Our hotel was down the street from this cute square that had a few restaurants and coffee shops (Bruegger’s, Dunkin Donuts, Jimmy John’s, Starbucks and Primanti Brothers). We walked to the square from our hotel and decided to eat at Primanti Brothers to try their epic sandwiches.
Primanti Brothers has been in Pittsburgh for a long time (they started in the Strip District but they’re so popular that there are stores all over the Pittsburgh area and some in Florida, too). They’re known for their large sandwiches that have French fries as one of their fillings. Their menu is pretty straightforward with the types of meat you can put on your sandwich:
We ordered the Pittsburgher, which was freshly prepared and served to us like this:
I don’t think you can get the full perspective of how large it is, so here are the innards:
And Ken realizing how large the sandwich is:
Luckily, we only ordered one sandwich and were able to share (and we still weren’t able to completely finish!) There’s cole slaw, tomatoes, cheese, FRENCH FRIES, and meat in between two large pieces of toasted bread. It’s aggressive to even eat half of the sandwich! I didn’t know what to dip the sandwich in (ketchup seems too sweet for the rest of the sandwich even though I love ketchup with fries). We added some hot sauce to the sandwich (good call) but it was still way too much food. Ken enjoyed the first bite, but I think it was much more of a sandwich than he was expecting, too!
Last weekend, Ken and I flew to Pittsburgh to attend our friend’s wedding. It was really fun walking around Pittsburgh and showing Ken where I grew up (Squirrel Hill has changed so much but also hasn’t changed at all since I moved away). We had a really fun time at their wedding – here are a few pictures!
Yuko and her dad walking down the aisle:
The staircase at Yuko’s country club:
The delicious wedding cake:
And me and Ken at the end of the night:
The wedding was beautiful and Yuko and Mark both looked great! They’re off in Africa on a safari for their honeymoon – I can’t wait to hear about it when they get back!
After our mediocre meal at Tetsu, Ken and I ventured off the Aria property for brunch the next day. Everything is so spread out in Las Vegas that it took us a little time to get to Mon Ami Gabi, but we arrived with a few minutes to spare for the brunch menu. If possible, you should ask to be seated in the patio area because then you can enjoy the fountain show at the Bellagio across the street:
We ordered a variety of breakfast foods, including a fruit parfait, buckwheat crepes, and a spinach omelet with feta and hash browns:
Me and Ken:
The food is pretty average but it’s a fun spot to enjoy a cocktail or your breakfast as you people watch or fountain-show watch.
Back in April, I went on a work trip to Las Vegas for a few days. Ken just happened to be in Phoenix that same weekend and we ended up making a little vacation out of it. I flew into Phoenix and Ken was supposed to get on the same flight as me, but it turns out that he booked a flight for the day after and I ended up getting off the plane and we drove from Phoenix to Las Vegas together. It wasn’t a bad drive (only four hours) and it was my first time in Arizona.
We arrived in Las Vegas in the afternoon and ended up meeting up with some friends at the pool before going back to our hotel room, washing up and getting ready for dinner. Dinner didn’t end up being until around 10:30 so we decided to go to Tetsu since it was in the hotel.
Tetsu is part of Bar Masa, which is part of the Masa empire. We had eaten all day and weren’t too hungry so we decided to share a few things. The restaurant has seating around Teppanyaki grills so you can see how the chefs prepare your food. No tricks like Benihana, but the food is served quickly:
We started with the lobster:
The lobster was prepared with a chili lime dipping sauce but was flavorful on its own because it was cooked with a lot of butter.
I also ordered the grilled zucchini:
The sea bass:
And the forbidden rice sauteed with beef:
Everything was o-k not extremely special. The place is good for people watching; we saw a lot of interesting characters at the restaurant (I’ll leave it at that!) There were a lot of different options for meals in Las Vegas but it was a little too late to go anywhere when we finally got our acts together so we ended up eating at the hotel. I don’t think I’d go back.
I work in the same complex as the new “French Eataly”, so it was only proper that I would go on opening day a couple of months back. The Battery Park area has a lot of great restaurants now, including Mighty Quinn’s, Blue Ribbon Sushi, Northern Tiger, Dig Inn, Blue Ribbon Sushi and more (great for lunch, although it gets crazy packed during lunch hours because everyone goes to the food court area to eat). Le District is owned by the Financier people but their prices aren’t the same and their service is drastically different, too. While Financier runs very smoothly, there hasn’t been a lot of training for the people that work the counter at Le District and people are very snippy with customers and with their coworkers.
The day I went, we focused on the cookie display:
They sell the cookies by the 1/4 pound and offer you a free gift tin if you purchase 1/2 pound or more. I can’t recall how much it comes out to per cookie, but it was definitely expensive. My friend, Stephane, ended up buying 5-6 cookies and I thought they it would cost $12 at most but I think his total came out to over $25!
Le District also sells cute French candies:
And lots of different decorative metal tins thaty ou can purchase to fill with candy or other knicknacks. They also sell the cookies in smaller plastic bags:
Le District is split into multiple areas, including the cookies area, a crepe bar, coffee bar, to go area, and a sit down restaurant. They also sell desserts next to the crepe area:
I think the plan is to have an area where they can sell groceries, similar to Eataly, but when I visited on opening day, they were still under construction.
The coffee is slightly cheaper at Le District than Financier, but you have to put up with a little bit of a wait because the staff isn’t that well trained yet. However, it might be worth it because my coworkers that go everyday say the coffee at Le District is slightly better than Financier.
