich ever since first watching it featured on the Travel channel like 5 or 6 years ago.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be living so close to a one.  But alas.  The time had come.  I ate a banana with almond butter for breakfast and we made a quick stop at Starbucks for a Christmas blend coffee.

We opted to walk the 3 miles to the ORIGINAL restaurant to admire the beautiful architecture along the way and, finally, she and I met.

We only had to wait in line for 20ish minutes (not bad for a Saturday at noon) and we were seated at the bar.  I was in pure heaven because I was able to watch the action of the sandwich being made and the owner was working the line!  What luck!

Seriously, she is famous in my eyes.  Am I the only one who has seen her on Man vs Food talking with Adam?  No?…

I went with the cajun chicken!  And a water.  I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t eat the entire thing.  I know…but it. was. awesome!

The coleslaw was not mayo-y at all!  It was super light and almost sweet.  Which went perfect with the spicy chicken and those fries!  The bread was on point with holding everything together and it didn’t take away from the fillings at all.  But I’d say the winner of it was the coleslaw.  It was just as I imagined it would be.  I ate it in all of it’s glory.  Dramatic much?

Best part of the weekend- by far!  In my humble, foodie opinion 😉

We decided to keep walking and exploring the town afterwards (and try to burn off the million calories I just consumed but worth every morsel) and headed to the Church Brewery.  We were able to walk through the strip along the way and had a blast taking it all in.

45 minutes later (thank god for iphones) we made it to our next place on our bucket list: the brewery!

This is literally an old church that has been transformed into a brewery.  We all felt a little…..funny….being in there at first.

We were like, “this is so wrong on so many levels”.

But then the beer we ordered arrived and we got over it 😉

The beer was excellent!  We love us some locally brewed beer.  IPAs, pale ales and stouts were consumed.

As if one IPA at 2:30 in the afternoon wasn’t enough, we agreed that the sampler was absolutely necessary.  We got to taste every beer they had to offer.  To ensure that we would fairly and appropriately rate each beer, we developed a rating system.  I kid you not.  We did one beer at a time (passing it around) and giving it our rating, 1-5.  Once completed, we averaged our ratings together.  It was actually a really fun way to have a tasting together in the middle of a restaurant.  There wasn’t a clear winner, though.  We each were able to drink the rest of the beers that were our favorites.

Tried my first perogie!  We split this four ways, and one was filling enough for me for a late afternoon snack.  It had a chewy crust and creamy filling.  Perfect with beer!

After an afternoon of beer, we headed back to our hotel room to get ready for a night on the town. All of our cabbies told us that “southside” is where it’s at.  So we felt that it was necessary to hit up southside.

Picking a random pub, we found a place to sit (among the chaos of people everywhere) and ordered a quick meal.  I went with the stuffed pepper soup and salad.

That was very old and sad 😦  It was cold and you could tell it had been sitting in a pot for hours.  Sadsies.  All I wanted was another primanti sammy.

After some more bar hopping (a stop at Fat Head’s) and catching up we called it a night.

The last thing on our bucket list was dun, dun, dunnnnnn:

The incline!  We decided to ride it before we went our separate ways on sunday afternoon.  ‘Twas a little scary going up…. 

But the view was worth it.  Such a beautiful city.  I knew next to nothing about it going in, and left feeling like I learned an awful lot about what Pittsburgh has to offer.

We will be back for more delicious food and beer!  Thanks for everything, ‘Burgh!

xoxo

Alisha