TastyBurgher

Kelly’s Bar and Lounge
6012 Penn Circle South
East Liberty 15206
412-363-6012
M-Sat: 5pm-Midnight

Kelly’s is an old diner gone dive bar, retaining its deco bar and checkerboard floor - just with darker lighting and Santeria candles at every table. It is a pretty neat little place where you can usually get a table (that is, if you arrive before ~10), and where the beer selection is pretty darn good (even for being around the corner from the Sharp Edge). But what I am going to tell you is a story about is the unusual bar food selection. (more…)

Oishii Bento
119 Oakland Ave
Oakland, 15213
412-687-3335
M-S 11-8:30

Every week I thank the heavens for Oishii Bento. Situated in the heart of Oakland, this bright little Sushi and Japanese/Korean restaurant brings fresh flavors at phenomenal prices. Oishii Bento translates to the ‘yummy lunchbox’, and it is such a cute name you want to eat up everything in the whole place. (more…)

Ritter’s Diner
5221 Baum Blvd
(412) 682-4852
24 hours

Oh Ritter’s. You are so….open 24 hours a day. Everyone I’ve talked to about Ritter’s always loved it at first. Who wouldn’t – cheap, open all the time, you can go there totally plastered (totally), foods not TOO crappy, kind of close to the campuses, what’s not to like? The service! (more…)

Sweet Basil & La Filipiniana
Lawrenceville Location:
5321 Butler St
412-781-8724
T-S: 5-1

Squirrel Hill Location:
2022 Murray Ave
412-422-8950
Lunch : T-F . 11.30-3
Dinner : T-F 5-10, Sat-Sun 12-10

Looking for something exotic and interesting? Look no further: try Sweet Basil & La Filipiniana, a Thai and Filipino restaurant that is in Lawrenceville (or Larryville as the locals call it) and just added a location to Squirrel Hill. I remember wanting to go to this place probably 4 years ago, but for some reason I could never get anyone to go. Now that it has moved to Squirrel Hill, where Indian Oven used to be, it is within walking distance to my house, which means any random outing to Squirrel Hill might become a surprise trip to Sweet Basil – especially since it turns out to live up to its exotic potential. (more…)

Zaw’s Asian Foods
2110 Murray Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15217-2106
(412) 521-3663

There’s an important distinction to be made between Restaurant Chinese food in general and Take-out Chinese food specifically. Some people like both, some like one more than the other, and some haven’t realized there are important differences.

Restaurant chinese food focuses a good deal of attention on pomp and presentation. Flowers made from shaved carrots, orange wedges at the end of your meal, portions sized to fit on an oblong family-style plate — these are the hallmarks of restaurant Chinese food.
Take-out, on the other hand, has but one fundamental goal: to deliver food to you, in a form that could plausibly be described as “Chinese”, at low cost, and in two sizes: Small (an enormous amount of food packed into a small box), and Large (a doubly-enormous quantity of food packed into a slightly larger box).

Because take-out Chinese leaves little to the imagination, there’s a lot of room for variation in quality between take-out joints. The lesser among them deliver a product that can only barely pass for food, let alone Delicious Chinese Food; the best among them deliver a wide array of brightly-flavored, well-differentiated dishes, so tasty that they fairly make your hair stand on end just thinking about them. A little greasy, a little edgy, a little funky, and absolutely irresistable.

And Zaw’s is Chinese take-out in its most prime of forms.

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Tram’s Kitchen
4050 Penn Ave
Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, PA 15224
(412) 682-2688
Tue-Sun 10-10pm