Restaurant Review: City Grille

Paperback Writer here.

Jami invited me and I accepted. I asked her if I could contribute restaurant reviews. She said that was fine. But the more I thought about it, the more it would be Pittsburgh local restaurants. So, please forgive me. I'll actually write a review that's not food related at a later date.

And yes, if you've been paying attention to me, then you will know that my husband Loki and I used to have a strictly food reviewed based blog called Pittsburgh Foodies. Unfortunately, due to our time constraints and me working on my own blog I decided to take it down.

Ahem. Shall I do this food review now? Yes, I believe I shall.

Atmosphere Like most places in South Side, this one is predominated by a bar. Which isn't a bad thing, but since I wasn't drinking that night I really didn't pay attention to it. Also, since the bar takes up half the place you'd think there would be more smokers in there - not so. Interestingly enough, we were almost the only patrons in there.

There's no theme to the restaurant. It's just a clean, quiet place with lots of brick and not a lot of seating. There were televisions on, but they did not dominate the sound of the room.

Actually, my friends and I dominated the sound of the room. :) I surprised that they didn't kick us out with how loud we were.

Food Your basic menu here. Appetizers, salads, entrees, and burgers. Loki got the "Ultimate Burger," which was a burger topped with Brie. Yes, I said Brie. Two nice pieces of Brie, I might add, nicely melted on top of a perfect medium burger. There were fries to it, but the piece I swiped I wasn't impressed by. Too soggy. Anyway, his burger was cooked over wood so it had that nice smoky flavor; and topped off with brie? Excellent! (I've had it, so I know what I'm talking about!)

I ordered the vegetable ravioli with marinara sauce. I liked it, but really nothing stood out about it, unfortunately. Hellcat, Chowderhead's wife ordered the same ravioli but with pesto sauce. I heard no complaints from her.

Chowderhead, himself, ordered the New Zealand Rack of Lamb. They looked goooood. They sat atop of mashed potatoes and came with an order of the vegetable of the day - in this case, it was green beans. He finished his meal, so I'm guessing that he enjoyed his food as well.

I didn't catch whatMichelle ordered, but it looked good as well. And since she also finished her entree, I'm guessing she liked it.

Oh, I should add the entrees came with a mixed green salad and nice crusty rolls. You can't beat a nice crusty roll.

Service The first time Loki and I were there our waitress was very much on top of her game. Promptly brining us water and whatever we needed. This time around...not so good. I mean, our waitress was nice and all and she brought us our food, but for the life of us we could not hear what she was saying. We all strained to her what the specials were but we did not catch it.

Desserts We were full and it was late - we arrived there at 8:00pm. So, we opted not to get any type of dessert. I don't know if they actually do serve dessert. But this restaurant was in the South Side. If we desperately wanted to have dessert all we had to was walk out and find a place that did serve dessert.

Price The prices were about average. Nothing that made us say, hey, that's a good deal or that's way too expensive. For our dinner (Loki and myself) we spent about $25.00, including tip. Not too bad, really.

Misc Here's what others had to say about the City Grill.

The City Grill is located on 2019 East Carson Street in Pittsburgh. It's next to the 1889 Cafe (another restaurant, that I'm sure I'll be reviewing) and a stone's throw away from the Tiki Lounge. The phone number is (412) 431-1770.

Oh! One more unusual thing. I'm not sure if they are still doing this, call ahead to make sure. But on Thursday nights they have a scaled down version of their menu with no prices. At the end of the meal you pay what you think the meal deserves. A quirky idea that I'm not sure really took off.

But wait, what rating am I going to give this? I'll give it a four out of five stars. The things that were wrong with it could have been attributed to being an off night (waitress, my not so stunning pasta).

So, go give it try.