Recent Restaurant Reviews

I absolutely love going to new restaurants ('new' meaning restaurants that I've never been to) and eating really, really delicious food - and then I like to talk about them on Yelp. Click on the links below to view my reviews ;-)

Cafe Du Jour: Southside, Pittsburgh - 4 Stars

This lil' BYOB was just great...

It was our holiday girls night out...so here's our relatively awkward pic:

Cheers!

Surprise grab bag...

I got lucky with the poopourri...thanks, B!

Wild Mushroom Consomme...yum...inspired me to make my own mushroom soup just the other day...

Looooooved Cafe Du Jour - will be back.


Park Bruges Cafe: Highland Park, Pittsburgh - 4 Stars 

Mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels....I liked the mussels...

Eleven: Strip District, Pittsburgh - 5 Stars

If you want a really, really, really good meal - go to Eleven.


Rolands: Strip District, Pittsburgh - 1 Star...womp, womp.


Spoon: East Liberty, Pittsburgh - 5 Stars

Spoon - Delicious, local and sexy...



Happy Eating!

xo. cheers. namaste.

MK

MK's Homemade Chili

If there's one thing I love about the cold months and food -  it's chili - lots and lots of really good homemade chili. I've finally developed - taken from many spaces and places - a hearty, spicy recipe of my own.

MK's Homemade Chili

8-10 cloves of garlic - minced

1 med size onion (2 cups) - chopped

1/2 tsp salt

2 T neutral oil - such as grapeseed

2 lbs of ground beef (I use the leanest I can get - 93% lean, 7% fat typically)

2-3 T chili powder - I just got a delicious 'medium hot' chili powder from Penzeys Spices in the Strip District of Pittsburgh - just the right amount of heat!

1 tsp cumin

28 oz of diced tomatoes (I usually buy the kind with green chili's in it)

1 T red wine vinegar

2 cans of beans (you can use all kidney beans, or a combo of kidney, white or black beans)

salt/pepper to taste

optional, if you have it:

mushrooms - sauteed

parsley

shredded cheese

sour cream

Preparation and Cook time: 1 - 3 hours

- Heat the neutral oil in a dutch oven or large soup pot. Once the oil is heated, add the chopped onions, minced garlic and 1/2 teaspoon salt - saute until soft, about 8 minutes, stirring often to prevent browning.

- Add the ground meat and fry until browned, stirring often.

- Add the chili powder and cumin to the browned meat and stir, mixing the flavors for about two minutes.

- Add the diced tomatoes, red wine vinegar, and two cups of beef stock (or water) and bring to a boil.

- Add the kidney beans and salt/pepper to taste. Reduce heat and simmer for another 30 minutes to 2 hours. The longer the chili simmers, the more the flavors marry and the more delicious the chili becomes. 

- While the chili simmers you can add sauteed mushrooms if you have them. You can also add about a 1/4 cup of parsley about 5 minutes before you finish cooking

- Serve hot and garnish with parsley - add shredded cheese and sour cream for additional texture flavors.

Yummmmm!

xo, cheers, namaste,

MK

Christmas Goose and Goose Stock

So, I know this is a little delayed, but here's my little Christmas story this year. Right before the holidays, my mom decided that she was going to take on 'the project of pictures' - you know, the one that lives in the realm before digital cameras - where you just have boxes and boxes of pictures that never made into albums - well, this was found:

That's my brother (dork!), my mother, and my Aunt Gloria holding my cousin Christopher (you can only see one foot and hand) - sitting around the dinner table about 18 years ago on Christmas - with a goose. This great find naturally made me realize what we were going to have for Christmas this year - a goose - and thus, me making a goose for Christmas was born. Grandma bought me an apron for the occasion:

I searched around for some recipes, and found a fairly easy one and, as per usual, cross referenced it with my all time favorite book - my kitchen bible - Mark Bittmans "How to Cook Everything". Here was the resulting recipe:

Christmas Goose

1 10lb goose

2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp ground sage

About 3 hours.

- Preheat oven to 350. 

- Remove giblets and neck from goose. Rince goose with cold running water, drain well. Place goose breast side up, lift wings toward neck and fold them under the back of the goose. Tie the legs together with string

- Place goose, breast side down, on a rack in a large roasting pan. Prick the goose in several places to drain fat during roasting using a skewer or a sharp fork. Rub goose with salt, pepper and ground sage.

- Put the roasting pan in the oven and roast for 20 minutes. Prick the goose skin again and roast for another 20 minutes - the goose should be beginning to brown. Turn the goose breast side up, and baste with the juices from the pan (the goose will release about a quart of fat and juices while cooking - which you can keep for frying other foods if you'd like). Roast the goose for another hour - you should prick the skin and baste 2 or 3 more times.

- If the goose isn't already too browned, raise the temperature to 400 and continue to roast for another 30 minutes. At this point the bird will be done if a meat thermometer reads 165. If the bird is too brown, and needs to continue cooking, you can cover the goose loosely with foil. Another indicator that the bird is done is if the juices run clear, and the leg bone wiggles a little in the socket. 

- When done, let the goose rest for about 20 minutes before carving.

Thank you Good Housekeeping Step-by-Step Cookbook and Mark Bittman.

Carving the bird was not easy, dad really struggled - but it was worth it. A goose has nothing but all delicious dark meat. Even though the goose releases quite a lot of fat, the meat itself is very lean. We got our goose at Wholey's in the Strip District. Doesn't serve many, 6-8 people, but it was a nice addition to the ham, stuffed cabbage and other great dishes that were served for the holiday - including my grandmothers famous potato salad - recipe I must get...

So anyway, here we are:

Mother and brother (still a dork) replicating a photo from 18 years ago...

Since we had a leftover goose carcass, I decided to freeze it and make a stock out of it, made it just as I would a chicken stock:

Goose Stock

1 goose carcass

1 onion - cut in half, leaving skin on

1-2 carrots - cut in 2-3 in pieces

1-2 celery stalks - cut in 2-3 in pieces

1 bulb of garlic 

few springs of parsley

1-2 bay leaves

8 black peppercorns

1/2 tsp salt

water to cover

cheesecloth

If you don't have all the veggies to make the stock, just use what you have!

2.5-3 hours

- In a large stock pot - place goose carcass in large stock pot with all ingredients, cover with cold water

- Bring to a boil. Skim off any fat from the top (I really didn't get any), and then lower heat to simmer, partially covering pot. 

- Simmer for as long as you can, at least an hour, I left mine simmering for about 2.5 hours.

- Place a cheesecloth over a colander and strain the stock into a large bowl  - pressing on the vegetables to get any juices that have accumulated within them for extra flavoring

- Cool. If it's cold enough outside, you can place the bowl, partially covered outside to cool quickly, or if you have room in your freezer to cool uncovered. I put mine in the refrigerator overnight partially covered. Once it is cool, any fat will have solidified at the top. Use a spoon and/or paper towel to scrape the fat from the liquid.

- If you have the space and the containers, you can store the stock in the fridge for no more than a week, or the freezer for up to 6 months. Make sure to bring the stock to a boil before using it again. You can also reduce the stock by boiling it down, and either putting it in smaller containers, or if you have an ice cube tray you can boil it down to the size of an ice cube tray and freeze it that way, then place the frozen stock cubes in a plastic freezer bag to store. Simply add about a cup of water to the cube and bring to a boil when you want to use it. 

So that's it. That's my Christmas story this year - goose stock and all. 

Merry Christmas (a little late!).

xo, cheers, namaste,

MK

Winter Wonderland

It was quite the winter wonderland today in Pittsburgh. Snow, snow - and then rain, which was not so wonderlandy. But regardless - it was a great Saturday to get a workout in, and then stay home and relax.

I also decided that I need to start writing my New Years Resolutions now. I know it's corny and often overlooked - but I think it's important to have goals, something to strive for. Today I'm going to start with two:

1. Learn how to iron - yes, it's true, I don't know how to iron.

2. Learn the in's and out's of my digital SLR. Above is a photo that I took with my Panasonic Lumix DMC- GF2 - a camera I bought to take good photographs. It essentially just sits and collects dust - or is used in iAuto (aka - iLazy and never learned how to manually use my camera). I want a new camera - but for now I'll use this one because I have other financial goals that lay ahead of a new DSLR - which will be addressed in other New Years Resolutions.

I'll continue to add to the list here and there so that by the end of 2013 - I'll be ready for the beginning of 2014.

xo, cheers, namaste.

MK

Restaurant Review: Butcher and the Rye

As mentioned in my obligatory thanksgiving post, we had gone to one of the newest restaurants in Pittsburgh, Butcher and the Rye (the sister restaurant to Meat and Potatoes) the Friday after Thanksgiving. Here is my review as seen on Yelp:

"Disappointed.

I gave this joint two shots...two...

Three things I love - going to restaurants, trying new things, and my birthday. So when planning my birthday dinner and discovering that this place was opening that weekend, I thought, perfect - three of my favorite things!  Now, mind you, this is probably two weeks out from my birthday dinner. So i find the number, give them a call, and I reach a recording where I was unable to leave a message. Fine. So I call Meat and Potatoes, their sister restaurant, and I speak with the hostess there who tells me that Butcher and the Rye isn't taking reservations for the first two weeks that they are open. Fine. So I contact my dinner guests, they are fine with winging it without a reservation. We figured we'd go on the early side as we anticipate a bit of a wait.

We arrive at 7:30 on the first Saturday they are open, get to the host stand, and they asked us if we had a reservation. Excuse me? "I was told you weren't taking reservations for the first two weeks." Response: "Well, on Tuesday of this week we got so many requests for reservations we had to start taking them." Really? "We can have a table for you at 1045." Again, really?

So we decided to have a drink there and call some other places to get a table for dinner. We sat at the bar upstairs, while three or four tables behind us were empty with reservation signs on them. There were only two small groups of people at the bar including us, and I had to flag one of the two bartenders down to get their attention to my empty drink that had been sitting on the bar for at least five minutes.

We were there for about 45 minutes, and when we left there was still one open table that could have seated us. Now, having worked at restaurants for most of my late teens and early twenties I understand that you have to make room for reservations, but restaurants should also know how to turn tables quickly to accommodate walk ins (there were only three of us!).

Long story short, I decided to chalk it up to management needing to fine tune some things after the first weekend. Needing a place for dinner for the Friday after Thanksgiving, I decided to give them another shot. I made a reservation for eight, tried to bump it up to nine, but they said the most people they could accommodate at one table was eight. Fine.

When we got there, they asked us if we had reservation before we even entered the door. Yes. Then we got to the host stand - they asked us again if we had a reservation.  Yes, but it's down to seven - someone bailed last minute. The hostess did a bit of scurrying, asking probably a manger if we could still have the table they had for us with only seven. That person said yes. Then they said that two guests had arrived and were at the bar. We go see them, and our two guests were the ones that said our table was ready, the hostess didn't let us know even though we had walked right by the room with our table.

They had us in the front room with the big picnic table and the floor to ceiling window. The table and room could have comfortably accommodated ten people, but my request for nine was denied. And it was freezing. I couldn't take my coat off the entire dinner. Pretty dismal.

The food was...meh. We ordered lots of apps to share and it was quite comical because one person did the ordering, and all the food was served to her, despite it being quite obvious that all these dishes had been ordered was for the table and not just for her. Drinks took awhile to come, but the servers and food runners were very nice...so they had that going for them...

Needless to say, disappointed. Great atmosphere, cool because it's new, but probably wouldn't hit it up as dinner spot again any time soon."

womp, womp...

 xo, cheers, namaste,

MK

The Obligatory Thanksgiving Post

Thanksgiving is always a weeklong event - inspired by food, friends and usually lots and lots of wine:

This Thanksgiving week began with a trip to Thai Suan Thip, just another stop on my Tour de Thai Pittsburgh. Here is my review that I posted on Yelp:

"Small, quaint and cozy - this restaurant has a very homey, comfortable feel to it. It was a great spot to find peace on a snowy, slushy, rainy and cold winters evening.

The Tom Yum lemongrass soup was soothing and spicy, I ordered mine at a four, and while I'm a big fan of spice, the soup would have been better for me at a two or three. For my entree I ordered my staple dish at a Thai restaurant - Pumpkin Curry. The flavors of this dish were awesome and the spice level four worked well as I was able to cut the hot and spicy with the rice. The only dish I was slightly disappointed with was an appetizer of pineapple fried tofu. The description on the menu was deceiving, I thought the pineapple would play a roll in the actual fried tofu - instead we were served some bland fried tofu pieces with a pineapple dipping sauce. The sauce was tasty, but the appetizer as a whole...eh.

The service was...okay. Luckily I was out for a leisurely dinner and wasn't in any hurry as there there was only one person working the floor.  Though the restaurant is relatively small, there were quite a few people out dining for a Tuesday night. Plus with the place being a BYOB, having my own bottle of wine at the table eased any neediness from servers. Food came out slowly, but as I mentioned before, I wasn't in any hurry and it was a nice easy tempo for a relaxing dinner with a friend. The server was actually quite attentive despite being the only one there, he came around often to refill out waters and orchestrated the pace of serving well.

All in all, great place. I will most definitely be back. Happy to find a Thai place relatively close to home."

So that was fun. I always love good food and great company - got to catch up with my good friend Lisa. Here is her hiding behind her water glass as I tried to take her picture:

I'm sure she'll appreciate me posting that pic in this blog.

And here is the really delicious red wine that we had:

Moving right along to Wednesday, Meghan visited me at lunch for some Starbucks and a hello hug. And I got my birthday present from her :-) A purse that I spotted when shopping with her in NYC at this great little boutique in SOHO near her work - I wish I could remember the name of it because it was so adorable with such cute fun shopping.

After work, the feasting began at #buckoskitchen. It was Stephanie's birthday - which naturally means Tapas and champagne:

Some of the above ^^ Braised octopus, croquis st jacques, shrimp scampi, meat and cheese.

Shrimp and Conch Ceviche!

Stephs dad is just such a fantastic cook. 

Now, these aren't our best, but here's some pics of the group:

Love Annas face ^^

Happy 27th Stephanie!!

Now, sad but true - I have no pictures from the Thanksgiving feast! My family is pretty traditional in that we had a turkey, mashed and sweet potatoes, boiled carrots with butter, cranberry sauce - homemade AND from the can (that's sort of one of my guilty pleasures - cranberry sauce from the can), and a few other traditional dishes, pumpkin pie - the works.

Eating, followed by football and a sad loss for the Steelers to the Ravens- you win, Brian, you win...

Friday involved a little Black Friday shopping locally, and a disappointing dinner at Butcher and the Rye in downtown Pittsburgh. Had been wanting to try the place for a while...and, well, not sure how soon I'd be back. Possibly more on that later.

Saturday involved a lot of the couch and necessary homemade noodle soup:

Which went along nicely with a great Penn State win against Wisconsin.

Sunday was a morning/early afternoon at the Strip and a bloody mary brunch at Six Penn Kitchen - followed by lots of cooking - recipes with which I will share later. #cookingistherapeutic

For now, goodnight, and goodbye thanksgiving week 2013 - I am thankful for you and all the time you give me for friends, family and food.

happy cooking, happy birthday, happy hanukkah, happy thanksgiving.

xo, cheers, namaste.

MK

weekend events (and grilled veggie marinade)

Last weekend was another busy weekend, and as per usual, too short. After having been away for two weekends in a row (Lancaster and then Deep Creek), I was excited to stick around town, clean my apartment (yes, I was excited to do this - and I'm still not done), get my haircut and see some old friends. Friday I stayed in, but Saturday involved a 'lil girls night with some big burgers. I brought a side of veggies to grille after a successful trip to the farmers market where I also got some herbs for the kitchen windowsill - a little bit of a makeshift potting situation - but it works:

Basil, Parsley and Lemon Thyme - yum.

I picked up red, yellow and green peppers, mushrooms, zucchini and eggplant and did a really simple and easy marinade that added great flavors to the veggies:

Grilled Veggie Marinade:

2/3 c olive oil
1/3 c balsamic vinegar
1 T chopped fresh basil
1 t minced garlic
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper

I chopped up my veggies in fairly large pieces and marinated them in fridge for about 4 hours in a plastic ziplock bag - then shish kebabed them up and threw them on the grill for abut 15 minutes. So fresh and tasty:

Bianca was our host and she cooked us up some delicious burgers and put together a creative and super fun spread of toppings to choose from:

She did an amazing job with all the selections - it was such a fun thing to do during our little reunion.

Looks pretty damn good! It was such a fun night and great to catch up with some old friends:

Sunday involved an afternoon Pirates game which was very fun. Turned out to be the longest game in PNC Park history - 16 innings! They lost - but we made the most of it:

The weekend was full of good times and good eats, so as I like to say: success!

xo. cheers. namaste,

MK

Burgatory and some #softballswag

Last softball game of the year for the NR team after a long season of...zero wins. It's okay though, like they always say - the more important thing is that you had fun:

To celebrate the season we headed to Burgatory, preeeeetty sure I've mentioned this place in a post before and I'll tell you what, preeeeetty sure these are the best damn burgers in Pittsburgh:

The one 'bad' thing about Burgatory, and the only hesitation I heard from the group about going there, was that there usually tends to be a wait. Not necessarily a bad thing for the restaurant, unless it does deter people from going. Since it was a Monday night, we decided we would wing it and even if there was a wait, it would be worth it for our end of softball celebration. It was packed, even on a Monday and we did have to wait, but we also did have a party of 8. They did, however, make it a SUPER easy wait by taking our phone number so that they would text you when your table is ready. They even text you when you first put your name in with an approximate wait time - AND they give you ten minutes to get back to the restaurant or close out at the bar once your table is ready:

Pretty sweet. I had the Elk Gone Wild burger which involved delicious and lean Elk burger, smoked Gouda, caramelized onions, bacon jam, roasted tomato vinaigrette and arugula. SOOOO good. If I ever come across another Elk burger and I am in a burger mood, I would definitely get again - or maybe I'll try to make my own ;-). You can also custom create your own burgers with a choice of endless toppings. 

So needless to say, it was quite the American night with softball, beers (Great Lakes Oktoberfest - fall beers are a comin') and burgers. Yum! #softballswag

cheers. xo.

MK

it's okay to start over

Slacker!

No, not slacker - just - sidetracked.

Summer is here, but passing quickly - a lot has happened and there is a lot to come. I figured this is a great time to restart the blog:

A lot has happened, but I'm just going to start fresh. I will share that over the past two weeks I have had a lot of good eats; I visited Il Pizzaiolo, Verde, Azul (where I had the best Bloody Mary of my life), Salt of the Earth and Tessaro's. 

Il Pizzaiolo:

Il Pizzaiolo was great. I was a little weary about the wine selection - I remember this same thought the time that I visited the Mt. Lebanon location - this time I was at the newer Market Square spot - which I found to be bigger and more comfortable than Lebo overall. The waitress chose the closest option to a Sauvignon Blanc - which is my favorite wine on a hot summer night - and I was happy with her choice. Though I hate being blind to wine.

My salad was phenom. I had the Insalata Romana with arugula, radicchio, frisee, tomatoes and anchovies (which were optional - but they MADE the salad) yum:

And, naturally, I ordered a pizza, for myself:

To be fair, their pizzas are thin crust wood-fired pizza - and I did take half home ;-)

I went with the Funghi - but it was hard for me to choose between that and the Prosciutto E Arugula pizza - I was very satisfied with my choice though.

Service was good, 'til the end - when I think our waitress forgot about us. We waited for our check a little longer than I think we should have, but overall, satisfied with the service and food.

Verde:

I had a similair experience at Verde as far as service goes. Started off great and then slowly faded off, we all could have gone for a second margarita, but weren't really given the chance - pretty sure this waitress just wanted to go home. That did not, however, make my experience a bad one.

I came in with the mind set of getting the Lavender Margarita that everyone was telling me about when they talked about Verde and their delicious craft margaritas, but much to my dissapointment, the Lavender Margarita was only on their Spring menu, and we are in full swing summertime - so I had the Black Rose Margarita, which was very tasty. Loved the rosemary garnish:

For dinner I went with a pork quesadilla appetizer - which was far from just a starter and was more than enough for a meal - however, I could have been pretty stuffed from the first round of free chips and salsa that they give you, and the fresh guacomole that we had ordered before our dinners came.

Everyone I have talked to really loves this place - and I definitely give it a thumbs up as well.

Azul:

As I had mentioned before - I had the best Bloody Mary of my life last Sunday at Azul. I needed to go the grocery store because I had no food in my house, but I was starving, so I decided to go down to get a bowl of Azul soup - when the waitress (owner) presented it to me she said, "Here is your chicken stew," and that it was. Heart and delicious, great flavor and loved the big chunks of avocado in it:

AND I figured I would get a Bloody while I was waiting. Such a good decision. I'll repeat what I had mentioned earlier -  this was the best Bloody Mary I have ever had in my life. The owner (I wish I knew her name!) explained to me that they do not use any horseradish and that they use orange, lemon and lime juice. They also use a spice called Tajin, which is what is around the rim along with salt in the picture below. Basically Tajin is dehydrated lime juice, chili peppers and salt. SO GOOD. I stopped at Reyna's in the Strip this weekend to pick some up. She said it's great on cantelope and I looked online and saw that it would be good to put on cucumbers too, for something simple - excited to use it.

Salt of the Earth:

I have been wanting to go to Salt of the Earth for some time, so when my friend Lisa was coming into town for a few days I suggested that we go. It was pretty fantastic.

Their menu changes constantly because they only use fresh and local ingredients - they don't actually have a menu, they write their menu on chalkboards, as shown above. Now, I was able to check out the menu online - but it was just subject to change. Dinner was a tough choice, some very interesting combinations of food. After some help from our waiter, we went with the Alaskan Salmon and Chilled Udon as our appetizers, and I had the Hanger Steak as my main dish. The flavors and presentations were spot on:

(poor quality pictures, I blame the lighting)

Tessaro's:

So much to my surprise and excitement, my very good friend Marianne decided to visit this past Saturday. She drove in with her sister who was planning to meet some friends at Tessaro's for burgers. Having never had one of their famous burgers, I was pumped. I had the Gourmet Burger (pictured below) which was topped with pepper jack cheese (my choice), sauteed onion, sauteed mushroom, lettuce, tomato and mayo. Yea, it was good:

So, it's defintely been a foodie type of two weeks, and I'm happy for it. Looking forward to sharing more. 

xo. cheers. namaste,

MK