Grinders

Since getting cable a couple weeks back, I've watched a bit more TV than is my custom. In recent years, any TV is more than my custom. A show that reliably sucks me in is Food Network's Drive-Ins, Diners & Dives.



The peroxide-haired host of the show must have a singularly uncritical palate because he loves everything he tries. Well, if he doesn't lack the capacity for discrimination, then he's either having the world's longest series of best-ever meals or the restaurants on the show pay to be on it.



I know, probably that last thing. Still, I've got a big soft spot for drive-ins and diners, and even sometimes for dives. This last category is probably where Grinders would be filed.


Thing is, every time I see some funky diner profiled, I want to go try it. Bit it's invariably in some place like Michigan I can't possibly get to. I've been wanting to try The Original in Pittsburgh, PA for going on a decade now. This time, the profile was of a place I can actually visit for myself.



When I was judging beer last weekend, I talked to another judge who knew the joint, and I asked him how it was. He said, 'Well, it's probably the best beer list in town.' Then he started to talk about the food and I said, 'That was all you had to say.' He grinned and said, 'Yeah, you'd dig it the most.'




He was not wrong. I've seen a better beer list, but it was in the East Village.

Environment-wise, it's about what you'd expect for the Crossroads district: the owner is a sculptor, and his industrial artwork is all over the place. Sconces made from ductwork, a big arching tunnel of duct coming from near the door to a wall midway through the bar. A beer tower carved out of an old welding gas tank of some sort, etc.



It was on the loud side, though they turned the disco down a few ticks at one point.

As soon as Mo sat down she asked for crayons. This is part of the restaurant ritual at every restaurant she's ever been to, so when the waitress apologized that, no, they didn't have kid menus and crayons, I told Mo she was out of luck. She asked me again, and the waitress appeared with three different colors of ballpoint pen and a scratch pad. And yes, she did get a better-than-usual tip.



The chicken fingers the girls got looked, to my eye, to be just your average bar food. They ate it happily enough, but I'm not sure even Guy Fieri would have mustered much excitement about them. The pizza I had, on the other hand, was pretty damn good. It's a thin crust, baked in a proper pizza oven on the stone, crunch on the outside and chewy inside. I had the Fun Guy, a white sauce Portabella & button mushroom pie with some smoked salmon thrown on for grins. The 10" was probably more food than I should eat, but it was far from an impossible portion.



They had Delirium Tremens on tap, and to their credit they don't draw a pint of the stuff (being about 9% alcohol by volume, it's not really a drink-it-by-the-pint sort of beer). They also have a wide selection of more moderate brews, Belgian, Boulevard and otherwise. I doubt a beer snob of any stripe could fail to find a few intriguing glasses.



I don't know if I'd take the girls back, they weren't all that impressed, but I'd definitely eat there again. And if I had my dream home, an industrial loft in that very neighborhood, I could definitely adopt it as my local. In fact, there's a building right across the street that looks like the perfect conversion candidate...



Sadly, it looks like developers have sniffed out the bargains and developed them as lofts they'd like to sell me for far more than I can likely ever afford and speculators have bought up the remaining potential properties. Plus, me not being particularly handy, I'd be at some disadvantage having to contract for the finishing work. Maybe some day. Take a building like this, convert part of it to conventional (more or less — this is me after all) living space, part of it to a home brewery, part to a workshop and studio, etc.



Plus, no lawn to mow. Clear back in high school, this dream started when I realize how perfectly an old gas station would convert to a home. And being paved all around, you'd have plenty of parking when you had a party and no need of a lawn mower.



Emily objected to my musings on the basis that the mediated custody agreement states that my ex and I have to stay in the school district we're in. I didn't bother telling Em that it's more of a 'don't move out of the district against the other's wishes.' It gets complicated, relating to another divorce in the family where they only said 'metro area' and after the father overextended himself on a home in the same neighborhood as the mother for the sake of the kids, the mother moved as far away as she could and still technically be in the same 'metro.' Besides which, the custody agreement isn't nearly the obstacle that my lack of a half million dollars or so is.