Catchup

For my birthday on November 7th we really hadn't settled on anything special to do, so I proposed going to the monthly Friday evening gallery hop, called Unblurred here in Pittsburgh. Dave ended up working late and I was tired, so instead we decided to go to Ma Provence, a romantic-looking French bistro right in our neighborhood.

The restaurant is very cozy and the service was nice, the food was good if a little uneven in flavor. Dave's Mignons de Porc au Raisin et Bacon was wonderful but the weekly special steak dish was nothing special. We also had butternut squash soup which was also very yummy, and the charcuteries plate which was so-so as the pate was very cold and stiff. For dessert we had a slice of apple tart which was nicely presented but nothing special.

The bread service was unusual. The server would come by and offer you a slice every now and then. The bread was awesome, but it was a bit odd to serve it in this way. I suppose it was to make sure that the fresh and warm bread would come straight out of the oven and onto your plate.

Since the 7th was very quiet, I decided that we had to go down to the Strip on Saturday morning to breakfast at the locally famous greasy spoon, DeLuca's, shop with the crowds at the various shops, and check out the farmer's market.

DeLuca's was jammed at 8:15am so we breakfasted in another cafe just a block up the street that had yummy French toast. I wish I could remember the name of the place. Just a few doors down was a chocolate shop with novelty chocolates and chocolates from around the world. I settled on a bacon-chocolate bar, and a 100% cocoa bar.

Mmmmmm, choclate and bacon together at last!

We also stopped a lot of other stores, but there was only so much shopping I could handle and it was very cold out. On the way back to the car we stopped by the farmer's market, which was a sad little affair in a tiny parking lot next to a bar, and no one was shopping there--nothing like the crowded overflowing bounty of the Mountain View farmers market, but I suppose this is how it goes in late fall around here.

Here are some pictures of the cats acting cute:



It's been snowing off and on all week. Here's the view from our front porch:

Where's The Chocolate?

Yesterday evening we toured the Phipps Conservatory, Pittsburgh's largest public greenhouse. They were having some kind of exhibit having to do with chocolate, but what we discovered is that they had ridiculous displays of plastic flamingos and signage telling you how much fun the birds were having in the chocolate spa.

We ate in the Phipps cafe which was pretty good except I made the mistake of ordering the chocolate salad. It sounded like a neat idea, but it was not a very good combo with spinach, chocolate and dried cherry croutons, balsamic vinegar, bleu cheese, and pineapple chunks (was supposed to be strawberries but they were out).

We saw some pretty interesting plants, including a chocolate bean tree, coffee trees, and lots of cool orchids (I didn't know vanilla beans came from an orchid!).

There were also several pieces of Dale Chihuly glass on display.

At the end of the tour we were given two small pieces of chocolate from the exhibit sponsors: Dove and Trello Cioccolato (made right here in Pittsburgh!). The Trello was very good!