A touch of Vietnam in Pittsburgh

A bowl of tasty sate soup with peanut sauce special served at Tram's Kitchen in Pittsburgh (Scott Beveridge photo)

By Scott Beveridge

PITTSBURGH – The host of an established Vietnamese restaurant in Pittsburgh is known for rushing his customers to a seat in his tiny storefront business that, from the outside, almost resembles a steelworkers' bar.

The sign in Vietnamese above the door to Tram's Kitchen in the city's Bloomfield section holds the first clue that Iron City does not flow from the taps here and is served with pickled egg appetizers.

The doors give way to long and narrow walls painted robins egg blue and lined with black lacquer artwork featuring mother of pearl designs of butterflies and fish.

Within seconds of being seated the greeter hands me a menu and quickly recommends the spicy sate soup. I order spring rolls and follow his lead, ordering the sate, even though I had come here with pho on my mind.

Pho is a broth soup featuring chicken, beef or shrimp and served widely across Vietnam, where it is considered the national dish. It's typically better stewed with American meat, which, thanks to hormones and antibiotics, is more plump and juicy than the scrawny chicken and beef found in Southeast Asia.

I was unaware of sate, and more familiar with satay, or skewers of beef and chicken served in a golden brown hot sauce at Thai restaurants. But it's apparently the same flavoring used at Tram's, which is probably the closest thing to an authentic Vietnamese restaurant in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The wait was brief for the food in this restaurant with two rows of tables covered with green and white plastic tablecloths. A small television screams an unrecognizable game show from the counter beside the cash drawer. Then only thing missing from the place is an ancestral altar, something that can be found in nearly every house and business in Vietnam. The altars are where everyone places offerings of fruit and incense to honor their deceased parents and grandparents.

Tram's spring rolls have sticky, not fried, rice wrappers. They are plump and delicious, too, and likely healthier than those served dripping in grease. This raw version is what sets Vietnamese rolls apart from the others. Mine are perfectly filled with pork, shrimp, rice and lemon grass and cost just $1.95 apiece.

I could have eaten a half dozen of them dipped in peanut sauce tinged with red hot pepper jelly. However, it was imperative to save room for that fantastic large bowl of soup, which brought the check to $12.95.

Tram's spring rolls with peanut sauce and red hot pepper sauce. (Beveridge photo)

A nice restaurant with a not-so-sweet view

BEAVER, Pa. – Lock 6 Landing is a restaurant in an impressive industrial building with a bizarre view.

Food and drink are served inside the ornate Victorian former lock and dam powerhouse whose south arched windows have a view of a messy-looking zinc plant on the opposite banks of the Ohio River.

During our stop, the floor manager appears proud to tell us the zinc plant is one of only two in the United States.

Also within view is a coal-fired power plant just up the road in Beaver County from FirstEnergy’s nuclear generating station in Shippingport.

The short driving tour of the river roads in this area has to be one of the strangest in America. Motorists heading west on Route 68 can cross the Shippingport Bridge and cruise within a stone’s throw of scary-looking cooling towers. Further ahead, a sign welcoming visitors to town proudly features a painting of the plant below clear skies and beside green trees.

Back at the restaurant near Vanport, we are seated at a table facing the river and order slices of cake oozing with chocolate syrup. We marvel at the ornate, original tin ceilings while making a chocolaty mess of the white linen tablecloth. Suddenly, a large volume of water gushes out a pipe at the zinc plant toward a container at the riverbank.

“That doesn’t look like it should be happening,” I say, before noticing there is chocolate of my knife, spoon and two forks. My friend later said chocolate was on my chin, too.

This massive brick building constructed about 1892 once contained the machinery to operate Merrill-Lock No. 6, the second of 10 that were built to improve navigation on the river in Pennsylvania. The lock and dam was abandoned, along with the house, in 1936 when new locks and a dam were constructed nearby in Midland.

The powerhouse has since been listed on the National Register of Historic Places and used as a restaurant, on and off, for the past decade. We’ll definitely be back for dinner. I have a craving for the crab cakes on the menu.

Chef blends a little soul into his menu

By Liz Rogers
Observer-Reporter

Spend a little time with Chef Al Collins and one thing quickly becomes apparent: This guy is passionate about food and cooking.

The down-to-earth owner of Al an' Ruben's Bar and Grill in Washington, Pa., is also a straight-shooter who won't be bothered with pretentious-sounding dishes or people. He points to his "Beans 'n Greens" – escarole and cannellini beans sautéed in olive oil – noting that he goes through 150 orders a week. And he affectionately refers to the comfort-food favorite, macaroni and cheese – his grandmother's recipe that he tweaked – as "crackaroni."

"Once you have it, you're done," he says, not in a boastful way.

Aside from his pastas, which are imported because he doesn't have the room to make them, everything on the menu is made from scratch. He crushes the tomatoes and grounds the basil for his sauce, and cuts his own meat and fish. He'd like to grow his own herbs for the restaurant, too.

"I just believe in the freshest product you can get," he said.

Collins has just one goal: to make and serve good food, and that's the philosophy he instills in his 22 employees.

"There's a lot of people out there that don't care, and there's very few that do," he said. "So I'm here. I'm cooking every day. I have a really good staff behind me. They're back there with me every day. They won't send anything out of the kitchen that's not right."

He treats his staff like family, and some of them actually are: Leesa, his wife, helps manage the restaurant and works in the kitchen, and two of his five children are employed there, too.

During an interview in the cozy 80-seat restaurant that hugs busy Jefferson Avenue, Collins reflected on his first year as a restaurateur. The day was typical November-dreary, but inside the eatery, the atmosphere was bright and warm. There have been some ups and downs, but for the most part, business has been good. He's looking at innovative ways to attract new customers, offering live jazz in the dining room on Wednesdays and in the bar on Thursdays.

"I'm not here to get rich," Collins said. "I want to be comfortable. And the look on people's faces when they eat food from here, it's priceless. It really is."

Chef: Al Collins, 40, owner and chef of Al an' Ruben's Bar and Grill, 2390 Jefferson Ave., Washington

Culinary experience: Trained at the former Pasta Piatto, Shadyside; Cafe Giovanni, Pittsburgh; Big Jim's Roadhouse, Hendersonville; former Bella Piatto, Peters Township

First job: Dishwasher, Pasta Piatto

"That was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. But I got so good at that. I was so good they wouldn't promote me. I finally got them to let me on the line."

Specialty: Italian, soul food

Inspiration: His grandmother, Shirley Blair

"My grandmother had me cooking when I was 7 years old ... I would sit in the kitchen with her every holiday. We'd be up till 3, 4 in the morning, making turkey, I'd be cutting vegetables, helping her with the stuffing. She was my best friend, my best friend in the world."

Favorite dish: Stuffed banana peppers

Least favorite dish: Tripe

"I don't like tripe; I won't eat liver, and I won't eat chicken gizzards. I won't eat it; I'm not going there. You won't see it on the menu."

Accolades: March of Dimes Star Chef and Signature Chef Awards

Cooking tip: Build a dish by cooking in steps. Don't throw all of the ingredients in at once. Ingredients like herbs and spices need time to marry to develop a dish's full flavor potential.

Hours: Opens 11:30 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday

Phone: 724-223-1038

This hotel bar is zapper in Canada

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Canada – The abundance of summer flowers along the street give rise to a grand early Victorian redbrick hotel in Canada, and they immediately draw me to the door.

It gives way to a richly appointed English-style room with intricately carved mahogany covering every inch of the walls and ceiling in the Prince of Wales Hotel pub in downtown Niagara-on-the-Lake.


I grab a stool, its seat upholstered in maroon leather, before hearing a loud zap, pop and fizzle behind the bar. From the corner of my right eye, a bright light flashes from a stainless steel wine and beer cooler.

“I’m not touching that,” exclaims the beautiful young female bartender while maintaining an infectious smile. “There is a fire in there.”

A waitress afraid of a shock emerges holding a white linen napkin and uses it to open the refrigerator door, releasing a putrid cloud of smoke and gases. The fire is out but, the room now stinks like burning wire and car tires. She calls for maintenance. A few minutes later, a manager comes to the rescue with a can of air freshener that she sprays around the back bar.

“There, now it smells like apples,” she says, leaving the room with more obnoxious chemicals in the air.

I wonder if I should gulp down a beer and find somewhere else to eat, even though the vegetarian sandwich advertised on the outdoor menu is calling my name.


The air clears so I order the grilled asparagus with Monteforte feta off the Churchill Lounge menu from the still-bubbly bartender. It arrives with roasted red peppers in two wedges of rosemary focaccia spread with basil mayo. A plain salad of just mixed greens equally covered in a white balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil dressing also springs from the plate. Together, they make for a great light lunch on a hot, breezy day in Upper Canada’s wine country, costing $14 in Canadian cash.

This town is understandably where dark-tanned, wealthy white boaters come to play at the juncture of the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. Niagara-on-the-Lake is commonly called one of the prettiest towns in Canada because of its quaint residential streets and small downtown lined with restaurants, shops and galleries. A half-hour’s drive from Niagara Falls, it’s a fantastic tourist destination filled with pristinely restored Colonial- and Federal-style buildings. The town dates to the 1700s, having been the first capital of Upper Canada, now known as the province of Ontario. But, the village had to be rebuilt after being leveled by American troops during the War of 1812, when the United States tried unsuccessfully to expand its territory into Canada.

The Prince of Wales, with more than 100 luxury rooms, dates to 1864. Leisurely guests can enjoy a traditional afternoon British tea in the frilly drawing room or relax at a spa. Instead, I sample a cold glass of Niagara Pale Ale, a product of the Niagara Falls Brewing Co., before taking a stroll through the downtown, where horse-drawn white carriages compete with slow-moving cars along narrow streets.

“You came at the most exciting time of the day,” the bartender says, giving a nod in the direction of the dead beer cooler.

“It was the highlight of my day,” I tell her.

Dock here matey

It’s easy to imagine a roomful of drunken sailors from a bygone era swigging back rye whiskey inside New York’s oldest dive bar, The Ear Inn.

And some women claim to have seen one named Mickey, whose ghost, they said, has crawled into bed with them in the apartment above the bar in the city’s Soho district.

The spirits have been flowing here since about 1850, when the brick house built by a black Revolutionary War veteran was turned into a waterfront bar.

His name was John Brown and his likeness was supposedly shown beside George Washington in the painting, “Crossing the Delaware.” Rumor has it, they were sailing buddies.

Having made a fortune in the tobacco trade, Brown built his Federal-style house in 1817 at the water's edge beside the Hudson River. Since then, it has been used for everything from a smuggler’s den to a speakeasy, and in between, a brothel.

Today, the house is owned by Rip Hayman, who once published a music sheet in the city named The Ear. To avoid compliance with a complicated and costly sign ordinance, he simply painted the outer edges of the letter “B” in the neon bar sign over the front door to make it an “E” and complete the word, ear.

A smaller sign at the door to the establishment at 326 Spring Street reminds patrons to pipe down and turn off their cell phones. Live music and poetry flow freely on certain evenings. The food is affordable, and the menu includes a fantastic bowl of cowboy chili with chopped onions and a dollop of sour cream.

The place is an antique in itself, with dusty old booze bottles behind the bar that were unearthed when the rear dining room was constructed. The wood floors sag and creak to create a warm and inviting place to belly up to the bar and make new friends.

Sad to say, I didn’t see Mickey, who was stabbed to death in the house during Colonial times. But then again, I wasn’t just off the water and three sheets to the wind.