Piccadilly is a well-known road in City of Westminster, London ... which you may know because of the OneRepublic song "Good Life," where he sings "Woke up in London yesterday, found myself in the city near Piccadilly..."

But, if you're in Pittsburgh, you may be more familiar with the organic artisan yogurt shop Piccadilly.

REAL FOOD
We love real food, that is why we do not use additives, preservatives, coloring, pesticides or any other chemical when making yogurt bases – only local, organic ingredients. 

ABOUT
We are a self serve yogurt shop on Washington Road in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We serve organic dairy and organic vegan frozen yogurt that is made fresh at our partner farm.

This place really focuses on organic, locally made yogurt without antibiotics or hormones. I'm sure this is a real draw for a certain group of folks; I can't say that I'm one of them. Sure, it's a nice benefit, but it's not a deciding factor on which froyo shop I'm going to.

The inside is adorable, with the self-serving yogurt and toppings to the left and a nice, cool cheery lounge feel throughout the rest of the shop.

I kept it pretty simple with the organic sea salt caramel yogurt and I placed some caramel turtles, hot caramel and brownie pieces on top. There was a nice mix of ingredients - some I don't usually see - so that was nice.

The yogurt itself was fine, but the toppings weren't nearly as rich as I anticipated - maybe because of the nature of the shop. But the best part was the hot caramel on top. That really made it for me. Cute place overall; a bunch of preteens were hanging out so we didn't stay too long, but it's charming in a sense and had some decent froyo.

Grade: B 

Random Saturday afternoons are for trips to Trader Joe's, chocolates from Sarris Candies and a boozy dinner just outside of town so it feels like you're ~getting away~. A quick search found Bistro 19 as one of the top rated restaurants in the area, so I called to see if they had any openings for dinner and lucked out.

We'd found parking a few blocks away from the building, which was cute, modern, and bustling. Inside, every table was taken up, candles flickered and the lighting was dim.

Heather and I were seated in a corner near the window of the restaurant, and I immediately ordered a red wine (Argentinian Malbec). Very good. A few features, like venison, were available. The menu has Chilean sea bass, pork tenderloin, crab cakes, filet mignon, sea scallops, duck breast, shrimp, almond chicken, salmon, a burger, lobster tail gnocchi (which I almost ordered), and orecchiette pasta (which I did order).

These are standard options, so I went for the one that was the most different. While the lobster tail gnocchi sounded good, orecchiette pasta with veal meatballs, bacon, wild mushrooms, spring peas and herb butter was a combo I've not had before.

But first, a small bread basket - both very good, and that butter was to die for. Whipped and herbed and sweet and delish.

The entree was also very, very good. Even though it was a pasta dish, it felt light with the herb butter and peas and mushrooms. The veal meatballs were very well-seasoned, and it all worked well together. The server told us that this dish will be coming off the menu soon, so get it while you can.

Overall, it was quite a good dinner. The service was a bit slow, but that was just more time to leisurely drink my wine and enjoy the meal. A nice little getaway from Morgantown resulted in a pretty good meal - one that I remembered the next day with leftovers!

Grade: A

It was a beautiful, sunny weekday evening. Blue skies, a little breeze and miles and miles of opportunity. Work was done for the day, but I didn't want to just retreat to my apartment and waste the beautiful weather. I texted Afton, "let's adventure." She responded: "OK!" She was on her way to pick me up before we even knew where we were going. She headed north, and I began searching through Urbanspoon and Yelp for good restaurants north of us. We settled on Mt. Lebanon so we didn't have to go into deep Pittsburgh, and we knew they had some cute little restaurants.



Little Tokyo popped up as a favorite - fresh sushi, the reviews said. The main location is in Mt. Lebanon, though they've opened a bistro in the Southside of Pittsburgh. We parked along the street and made our way in.

First, we received warm cloths. Ooh! That's nice. I wanted to wait until right before my meal to use them. Unfortunately, after not touching them for a few minutes, the waitress snatched them away, assuming we weren't interested. Bummer.



The menu has sushi - sashimi, nigiri, maki, hand rolls, as well as dishes like udon, hibachi and more.

I wanted to keep it fairly simple. If they claim good, fresh sushi, let's do it. I looked through a few different rolls figuring out what would be a good gauge. But then I saw the "First Date Roll," which says "it is so far the best seller in the house." That sounds promising.

The First Date Roll is crispy shrimp tempura with hot spicy tuna on top. It was eight pieces for about $12, so not too bad. I put in an order for my sushi roll and awaited this little plate of heaven.

First of all, it's beautiful. Giant tops of red tuna hid rolls of crunchy shrimp. So, I can see why it's a best-seller. Between the spicy tasty tuna and the crunchy tempura shrimp, the flavors are delicious. Delicious meal, fresh food and a really cute atmosphere. Nice time.






Grade: A

A quick weekday getaway to Pittsburgh landed Afton and I at Osaka, a sushi and Chinese restaurant located on Greentree Road. From the outside, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, with it being in a plaza with giant lettering that reads "Chinese Restaurant." Hmph.

On the sushi side, I wanted to go with their namesake - the Osaka Roll. It is a tempura roll with crab and spicy tuna. I was thinking for some reason it would be crab tempura, as opposed to the whole thing being fried. And that's my fault. But it was still good.

Fish was good, flavor was good - a little heavy on soy - but overall pretty tasty. I'd go back again and try some other dishes.

Grade: B

Work required me, and two of my colleagues, to be in Pittsburgh for a day. One of my coworkers is from the area and loves the nostalgia of a small pizza shop called Mineo's Pizza House in a nearby suburb - Mt. Lebananon. He had gone to this place since he was a child and would go to bat for it being the best pizza around. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, so on our way back, we quickly stopped by.

We had to circle a few times before we could find a meter to park at, but we finally did and raced to enter the building as the incoming storm drenched us. It seems like a pretty old school Italian restaurant. We walked in, went to the counter and picked up our pie that we had called in. They handed us a box in exchange for about $20 (which is kind of expensive - I guess that's the difference with living in a college town). We got drinks and sat in one of the booths to begin devouring our pizza.

The first thing I noticed was that it's not flat (like Casa) or thick, like Sicilian-style. It's kind of in the middle. The sauce is a rich, hearty and savory. The pizza was covered in cheese - just my style. Don't need extra cheese here. It was generously melted all over the top, and the crust had a crispness but the interior was soft and light. Pretty good slice of pie, but I haven't really had anything quite like it.

If you want something a little different than college town, take a trip. I think you'll be pleased.


Grade: A