Place: Kaleidoscope Cafe (Lawrenceville)
Date:1/6/12
BYO'd:  Chappellet Cabernet Sauvignon
Corkage Fee:  $2.50/person
BYO Buzz: Cute place - off the beaten path of Butler Street (still reminiscent of prior place, River Moon Cafe).  Good food, nice mix of choices on the menu.  Great value!

Atmosphere: Cozy,probably seats around 40 people max.   They really took the kaleidoscope theme and ran with it in the decor

Service:  Service was good, slower, but she was taking care of the entire place! 


In typical BYO-ing fashion, we split all of the below

Great on this Spring-like day in January! 50+ degrees, we'll take it!
Spinach, avocado, tomatoes, roasted corn and everyone's favorite - bacon (cooked to the perfect doneness - in a's opinion).  Served with their homemade citrus-cilantro dressing.  We both thought it was a great match. The only complaint is that there wasn't enough avocado....maybe a seasonal thing???

AHHH, the Italian tater tot;)
Lightly fried, amazing sauce, a perfect mix of salty and sweet.   Like little pasta pillows, very fluffy! AND served with cute little "gnocchi forks".

Great gorgonzola cream sauce tossed with fettuccine, topped with a nice portion of beef and carmelized onions.  The best bite included a little of each.  It was also served with a side of crushed nuts to top off the deliciousness.

Well the tart was definitely tart....very lemon-y, could have used more fluff in the filling....too dense.   Berry drizzle non existent in taste.  over powered by lemon?  The best part was the rosemary crust....it had a shortbread taste.

The Wine

From A's dad's collection, very nice, not too bold Cab.  medium on the dry scale, if you like fruitier reds, this would not be for you.  Less sweet, which went well with our selections 

Much like our last attempt for a BYO "night in Paris" when we tried to review Paris 66 (no longer BYO),
tonight's original excursion was thwarted.  We had scheduled to check out J'eet on Penn Ave, however, due to lack of research we showed up and it was closed.  Apparently with their new hours, they are only open for dinner Thurs- Sat.  We shall try again.  Perhaps next week.

BUT! lucky for us, our favorite city has plenty of options nearby and we moved to our next location a couple blocks away in Bloomfield - Sausalido.

_Place: Sausalido
Date:11/9/11
BYO'd: One French Red, La Vieille Ferme.  Blend, chosen based on name and label - rustic looking.
Corkage Fee:  $3/person ($6 total)
BYO Buzz: Good stuff.  Warm and filling on a rainy night.  Pricier than you might initially think. (entrees $17-$28 range)

Atmosphere: Cozy,cute chalkboard-like tables with glass mosaic inlays caught our attention immediately.   Jammin to the oldies on the sound system, followed by some hot Prince tracks (little music identity issue there, but enjoyed by our tastes)

Service:  Kevin was very friendly and informative, and patient with our slow decision making skills.

E Squared (E2) is one of our favorites and always a place that we recommend, you will leave happy!  It's a restaurant that Mr. A and Mr. L love too ;) As a foursome, we go pretty frequently, but it being in A's backyard, her and her husband are frequent visitors for dinner and their weekend brunch. The food here is amazing, unique, and so flavorful!  They have full plates and tapas to share.  The small plates are plentiful, not like other tapas places where you're cutting 1 item into 8ths to share.  Our method is to share everything and try as much as possible when it comes to E2.  The menu is always changing with what is locally available, but they do have some return appearance from crowd favorites.  We, and this is no exaggeration, order almost every "OMG" plate that is listed on the large chalkboard, and that is just to start.   We then move on to the paper menu and order a few more tapas and then on to the full plates.  So brace yourself. you are in for a long blog :)


We did mention that it is a go-to "Couple's Night" place, but this time we had dined with a few girlfriends.  Ashley2 donated her time, again, as a guest "critic"....you may remember her from our last blog on pumpkin beers.  And, A's friend who has recently moved back to the burgh, Catherine joined in the fun. 

Place: E Squared
Date:10/26/11
BYO'd: 3 Reds(Murphy Goode Pinot Noir , Carlo's Garage Steel City Red-a blend (from Enrico's in the Strip), Chapellet Mountain Cuvee, a blend)  and 1 white (Schmidtt Sonne-a Reisling)
Corkage Fee:  $6/bottle
BYO Buzz: It is AWWWWsome :) You just have to go, you won't regret it!

Atmosphere: Remodeled house, cozy dinning room feel, downstairs "bar" and waiting area is quiet and relaxing.

Service:  Always great and friendly

Appetizers a.k.a OMG's
(their words that we agree with)

Round #1 : Gorgonzola Mess, Marinated Mozzarella, Grilled Artichoke
The "Mess"-One of the crowd favorites that I had mentioned before. it is a must if it's on the board.  It is so great.  As you can see in the pic, it is Gorgonzola mixed with a whole mess of goodness in an easy to spread form, with the perfect amount of spice to give it a kick.  I wonder how they came up with the name?

Marinated Mozz- It is a very well balanced dish.  It has a generous portion of garlic that gives it a playful kick (and keep those vampires away) coupled with the mellow taste of fresh mozz.  Throw one on the perfectly oven/gril toasted foccacia bread and you've got yourself a scrumptious app.
                                                   
                                                        Grilled Artichokes -A tasty appetizer anywhere else, but out of the three, it really had no  chance.in my opinion you can't beat the Mess, and fresh mozz is a huge fave too.  Nice accompaniment to to a piece of bread slathered in the mess and topped with one of these.

Round #2 Local beets & arugula salad and Cannellini beans with local greens (A's fave - seriously gets the beans and greens every time.)

The arugula salad was a great match of the spicy bite of the lettuce and the honey/goat cheese that came with it. 

Round #3 Polenta with Eggplant Caponata

Probably one of the best textures in polenta we could think of, pan fried to a crisp on the outside, chewy and full of the eggplant flavor.  Just one negative, could use more eggplant...

Round #4 DESSERT: Beignets and Brownie Mess

Seriously could have been the best brownie/icream combo I've had.  Perfectly cooked brownie, must have been homemade vanilla with the real vanilla flavoring.  To top it off, they added their homemade dark chocolate that is made with lavender and sea salt.  We certainly cleaned this mess up.

The Beignets were great too, more of a custard-y like filling versus a donut texture, lightly fried and soaked up the berry mess sauce perfectly.  For those of you who were like us

The Wine.... somehow only 1 got a picture, but it was the most interesting and fitting being from Enrico's in the strip

All 4 were emptied by the end of the night so who can complain!
The Chapellet is a favorite pass down from A's parents, their blend is great - warm yet crisp for these cool fall nights.
The Pinot was very drinkable, light without being too fruity.
Carlos Steel City Garage Red was definitely different from the rest.  A little thicker, less fruit taste, the sales person said it tastes like how the label looks, and we might have to agree, picture is always worth 1,000 words, right?
The Reisling, in efforts to prolong summer as long as possible (A2's avid goal) we thought this was a nice, less sweet version.  Paired nicely with the spiciness of a few of our choices.

Again, all in all, you can't go wrong here. 

Our fans have requested a harsher review and that's what we are planning to give to Kanok.  We didn't want to do it, hence the 4 weeks of "post procrastination", but here it is.  Also it's been a busy summer, vacations, all consuming periods of watching "The Wire" on HBO Go (amazing show!) and so forth, but we bring to you our first negative review....


Place: Kanok
Date:8/17/11
BYO'd: Ménage a trois White
Corkage Fee:  $5 total for wine bottle
BYO Buzz: Can get better take-out for half the price - (see our review of this joint - SBL)

Atmosphere: Looks swanky and modern, golden silverware and accents, BEST music selection (waiter said it was Jason Mraz station on Pandora).

Service:  it was good, pleasant....we got our food so that's a plus.

 Kee-mao spicy noodle dish.  (note a "2" spicy at this joint is SPI-CY!!) was ok.  again nothing stand outish.  I've definitely had more flavorful spicy noodle dishes at other Thai places.  This was ehh.  One thing to point out - the chick in the dishes was very good.  There was a bout a 2 month span where the chicken bits in thai and chinese dishes was really creeping A out, but so was not the case here.  From the 2 views of the dish, its a plentiful portion and made a good dent but took home the rest for lunch the next day... except the hubby stole it and took it with him.

Stir-fried with spicy basil sauce, bell pepper, onion, bok choy, and basil leaf served with jasmine rice. 

I am a huge sucker for jasmine rice, which was tasty.  The meal itself was your run of the meal Thai chicken dish.  It wasn't bad, it wasn't great.  To say it eloquently,  it was "eeehhhh". 

I agree with A about the non creepy chicken.  Another plus was the spicy level.  A two worked perfect for me.  It wasn't too spicy, but spicy enough for me that it kept my mouth watering....to bad the food itself didn't do it for me.

Well, it was what it said: white sticky rice with mango.  Mango was mango, rice was........sticky.

The website describes it as: Three different grapes add up beautifully in our Ménage à Trois White. Chardonnay lends its firm, rich character, while Muscat shows up wild and exotic, and Chenin Blanc plays a soft supporting role. Together they produce one show-stopping wine

L describes it as YUMMY:).  A will give that a ditto.

We're Back!  Sorry for the delay, school ending, busy work, out of town and a little crowd surfing at the Weezer concert kept us from BYO-ing!

But we're back with a really great review of Cafe Zhino.

Place: Cafe Zhino
Date: 6/29/11
BYO'd: The Shepard Sauvignon Blanc
Corkage Fee:  $5 total for wine bottle

BYO Buzz: All around EXCELLENT

Atmosphere: Super cute - think it was an old garage renovated into a tiny little restaurant.  We sat outside - sidewalk by street and enjoyed the great weather.  There is something about chilled white wine and a restaurant patio the screams summer to us.  I took a peek inside and it was tempting since it was so homey and quaint, but ultimately the  gorgeous weather won in the end.    (i mean we do live in Pittsburgh, gotta make use of those weather days when we get them!)

Service: Fantastic - great delivery of the specials (we fully bought into the Figs stuffed with bleu cheese and soup of the day - chilled melon)  and our server's recommendation to "chase the fig with our melon soup". 
They also went out of their way to split everything on separate plates for us (we went halvsies on everything this time because we couldn't decide on one thing and it was a great idea!)  Take a look at this menu and tell me if you could pick just one.

So this place has a Mediterranean feel right, but then, out of nowhere, cornbread.  And, not just any cornbread, like the best I've had.  It was a very pleasant surprise. We give it 2 corny thumbs up    :) 

Bleu cheese stuffed fig with a balsamic glaze coupled with a cold melon soup.  The way that these two dishes of opposite taste and distinction work together is like a promotion of world peace.  If a fig with both tart cheese and glaze works so well with a sweet mouthwatering cold soup, can't we all just get along?  And now that we've got you thinking so deeply, let us ask you another plaguing question.....What the heck is the difference between a fig and a date?

Wild mushroom ravioli with an amazing zesty tomato sauce, when going halvsies, three a piece.  We could have had 12 each. With a sauce so brightly orange we wondered if perhaps carrots might have been involved?

Think this picture sums up our feelings towards the main dish (and wine).  You know the dish is good when you barely talk while eating it.  Although not actually pictured, this is the second appearance of the cornbread.  We didn't feel embarrassed swiping the remainder of sauce up with my cornbread, L is the President of THE Clean Plate Club and A is the VP.

Lavender cheesecake with a berry and vanilla glaze.  In the words of Ned Flanders it was "scrumditaly-umptious".  Our rationale for getting this dessert was the pure fact that it had lavender in it and we needed it to help us get to sleep later that night.....like the whole bottle of wine wouldn't do the trick.  (L was out by 9 o'clock that night, A made it to 9:30)

L might be the President of the Clean Plate Club, but A is the President of the Empty Bottle Club.  Together they have co-founded the CPAEBC otherwise known as the......uhh see above :)

What a lovely surprise "The Shepherd" was.  From the Napa region and flavorful, yet light, this was a not too sweet with a tad more than a hint of tart wine.  Went great with all of our selections and warm sunny day.  I'd definitely buy this wine again, a good white (for A anyway) is kind of hard to come by. I could try to guess the fruit -ish flavors, but i'd be making it up... lets just say it was emptied quickly.

Place: Tamarind - Flavor of India
Date: 5/17/11
BYO'd: Robert Biale Vineyard Zinfandel
(From A's parents' collection) *see blog post "Wine Shopping!"
Corkage Fee:  $5 total for wine bottle"

BYO Buzz": Good food, decent price

Atmosphere: Homey--makes sense since it looks like a house turned into a restaurant.  We were seated in the lovely front "bay window" area.  Was light and bright, nice view of Craig street.

Service: AttentiveThey were like service spies.  I always had what I needed, but never remembered getting it.  Maybe it was magic? Or maybe I was so into the conversation. 

Appetizer:  Naan--the OG (no spices added)

SURPRISE!!!!! Dipping sauce Whoo hooo! (Doesn't take much to impress us)
If we had to guess our take on the flavors from back to front:
1. Brown Sauce - sweet, then a little spicy... something in there reminded A of a breakfast food, not syrup, maybe cinnamon? Was voted favorite sauce by both.

2. White Sauce -  Something pureed, perhaps cauliflower? very fresh, maybe a hint of garlic?

3. Green Sauce - also very fresh tasting, pesto? A little basil? didnt matter, we ate it all.

Entree:
Chicken Korma (A) Right--
Light tasting, not too spicy or sweet, perfect for  some Indian comfort food on a gross rainy night (wait - isnt that every night in Pittsburgh lately??)  Green beans on the side were also a nice addition - sweet but subtle (curry?) flavor to them.

Chicken Tikka Masala (L) Left-
-Green peppers with chicken in a tomato cream sauce.The sauce was so great I could have eaten just that along with my side of rice.  Chicken was just a protein plus.
(A's note: I second the sauce, i think i could have drank it! perfect blend of tomato and other flavors... need it bottled up as a soup!)

The Drink:  Robert Biale Vineyard Zinfandel

Really nice bottle of wine.  Surprised A's parents let her take it.  Very popular among red zin drinkers.  Dry, Crisp, went nicely with the indian food, surprisingly.Believe it or not, we recorked it and sent half a bottle back with "A".  Not sure it being a "school night" was the true, honest reason for that.  Turns out screaming your lungs out all night long in your long-neck bottle microphone at "Charlie Murdoch's" has a two day recovery time.  We are not spring chickens anymore :  (  But a great birthday weekend nonetheless. 

Have you ever felt a little less than classy carrying the evening’s brews in your purse?
Maybe you decided not to go with the forty in the paperbag this time.
Maybe it’s more of a small bag/clutch kind of night. 
Maybe you’re worried about a purse full of beer/wine and a wet phone should you be trying to run in the rain while wearing flip flops (we've all attempted that one, 50/50 chance of a fall) while carrying your precious cargo in your bag of the day.
You never can tell.

Fear not, as a gift from my mom (she knows me too well) solves the problem. Enter the “wine purse.” This stealth cylinder can hold 1 bottle of wine or 2 bottles of beer under the guise of a fashion accessory.

Complete with it's own opener (we can't be left waiting for a server to stop by! Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands) and "seat belt" for your beverage

In the lovely “snakeskin” model… may your adult beverages be safe.

My mom purchased this one from a store in Stow, OH, but a little googling led me to this site and of course, the greatest website ever for finding something - amazon.com also carries them.


-Ashley

Place: Kline's Wine Cellar/Shop
Date: 4/24/11
(Pardon the photography, taken in dimly lit basement with iphone3)

To celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, my parents took their love of wine (and each other… aww) to Napa Valley, CA.  Definitely a place on my list of things to do as well – 7 years later they still talk about their trip and different wineries they visited and the food.  And of course, best part which we get to reap the benefits from – shipments of wine from their favorite wineries –Biale, Vincent Arroyo, Chapellet, Kosta Browne and Pride.  So Easter Sunday morning while all the other kiddos got to search for lame eggs,  my dad allowed me to “shop” his collection, I was a little more than thrilled.

Of course there were the “that’s my favorite, don’t take it”, “don’t even think about it” and “oh yeah, that’d be a good one for you, we have lots more ,“ but definitely came back with a nice little sampling (except Pride – they aren’t giving up those, but we do have a bottle my parents gave us for our engagement waiting for our anniversary to pop open.)

Look for them to be featured when we BYO them soon!

(PS the Easter bunny also brought Brian a nice surprise, the “OHIO Microbrew sampler” featuring beers from Great Lakes, Thirsty Dog, Buckeye Brewing , Cellar Rat, Fat Heads and more, they’ll be sure to get some face time as well)

Place: Smiling Banana Leaf (Highland Park)
Date: 4/27/11
BYO'd: 1 bottle of Gnarly Head Old Vine Zin + L's bottle of cab
(the cab somehow went unopened...although it was a school night)

"Bottom Line": Great week night spot, value, tasty, and just enough spice

For our "company kick-off" / launch of first BYO review, we thought it would only be fitting to choose a lovely, close to one of the "Head Quarters" of BYOBurgh, and of course, have it be BYO.  Smiling Banana Leaf fit the bill on all accounts.  Located in HP, delish and won't put a dent in your "i need new summer shoes" budget.

Long members of the SBL fan club, typically a run down for quick take out, but for this special event, We chose to dine in.

Atmosphere:The recent renovations from late 2010 make the tiny space very welcoming, light airy and with a modern feel.
Service: Wonderful!

Appetizer: Fresh Spring Rolls with Chicken, comes with a sweet peanut sauce

Definitely fresh, enough to share for two, and sauce to finish it off

Entrees:
L (Left): Tom Yum Soup with Noodles and Veggies(carrots, broccoli, onions, celery, scallions, and baby corn) Medium Spice. 
YUM is right! It was very tasty and the right amount of spicy that made you want to keep on eating it. (If that makes sense.)
My new favorite Tom Yum in the 'Burgh.

A (Right): Green Curry, Medium Spice.  Great flavor of curry mixed with the coconut milk, good amount of chicken, broccoli, beans and eggplant.  Cooked so it melts in your mouth.   Plus leftovers for the next day!

And everyone's favorite part - the Wine!
Gnarly Head's Old Vine Zin

We won't claim to be wine snobs, in fact we just discussed over our dinner how much of the choice when shopping for wine falls greatly on the label (note to wine makers, invest in some good graphic designers), name, and of course price.

I think this bottle recently sold for the under $9.99 range at our local Wine & Spirits on Penn Circle.
It was good, easily drinkable, not a ton of flavor, but went well with our choice of the Thai Food spice level.