Best dishes and drinks in Pittsburgh right now
Here, found and devoured by our intrepid staffers across the city and the region, are the week’s best dishes and drinks.
Chorizo tacos, Round Corner Cantina, Lawrenceville
We got there — thank God — just in time for the $5.50 happy-hour “La Cantina” margaritas. But actually it was the chance to dine al fresco on Round Corner Cantina’s inviting patio that drew us to Lawrenceville after work on Friday. We noshed on the Tajin-dusted elote ($5), but really, I was there for the chorizo tacos ($9).
The crumbled sausage is piled into warm corn tortillas, then topped with achiote, salsa arbol and peppery radish. They were spicy but pleasantly so, and a great way to start the weekend. 3720 Butler St., Lawrenceville. — Gretchen McKay
Ribs and bread, Ribs N Bread, Oakland
Business names do not get much more straightforward than the one for this tiny takeout shop on Centre Avenue, where Randy and Becky Thompson serve up barbecue and the requisite fixins.
The Thompsons are veterans of local barbecue — a decade ago the couple had a full-service restaurant, Steel City Rib House, on South Highland Avenue. That was before the dual prongs of the Great Recession and the explosion of East Liberty real estate made it a tough market for a mom-and-pop shop to survive.
Their new shop may be bare bones, but the ribs aren’t at all. A platter of four thick and juicy pork ribs had a nice smoke and were slathered in a smoldering sweet house sauce and served with a side of a particularly good creamy mac ‘n’ cheese, and as advertised, a hunk of fresh Mancini’s bread ($18.69). 4707 Centre Ave., Oakland. — Dan Gigler
Firestone Walker Brewing Co. beers at a bunch of places
I can’t say I mind this mini trend that Pittsburgh is starting to experience with out-oftown breweries coming here to open taprooms (such as Sly Fox’s Downtown one, pouring on its patio during the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and one on South Side, plus Platform’s in Bloomfield, BrewDog’s in East Liberty), but it’s not like we don’t have scores of our own breweries and more beer than we can drink. Still, I also can’t say I mind bringing in new brands of beer, either, especially in the case of a highly regarded one such as Firestone Walker.
The brewer casts a long shadow from the California coast, where, since the late 1990s, at its Paso Robles headquarters and other facilities, it’s been making, blending and barrel-aging a lot of acclaimed brews. Pittsburgh’s Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale Co. now has the local distributing rights and is pushing out the brand (purchased in 2015 by Belgium’s Duvel Moortgat) starting this week at area bars and bottleshops, distributorships and supermarkets. For instance, Greensburg’s Tapped Brick Oven & Pour House tapped a half dozen brews Monday. One beer to look for: The new, custom-hopped No. 13 version of Luponic Distortion, a series of rotating IPAs flavored only with hops — no fruit, flowers, cake, breakfast cereal, coffee — that started with No. 1 in April 2016. They could be onto something. — Bob Batz Jr.