Saturday in Pittsburgh and I'm on the shuttle
from the Priory Hotel, headed for a late breakfast at DeLuca's in the Strip
District. DeLuca's was recommended by a friend (as well by Roadfood.com) for
its pancake breakfasts. But when I tell the shuttle driver where I want to go,
he laughs. Weekend breakfast in the Strip District is a Pittsburgh tradition,
he says, and DeLuca's — or any other eatery in the area — will be jammed, as
will the sidewalks.
He's right. It takes more than 20 minutes to go
less than three miles, and when he pulls up in front of DeLuca's, the line
outside is halfway down the block. It's snowing, and although I've got a warm
coat on, I'm wearing sneakers. By the time I get inside, my feet will be blocks
of ice. When I hesitate, the driver says, "You should try Pamela's."
Pamela's P&G
Diner is just
around the corner and has a long line too. But this line is waiting inside. I
tip the driver and he gives me one final bit of advice: On Sundays, he says,
the lines are four times as long. Better to get my Strip District breakfast
today.
I go inside, add my name to the list of people
waiting for a table. It's warm in here, relatively speaking, but every time the
door opens, a blast of icy air reminds me what it's like outside.
There’s a longstanding rivalry between DeLuca’s
and Pamela’s — both are old-fashioned diners, cash only, where breakfast is a
specialty. At Pamela’s, which is more than 30 years old, the painted-brick wall
is crowded with pictures, most of them old, but by the cash register is a
framed page from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette showing President Obama eating
pancakes there in 2008. The Post-Gazette reported that the president ordered
only a single pancake, plain, but the following spring, he invited the
co-owners to Washington to prepare their distinctive pancakes for a White House
event.
I'm not as health-minded as the president, but I
did ask that the whipped cream be left off my strawberry pancakes. They are
served crepe-style, rolled around the filling of strawberries, brown sugar and
sour cream (no butter or syrup), but they are definitely pancakes, not crepes,
very thin with crispy edges. And very good.
Around the corner is Peace, Love and Little
Doughnuts, known for its maple-bacon doughnuts. I'm tempted to get one for later,
but having already consumed more than my daily ration of sugar, show rare
restraint and pass. Instead, I wander around, doing a little sightseeing, but
the day hasn't warmed and snow flakes are landing on my sneakers, and I quickly
wrap up my icy excursion to the Strip District. I’ll be back, either in summer
or on a weekday, to try DeLuca’s.
5 million Butterbeers
Universal Orlando Resort on Wednesday served its five millionth Butterbeer, the sweet, non-alcoholic drink it created about 2 ½ years ago to serve in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Islands of Adventure. Universal isn’t giving out its secret recipe, which was approved by J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter author, but here’s a version based on cream soda that can be made at home.
Photo: Celebrating 5 million Butterbeers/Universal Orlando
'Beast' brings wine & beer to Magic Kingdom; best places for a drink at Disney World
I've heard some suggestions that Hell is about to freeze over as Disney prepares to serve alcohol for the first time at Magic Kingdom. The new Be Our Guest restaurant in Beast Castle, part of the Fantasyland expansion, will serve wine and beer as part of its sit-down dinner service in the French-themed restaurant.
According to Disney's sample menus, wine (from France and California) will run $8-$17 per glass; beer (one French, three Belgian) will be $6.25-$10.50. The restaurant officially opens Dec. 6 with the rest of the expansion, but as with the rest of the attractions has been having "rehearsals" and will have a soft opening in the next few days.
Magic Kingdom is the only park in Disney World that doesn't already serve wine, beer or cocktails, and this seemed a good time to tell you about my favorite places to drink in the other parks.
With its World Showcase, Epcot has the most opportunities for an adult beverage -- a British pub, beer at the German pavilion, champagne and Grand Marnier slushies from France -- and especially for people who love their upscaled margaritas and tequila. La Cava del Tequila (pictured at right) serves some outrageous margaritas -- some with a cactus-lemongrass or hibiscus salt rim, or perhaps flavored with cucumber and basil or muddled jalapenos. La Hacienda de San Angel also offers a variety of margaritas plus tequila flights. At both places, most margaritas are in the $12-$14 range, plus La Hacienda de San Angel fruity frozen margaritas for $9.25.
But my favorite spot for a drink at Epcot is Tutto Gusto, a wine bar that opened this spring adjacent to the Tutto Italia restaurant. It has an extensive wine-by-the-glass list, with most wines in the $7-$11 range, as well as by the quartino, a larger pour, most $11-$14. Tutto Gusto has a nice menu of small plates, cheese and cured meats ($6-$12, pictured at left) -- and its intimate atmosphere makes it perfect for lingering.
Disney's Hollywood Studios has the Tune In Lounge, the bar in the Prime Time Cafe, both with a '50s TV theme. The drinks menu features Dad's Classic Cocktails, including a classic martini, Cosmopolitan, margarita or Singapore Sling, and drinks from Dad's Liquor Cabinet, served with Dad's Experimental Electric Ice Cubes, all around $10.
I found the cheapest margaritas at the Dawa bar next to the Tusker House Restaurant at Animal Kingdom. Dawa is a roofed but open-air bar. It serves an African Margarita made with tangerine liqueur (only $8.25) as well as African beers.
Photo credits: Walt Disney Resorts
Road trip attraction: Charleston pub walk
We started out in a public square in Charleston, tagging
along after a fellow dressed in pirate get-up, and made our first stop at a
pub. We ordered brews -- I had a White
Thai, a local Belgian-inspired beer made with lemongrass and ginger root. We
drank out back in the courtyard, amid the ruins of an old bank vault, as the
pirate told us about the history of the Blind Tiger Pub and the state
Prohibition-type laws that gave the pub its name.
At our next pub stop, Griffon, we heard a tale about a pirate, Anne Bonney, who set sail from Charlestown disguised as a man, and at the next, South End, about the man who hanged himself on the third floor of the building. Then we went up to South End's third-floor bar. Whaddya mean, his ghost never left the building? Did that chair just move on its own?
We were on an Oktoberfest walking tour of Charleston's historic pubs (a slightly different version of the tour is available year-round), and there was plenty of fodder for our visits to four pubs. In one of North America's oldest cities -- and a port city at that -- even the taverns have colonial-era histories.
The tour was scheduled to run from 5-8p.m., and our pirate-guide, Mike Coker, told us it's often closer to 8:30, depending on how much we eat at the pubs and how much he talks. Mike knows his local history -- he's written a couple books on Charleston -- and was quite entertaining. Plus, we were a congenial group. So by 8:30, we were just arriving at pub no. 4, Tommy Condon's.
Click here for information on the Charles Towne Pub Stroll. Unless you've been in training, four beers plus some pub
food is plenty to consume. Don't kid yourself that you can walk it all off that
night. But the tales are calorie-free.
Road trip attraction: A Taste of Charleston
Today for my road-trip entertainment, I went to A Taste of Charleston, a festival where you buy a taste of this from one Charleston restaurant and a taste of that from another. In a place like Charleston, capital of Low Country cuisine, it's a great way to sample both the traditional and contemporary riffs on the traditional.
The festival was held at Boone Hall Plantation, which has been in existence more than 250 years and is still a working farm in the suburb of Mt. Pleasant. We had to park way out on the far reaches of the property, where the tomato and squash plants are still producing, and walk in, past the historic slave quarters, the Gullah Theater, the alley of oak trees that are more than 200 years old.
Booth after booth offered
small servings of two or three dishes each: jambalaya, gumbo, shrimp 'n grits, grilled skewers of meat, about
18 kinds each of fish tacos and sliders (mostly pork), key lime tarts, truffled
mac and cheese -- you get the idea -- for $2 to $6. Plus there was a beer
garden. The Biltmore Estate apparently had the wine franchise locked up.
I bought a tiny cup of she-crab soup and a serving of grits sticks -- cooked grits mixed with that old Southern favorite, pimento cheese, shaped into sticks, deep-fried and served with a sweet-hot sauce. Then I found a place to sit on the lawn and listen to the music. Alas, I soon discovered, the place had another Southern favorite -- gnats. Gnats in my face, my hair, my ears, under the straps of my sandals. Happily there was no charge for gnats.
Sitting there, I noticed a fashion trend: women in finely tooled cowboy boots. I'm usually oblivious to fashion, but when I was on the lawn, other people's knees were at eye level, and all the cowboy boots were impossible to miss. Apparently they go with everything (kinda like pimento cheese): Short shorts, ankle-length sundresses, mini skirts, leggings, peasant dresses, boots worn inside jeans, boots worn outside jeans. At least they would have kept the gnats off my feet.
On my next round I
sampled two truly excellent dishes -- bruschetta with spicy grilled shrimp and
arugula from Langdon's Restaurant & Wine Bar, and fried pimento-cheese
ravioli from Cork Neighborhood Bistro. The ravioli was savory-sweet and almost
could have passed for dessert. The filling was a combination of sharp cheddar
and rosemary pimento cheese, but it tasted like it was part cream cheese. The
ravioli had been lightly fried, then topped with peach-bacon marmalade. Yum!
(Photo: Best dish of the day -- spicy shrimp bruschetta with arugula)
I had to get moving. The gnats were driving me .... buggy. I heard they were selling tickets for A Taste of Marjie. I bought one more taste, a pumpkin cobbler dessert, and started waddling toward my car. Now, I realized, there was a purpose in making us park so far away -- to walk off all that pimento cheese.