Dinner Tuesday night celebrated two birthdays—Ben's 59th and Tom's 57th.
We enjoyed dining at the Brasserie 33 on Ellsworth Avenue for the fete. This restaurant has had several incarnations, but seems to be quite successful in its latest. The Maitre D serves as the wine list; there is nothing printed, so he works with you to pick the best wine for the meal.Since we were having fish, beef, sweetbreads and shellfish he recommended pinot noir from Burgundy. Ben tasted, Tom tasted, John tasted, John tasted. This John opted for the pinot but was overruled when a Loire Cabernet Franc arrived and became the choice after tasting a third wine, a Cotes-du-Rhone. When I remarked later to the Maitre D that I would have chosen the pinot, I was whisked a glass of it. I am sure it didn't hurt that my entire conversation was conducted in French, but it was a lovely touch.
The portions are huge, but the spicing was excellent and the presentation lovely. An appetizer of white anchovies was exquisite, and sweet breads, available both as appetizer or as a main were soft and lovely, just done perfectly, and smothered in sauce. Mashed potatoes with a cheese netting and a roasted tomato made a lovely plate.
Ben's starter of oysters was superb, followed by a bouillabaise that was complete from mussels to salmon and scallops to whitefish. His bowl was quite empty when he finished.
Tom enjoyed a boeuf bourgignon and potato leek soup, which we joked was warm vichysoisse. John had poached salmon with a seafood sauce and began with a fine mixed green salad.
We rolled back to their house.
Wednesday was visit friends and family day. Ben spent the morning with his law-school chum and John went for a ride around the city.
In the 31 years since John first moved there the place has changed dramatically. No longer a manufacturing center, downtown is sprouting as an educational, finance and health care centert. The US Steel Building is now topped as UPMC, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and the Gulf, Koppers, Equibank, and Mellon towers are now offices for numerous companies and law firmsinstead of corporate headquarters. No streetcars on the streets anymore; those are underground. And many older buildings are part of Point Park University now. New condos along the rivers make a completely changed scene. Even the PNC building has a living wall.
Our evening was with cousins Kathy and Cary who have moved into Shadyside from the North Hills. Salmon with another lovely pinot noir, this time from California, and good conversation with Ben's cousins (Cary's folks), Ruth Ann and Gene about everything from politics to religion. A grand evening spent on their back verandah overlooking their formal garden. Finished off with a lovely bourbon. The following Thursday morning was a bit slow.
Thursday we took the bus downtown to lunch with our old friend Bob at Elements in Gateway 4. I had expected this to be a fairly ordinary businsess lunch place, but instead my chef's salad was superb. No guacamole, said the waiter, but since there were white anchovies available, I got a substitute. They made the salad of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and good lettuce even better. Ben and Bob enjoyed mini-pizzas and an excellent chicken soup slightly reddened with a tomato mix.
The conversation of course was excellent. Bob does significant PR in Pittsburgh and had been a good friend for years when John was at WPXI in the early 80s. We get in touch from time to time and it is like picking up a conversation from yesterday rather than five or six years!
We stopped by cousin Cary's new restaurant venture, the Mad Mex on Highland, just across from another of his establishment, the Casbah. Mad Mex is fun. Very much for a younger crowd but at mid-afternoon had plenty of multi-generational patrons. John had one of the place's margaritas, Ben and iced coffee.
Dinner, of lovely porkchops and conversation at home in Edgewood with Tom and John and thence to bed.
Thursday we headed off for Columbus. It's about 200 miles and can be done in just over three hours, but we took Ben's sister Terry's route through Cadiz, Dennison and Coshocton instead of I-70 for the run and enjoyed it. We had done part of this before, so we were tracking known trails for half of it, but the other half had new experiences.
Unless we had lived in Ohio we would never have known that Dennison, now a sleepy village of 3000 was once a huge railroad center with over 3000 employees alone in the valley. What is now a grassy field held foundries, shunting yards, round houses and coaling shutes for over 35 scheduled trains per day. During WW1 it was a major passenger center and canteen site for soldiers heading off to Europe.
We had stopped in Dennison for coffee after our first attempt at a diner on the shores of Lake Tappan proved fruitless. The diner served ordinary coffee but also catered to bikers, fishermen and hunters, even offering holster repairs! Tappan Lake, a dammed reservoir, nestles in the eastern Ohio hills and is very pretty with its little pontoon boats and the winding road along its shore.
In Dennison we found Ruth Ann's Holy Grounds Coffee in the rectory of the old Presbyterian church in the village's old downtown.
She had never heard, of course, of Ben's highly special extra-dry skim textured cappucino, and much to the amusement of several women enjoying their coffee and sandwiches asked Ben if he'd like to make it. “You are joking?” she said. Of course not, so we explained and she began to make it while we talked with the lunchers about our trips. Two were teachers at the local middle school and lots of fun to chat with. Unfortuntately, Ruth Ann's espresso machine conked out as she was making Ben's second shot, so it will be off to Cleveland for repairs. Ben's capuccino standards can be costly and dangerous. We enjoyed what she made though, and will put Holy Grounds Coffee in Dennison on our list of coffee centers in the country—like Lasso Coffee in Gothenburg, Nebraska.
We arrived in the Short North to our BnB late in the afternoon, rested a bit and then headed off to Terry's for dinner—magret of duck, fresh asparagus, orange ginger rice, apricot mousse for dessert, and steamed mussels to start. What a lovely finish to a full day.
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