Pittsburgh is cocktails

A friend of ours was visiting da 'burgh for the weekend and we decided to venture out last night amidst the Halloween crowd to a bar we read about in Pittsburgh Magazine, a hole-in-the-wall speak-easy type joint creating prohibition-style cocktails, nestled in the Strip District, called Embury.

This city is not known for its cocktails like New York.  It's more a shot and beer kinda place, but if you like your crazy concoctions, or you're just trying to impress some friends (or a hot date), then this place is for you.

With books lining the walls (and hiding the bathroom), high vaulted ceilings, dim lighting and dark oak wooden tables, I felt like Don Draper from Mad Men as I sipped a Manhattan (with a twist).  The Doctor had some fruity concoction (with drops of Absinthe) while our friend had the "Faust's Pact" which truly feels like you're making a deal with the devil as you drink down the mixture of gin, jalapeno juice and cayenne pepper.  It's hot, baby.  Hot!

Needless to say, we will be returning to this joint again.

Pittsburgh is for playwrights

Yep, still here.  Sorry haven't posted for awhile, but its been a busy week.

Last weekend, the Dramatists Guild of America (of which I am a proud member) descended upon the city of Pittsburg for the entire weekend and I attempted to go to as many of the events and panels as possible.

Many thanks go to the DG Regional Rep and luminary local playwright Tammy Ryan for such a stellar and well-organized series of events.

The Doctor and I went to see the Festival in Black & White at Pittsburgh Playwrights, a festival with the inspiring idea to have black directors direct plays by white playwrights and white directors direct plays by black playwrights.  The result was a wonderful evening of contrasts and similarities.  The evening we saw had a production of the first play August Wilson ever wrote, The Janitor.

We saw a production of La Ronde at The Playhouse at Point Park University, and there was a panel on women in theater with some distinguished female actors, directors and writers.  The weekend culminated with a session at the Pittsburgh Public.

All in all, a good weekend, but a busy one.  Which is to say, this is my explanation for why I'm so behind on everything else.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Pittsburgh is good food...no, really

As some of you already know, the Doctor and I love good food.

We love to eat out, whether that be at an upscale place that we can't really afford or just grabbing great chow at a late night pub.  We also love cooking at home, of course (I'm getting quite good at making home-made pasta, actually).

We were quite spoiled living in Seattle, probably the second greatest foodie town in the U.S.  We were just as spoiled living in New York City (which I deem the numero uno foodie town).

One of our missions in da 'burgh is to find great eateries, which isn't actually all that hard, depending on what you're looking for.  You can find a diverse range of food, with the help of popcity and food blogs like foodburgh, which gave a good review of Sababa Grill, a place just down the way form us on Murray Avenue.


I'm happy to report we've found a good Thai place called Silk Elephant, located right near the corner of Murray and Forbes, only ten minutes walk from home.

The downside?  They don't deliver.  Ah, well.

Tonight, we're actually going to eat at Eat Unique, one of the few healthy alternatives in Oakland, about a block from the university.

We're still on the prowl for a good Mexican place, but we know there must be one somewhere out there.  We have some leads and will report back soon.

Pittsburgh is for Panthers

This guy (or gal) greets me every time I walk from my house to Pitt (or the Oakland Carnegie Library).

He (or she) guards the bridge over Panther Hollow, which legend has it used to have real panthers roaming around, feeding on the deer.  Now mostly there are just joggers roaming around.  And a few deer.

(The joggers don't feed on the deer.  As far as I know...)

Pittsburgh is libraries

Carnegie sucked all the marrow out of Pittsburgh steelworkers, working them literally to death, then turned around and gave them free libraries.  


Equal trade-off?  


Eh, probably not.  


But they are nice libraries…


I know that my summary of Carnegie's involvement in the development of Pittsburgh is simplistic, but now that I've got my library card, I can read more about it.


(FYI, yes the sky is really that blue today.  In October.  I promise eventually I'll stop posting about the weather.  Soon as winter comes.)

Pittsburgh is for Garmin lovers

One thing about da burgh is that you will get lost when you drive.  It’s inevitable.  And though we don’t own a Garmin, yet, we do consult google maps on a daily basis. 

I must also preface this post by mentioning the fact that I do have a keen sense of direction.  I worked as a pizza delivery driver in college.  I drove into cities and town all over the U.S. as a children’s theater tour manager.  It’s an odd phenomena for me to find myself lost, even in a new city.

It’s not so much that the roads are all that confusing in da’ burgh, though they do twist and turn around hills.  It’s just that the route to your destination is rarely the same route back.  And once you get lost on the way back, there can be this compounding effect and the next thing you know, you’re in Cleveland.

For example…

The Doctor and I are heading out for a late night theater show downtown.  We give ourselves plenty of time to get there (a ten minute drive) and find parking.  I’ve looked it up on the map and the route seems easy, so off we go.  I drive down the 376 heading east and get off downtown, heading towards Liberty.  Only problem is there’s construction, and it’s dark, and I have no idea which of the five intersecting streets I end up is actually Liberty.  So we end up going on a different road and the next thing I know I’m driving up a ramp and I’m on a bridge headed to the north side.  This isn’t good, I think.  So I get off the bridge and try to figure out where I am. 

There’s a big building that says PNC park.  Ah, that’s helpful.  I turn the car around and think to myself, “I’ll just get back on that bridge and get right back downtown.  How hard can that be?”

But there doesn’t seem to be a way to get back on that bridge.  We end up driving under it.  Then I end up on another ramp, which although the ramp was leading south to downtown, turns us around and now we’re driving north on the 279 freeway in the HOV express lane, the nearest exit 12 miles away.  We finally get off the freeway god knows where and consult the map.  The Doctor and I switch places so she can drive and I can navigate.

I figure out how to get us back on the 279 and I think how to get back downtown.

You’re probably thinking, wow, that’s rough.

But it gets worse…

Because of construction, we can’t access the bridge we needed to take (well, we could’ve taken a different route or different bridge but I didn’t know that at the time), and so we end up on the wrong bridge and are now on the other side of the river from downtown, following the most bizarre trail of detour signs.  Finally, we arrive to the entrance of the tunnel to the Fort Pitt bridge, get across the river,  and at last, are driving down Liberty, where we are met with more construction signs and it seems we can’t drive down Liberty at all, so we have to think fast and go around and around, until finally, we just park the car.

The ten-minute drive turned into forty-five minutes of anxiety where we got to traverse not one, but all three rivers.  Luckily, we still made it to the show.

My father-in-law says he’s getting me a Garmin for Christmas.  I think that might be too late to prevent any other mishaps.

Pittsburgh is for left turns

Driving in the eastern part of the U.S. has always been an adventure that I relish.

A few weeks ago, we were giving someone a ride home from a show and he jokingly said, “Were you ever a New York taxi driver?”

I shrugged because although I never drove a taxi, I did have to drive in and out of Manhattan often for the theatre tour I managed. I loved the mania of it all, the feeling that “whatever you do, don’t stop, just keep it moving”.


Pittsburgh is not as crazy as the big apple. Drivers here are far more aggressive, though, than on the west coast. This doesn't mean that yinzers aren't accommodating at all, though.

Case in point: the “Pittsburgh Left”.
 

If you’re stopped at a red light and the car across from you has the turn signal on, you have to assume that car will turn immediately when the light turns green, whether it has the right of way or not.  Cars won’t always take the Pittsburgh Left, but you just need to watch out for it.  It's better to assume they're turning. 

This maneuver has become such the unwritten rule that now cars that have the right to go straight will often stay stopped and let the oncoming car turn left, usually waving them on.  

The first time a car turned left at me, I was coming right at it and had to stop (see diagram courtesy of www.boringpittsburgh.com for my thoughts).  

And the first time a car waived me on so I could turn left, I was confused by the generosity and an action that seems the exact opposite of the aggressive idealogy of driving in this town: "Is he waving me on?  But...its his right of way, I...uh, okay..."

But now I take the Pittsburgh Left all the time, whether I deserve it or not.

Hey, I’m just trying to blend in. 

Pittsburgh is for 'arn

Here’s a peculiar thing about Pittsburgh.  

(Okay, really it’s about the whole state of Pennsylvania, otherwise known as the Quaker state.)

It's the beer situation. 

The first time I went to the beer store, and by beer store, I mean beer distributor because you can't just get your six pack at 7/11 or something, I walked around a long, long time.  All I could think was, they must have a high demand for cases here in da 'burgh.

I was informed by the friendly beer seller that we don't do 6 packs here (except for buying it from a bar directly which is like getting your buffalo wings to go). 

Now, it's not a big deal that I have to go to the state run liquor store to get my wine (even for a guy who lived in Vegas where you could practically buy hard liquor out of vending machines at daycare centers) but I find it slightly inconvenient to have to peruse a warehouse-style distributor to get my beer.  Especially since this town is a pretty big beer town.  You think they'd make it easier.  

For some reason, you didn't have to twist my arm to buy a whole case of Yuengling and case of Iron City, otherwise known as an “Arn”, ie: “I’ll have an ‘Arn”.  So I guess its an inconvenience that I really don't mind.