I’m Too Old and Tired to Deal with Bad Nights (Review: DiAnoia’s Eatery)

7 April 2024

Although I did have a bit of a hangover after that delicious and fun night at Parlor Dim Sum, I had a busy Sunday in and around Pittsburgh. Sunny and warm, a perfect day. I rolled into my hotel mid-afternoon and dealt with some trip logistics for tomorrow early in the morning. I need to stop doing these Monday early AM flights…

But I was looking forward to a good dinner tonight at the very highly-rated DiAnoia’s Eatery. I first had to return my car to the airport, which was all good, but the crazy prices on rideshare into town. $80 on Lyft, really? I luckily found something a bit less on Uber, but this is ridiculous.

We rolled into the city and I walked into DiAnoia’s on a busy Sunday night. It was still hopping, and they squeezed me into a bar seat. I’m hoping it will go as well as last night! A cocktail in hand and I looked over the menu and ordered. I relaxed and some bread came out.

Not bad to fill my stomach with this cocktail. Soon after my starter came, carciofi.

These artichokes were excellent, wonderful texture and flavour, yum! I’m quite excited for this dinner now…but where is it? I shifted to a nice wine and kept waiting. And waiting… At about the half hour point I was starting to get annoyed, then I noticed they tried to deliver some food to the wrong people…

That’s my food. But wait, why two plates?

They brought my primo and secondo out at the same time. You gotta be kidding me. So they took the secondo back. And when I looked at the primo, my pasta dish, my heart sank. I thought this place was supposed to be good with Italian food?

They clearly messed up somewhere because this cacio e pepe is more like a soup. What a mess. They took a half hour to make something that most Italian restaurants would be horrified to bring out?

Look at this, it’s like I’m eating soup noodles or ramen or something.

This is how much liquid was left over afterwards. They should have called this cacio e pepe con acqua.

And when they brought my secondo out, the server just spilled the jus all over the place with no care in the world. Seriously, really?

As you can see the plate is flooded with the jus, a total soggy mess. This is their take on porchetta. Fine, but frankly this probably sat under the heat lamp because they screwed up the pasta and order, so it was really meh. I ended up pairing this with a grappa because I lost my appetite and want to forget about this evening.

Now the staff have made themselves scarce. After last night’s wonderful service by the city’s friendliest FoH crew, now I get a set of people who don’t care, and have really turned what could have been a salvageable night into one that I will remember for all the wrong reasons.

They took the pasta off the bill, as they should, because it was a joke. But with the bad food that took forever to come out, throw in the dismissive attitude of some of the staff, it sucked. I can’t believe people rave about this place. Maybe it was a bad night, but frankly I’m too tired to deal with bad nights anymore.

Avoid.

DiAnoia’s Eatery
2549 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

…the Warsaw That’s Stuck in the Past (Review: Mokotowska 69)

8 October 2023

As my Warsaw trip was sadly already coming to an end, I had to deal with some trip logistics – and rest my aching feet after a 20km+ day of exploring. One of the minor headaches of visiting Warsaw on a Sunday was limited options for non-ethnic cuisine. I was originally planning to do dinner at Butchery & Wine, but as you know I went there for a spectacular lunch.

So for dinner I decided on Mokotowska 69. Not read much about it, but seems fine enough. I took the long walk and arrived there to a rather empty restaurant. Hmmm, it’s Sunday, but still, a bad sign?

The service was nice enough so I got a nice local bottle of red, ironically one of the ones I enjoyed during that amazing tasting menu and pairing at Nuta last night. I ordered and relaxed. Soon the food started to arrive, and immediately I had a sinking feeling…

I had hoped for fresh eel, but this was jellied, and not of great quality. Even if the weird colour lighting didn’t mess up the photos, this wouldn’t have looked that much better. Cooking eel normally without smoking or jellying is so delightful, why do so many people waste eel with these stale and extremely dated techniques?

And then the flaki was bland and nowhere as good as the same I had for lunch. Now if a Polish restaurant can’t do this dish right, it says plenty.

And worse, a Polish restaurant that can’t do duck right. I love duck, and I’ve never had a bad roasted duck in Poland before. Until this evening…this was just awful. It’s like the duck’s been inside the oven since yesterday’s dinner service when no one ordered it. I nearly choked on it at times it was so dry, I ended up finishing that bottle of wine and gave up.

It’s too bad my Warsaw trip ends on such a sad note. It really reminded me of the quality of Polish cooking from decades past, when restaurants were mostly awful. It could have fit my first trip here nearly 30 years ago, but alas, this is 2023. Maybe it was a poor night, but when every dish fell flat, it says something else.

There are far better choices in this dining-rich city. Unless you are really nostalgic for some early-1990s-quality cooking, keep off Ulica Mokotowska for your dining sanity.

Mokotowska 69
Mokotowska 69
Warszawa, Polska