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

Friendliest Crew in Pittsburgh (Review: Parlor Dim Sum)

6 April 2024

My short weekend trip to Pittsburgh began a little pear-shaped as my American flight was delayed. The amount of delays these days are getting so annoying. Ruined my plans for Friday evening. In any case, I had a very busy Saturday and was hungry for a nice dinner.

Tonight I was trying out Parlor Dim Sum, which looked like a fresh take on Cantonese food. I got there and squeezed into the busy bar on this Saturday night. I relaxed as I quickly ordered a cocktail, which was pretty good. I decided to order a few dimsum and see where the night goes. And it didn’t take long before it started to come out.

The spring rolls were very hot as you can imagine, but quite good, better than the usual stuff you get. The spicy sauce was relatively mild, and almost good enough to sip on…

The shumai were less good, it seems like it may have sat for a few minutes. It was a little more liquidy, like the steam condensed in the food a little. Too bad.

The lo mai gai sticky rice was quite nice, even if they didn’t go traditional with the huck of pork belly inside.

I was pretty happy with this so I went with a larger dish. I relaxed with some wine when it came out.

This claypot rice dish was excellent, full of Chinese sausage and some excellent cured pork belly that was extremely nice. It was a large dish, but I enjoyed every morsel of it. I wish there was some burnt rice there, but when I asked my really awesome bartender about it she said people would complain if there was (?!?!). Too bad!

I was full and happy, but the fun night had really just begun. I had planned to do a bit of a bar crawl down Butler Street but it turned out I didn’t need to leave my stool here. Lots of good drinks, a few shots with the crew, some very friendly fellow patrons to chat with, and next thing you know it was nearly midnight!

I had to run, but it was a night of very good fun that I’ve not had in a long time, maybe the best bar night I’ve enjoyed since the pandemic. So despite the hangover I’m expecting tomorrow, it will be worth it!

Definitely a nice place to eat, and you get to meet the friendliest crew in Pittsburgh if not the entire region!

Parlor Dim Sum
4401 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania