PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The server at Pittsburgh’s version of an Italian wine bar took one gander at my finished plate and giggled.
“It looks like you really liked that a lot,” she said, after taking away a white piece of china from me that appeared as if I had licked it clean. The only think it held was a thick pork chop bone stripped of its meat at Dish Osteria and Bar in Pittsburgh’s South Side District.
Truth be told, I had to restrain myself from gnawing on that bone to get from it every last morsel of pork before she left with that plate.
That’s the real way to judge a good meal and identify a redneck from a not-so-cosmopolitan bend in the middle Monongahela River valley in southwestern Pennsylvania.
From the small menu, I selected the Costata di Maiale Ripiena in bold print and thankfully above its English translation: pan roasted pork chop stuffed with prosciutto, truffle cheese and basil served with a parmesan mashed potatoes and broccolini.
I was drawn to this corner bar at 128 S 17th St. after smelling good grub cooking while walking along the inner streets of the South Side Flats. I looked in a window and decided to take a seat at the copper bar just after dusk on a Saturday night and before the crowds arrive in this bar-filled party town.
Foodie reviewers have been good to this restaurant since it opened in 2001. Believe what they have said about the quiet little place that is a perfect destination for a great romantic meal.
