Pittsburgh City View, Pittsburgh Incline & Le Mont Restaurant Review

A couple of weeks ago during our Pittsburgh trip, Dale & I were told that Pittsburgh was rated #1 or #2 for the Best City View in North America, and USA Today rated it as one of the top ten views of a cityscape in the world. You can view USA Today's top ten list of  city skylines here.
We were told to go up the incline on the hillside to see the view.

So we took a quick cab ride from the Sheraton Station Square we stayed at over to the Duquesne Incline

Me in front of the incline

That's pretty neat how old this incline is. Since 1877!!
I love getting to know the historical part of a city.

(My zebra french manicure here is from this post) 

This is the inside of the Incline car

Looking up at the tracks

As we're going up you can already see a beautiful view of the city. 

Can you see Heinz Field stadium straight ahead? 

Here's a close up:

Heinz Field stadium is where the famous Pittsburgh Steelers Football team plays 

I would love to experience a football game in that stadium - I heard a lot about Steelers fans ;)

A view of downtown Pittsburgh 

Looking down at the Incline tracks 

At the top of the incline is a nice quaint neighbourhood. 

There are several outlook places to take in the beautiful view....there's also numerous restaurants too. 

Pittsburgh's only 5 star Diamond Award Restaurant, Le Mont Restaurant is located up on the hillside 

*****

Dale took me to Le Mont Restaurant for a nice Easter dinner 

(we extended our vacation, thus missing out on our Easter dinner plans at my parents place)

The ambiance at Le Mont Restaurant is very classy. 

And the view of the city from the restaurant is spectacular. Over the course of dinner we saw the beautiful sunset over Pittsburgh and then the city lights came on. 

Here's a couple of pictures of me in the restaurant

Overall, I would only recommend Le Mont Restaurant if you're looking for a classy place with a nice view of the city. If you're not concerned about a posh environment, then skip this restaurant. 

My complaints about Le Mont Restaurant were the Maitre d' and the food. 

First, the Maitre d' wasn't up on things. Dale asked for a certain bottle of wine and the Maitre d' went to see if it was still in stock since he said it's a popular choice and they might be out of it. That's fine. So the Maitre d' came back to us and said indeed the wine requested was sold out. The Maitre d' went on to suggest an alternative wine which was more than three times the price of the bottle we initially requested. Like WTF?! Why would you suggest a wine that is so much more higher in price? The restaurant has an extensive wine list so couldn't he use a bit more common sense and make a couple of alternatives within the same price range? Sheesh. On top of that, there's a note on the top of their wine list about how they have a top sommelier; well, Dale immediately picked up an error on their wine list  - one of the wines was not placed in its proper category. We mentioned it to the Maitre d' and he couldn't give us an answer nor did he seem to care to do anything about the error. Anyways, so I excused the Maitre d' and told him Dale and I would look over the wine list again. In the meantime I asked if there was herbal tea and the Maitre d's response was, "oh we have selection of Lipton tea bags." Really?!! Lipton tea bags? LOL  Okayyy, you're the only rated Five Star Diamond Restaurant in the city and you don't offer loose leaf tea or at least a better brand of tea?? *shakes head* Even the crappy grocery store near me has a selection of loose leaf teas. I didn't actually say that since that's rude, so I just asked him to bring me some fresh peppermint tea leaves in hot water. 

At that point our main waiter came around to us (yay!) and Dale & I were really pleased with our waiter, Brian. He was super nice and get this: Dale mentioned to him that the wine we initially wanted was out of stock. Brian told us he'd double check and voila, he came out with a bottle of the wine we had initially asked for (the one the Maitre d' said was "out of stock"). 

Towards the end of our meal, we asked our waiter Brian if he would be able to call a taxi for us. If there's one thing I do not like about Pittsburgh it's the severe lack of cabs. Brian said there wouldn't be many cabs running on Easter at that hour so he offered us a lift in his own car down to the other incline. Isn't that so nice of him?! 

As for the food at Le Mont Restaurant, I had ordered the Gulf Shrimp Cocktail and the Veal Piccata.  Dale and I shared the Carrot Cake and Cheesecake deserts. 

Personally I thought the food was mediocre. The traditional shrimp cocktail at Bubba Gumps in New York City was soooo much better than the shrimp cocktail at Le Mont in terms of freshness and hence taste. The Veal Piccata at Le Mont did not impress me at all and I love veal. 

Dale & I agreed the cheesecake was lacking something - and we both love cheesecake. Like, how can you go wrong with cheesecake?! But the carrot cake was great. Dale says the carrot cake at Costco is the best and joked with our waiter Brian that Le Mont should buy some cheesecake from Costco along with the carrot cake they get from there (Le Mont doesn't get their carrot cake from Costco but according to Dale they taste identical)

*****

So our waiter Brian dropped us off at the other incline, the Monongahela Incline (can you pronounce that?!) 

It's such a spectacular view of Pittsburgh city up on the hillside. 

I highly recommend anyone visiting Pittsburgh to go up one or both of the inclines. The daytime view is just as beautiful as the nighttime view. I would suggest maybe heading up the incline late afternoon/early evening to see the view of the city in daylight, go for a walk and have dinner at one of the restaurants up there while the sun sets over dinner. After dinner and perhaps another walk, you can catch a night view of the city before you take the incline back down. 

Dale thinks the only other city that could match Pittsburgh's cityscape view is Seattle, which I would love to visit someday soon. 

Isn't the view of the Pittsburgh city so pretty? 

It's really something to see in real life.

Have you ever been on an Incline before?

What was the last city you had a nice view of? 

On the hunt for some gum!

Ooooo I saw this ad for Extra Dessert Delights gum in the Instyle December 2010 issue last night

Where have I been?!  I'd love to get my hands on this!!! 

OMG I'm one of the few people I know that love mint chocolate chip

Ohhh I'll be checking all those racks of gum sold near the cashiers until I find it LOL

Have you tried this gum or seen it in stores? 

Do you have a favourite chewing gum? 

An Easy Healthy Meal...

I haven't done a food post in ages 

Here's something that Evgueni makes for me once in awhile - it's yummy, easy to make and healthy ;)

You only need three ingredients

Bread

A fully ripped avocado
You can tell it's fully ripped when it's a bit soft on the outside & it's buttery smooth on the inside

And the third ingredient is smoked salmon

Haha - so cute and silly ;P

Take a knife and cut the avocado in half - be careful of the big seed in the middle
Cut around the seed
Remove the seed and spread the avocado onto a slice of bread

Your slice should look like this after spreading avocado on it

Take slices of smoked salmon and just place them on top of the bread

Ah, and now it's ready!

Bon appetite! 

Do you have an easy healthy snack/meal that you make often?

Only Malaysia Airlines

Only Malaysia Airlines will serve you peanuts on an airplane

I thought they stopped serving peanuts on airplanes after like the 90s when peanut allergy severity 

started?
I remember in grade school, we could no longer bring peanuts or peanut butter sandwiches to school because a couple of students in the school had severe nut allergies.

Were you allowed to bring peanut or peanut butter sandwiches to school as a kid? 

Do you think airlines should serve peanuts as snacks? 

Weekend - sister's birthday, Saturday OOTD

My older sister's 35th Birthday was on Sunday :)

Unfortunately she wasn't feeling well & was down with a cold so we skipped family dinner plans. I still got a yummy slice of cake though!

Thursday night I went to C Lounge nightclub. I don't have any pictures, but it was dead there. The club's ambiance is much nicer than Brant House (love the palm trees and shallow pool on the patio!) - and the ladies were as gorgeous as ever.

If you're looking for a club in Toronto that has (1) nice ambiance and (2) beautiful ladies, I'd recommend C Lounge on a Friday or Saturday night.

Saturday night I went to Thompson Hotel's club 1812. Fuck, it was more dead than C Lounge on a Thursday. And the club is underground, nothing appealed to me - I'm not into it and don't recommend it. That's pretty sad if a club is dead on a Saturday night....here's what I wore Saturday night:

Dress from Forever 21, heels from Charlotte Russe (I still look at these shoes and think what a steal compared to those Steve Madden Caryssa heels)

Earrings from a store in China Town.

If you're ever looking for a dramatic pair of lashes, you've gotta check out the Ardell 107s.

They sell them at Pharma Plus/Rexall or, I have ordered them from Madame Madeline.

Lipgloss: MAC's Soft Dazzle Dazzleglass creme (LE?) and MAC's Poetic License LE (I luuuuv Poetic License but WTF MAC made it for the Holiday 2009 collection in a small 2.4 g/0.08 oz tube only!)

This was the only picture I have from Saturday night @ 1812 ;)

Right to Left: Patrick, Mandy, Daniel.

How was your weekend?

Salad - Russian Style

This is a super easy salad that my boyfriend made for me a couple of weeks ago - it's a very basic and common salad in Russia. I like it a lot and have made this salad myself several times already :)

If you're European, you might be laughing at me after this post because this is probably the equivalent of telling a Canadian/American how great an iceberg lettuce salad is LOL. But my boyfriend grew up in communist Russia where lettuce was unavailable (he saw lettuce for the first time in Israel when he was in his late 20s). On the other hand, I've never had a salad like this before since growing up in an Asian household, we didn't use dill or sour cream in our cooking.

What you need

-one large bowl

-1-2 tomatoes

-1 cucumber (I used seedless)

-some onion (maybe 1/5th)

-fresh dill (a bit for taste)

-sour cream

Take 1/2 - 1 whole cucumber and 1-2 tomatoes

Chop them up and put into a big bowl

Chop up some fresh dill (1-2 tbspn or to your liking) and some onion (1-2 tbspn or to your liking). Add them to your bowl.

Use enough sour cream to coat the salad (about 2-3 tbspn)

Mix, serve and enjoy :)

Do you use dill or sour cream much in your cooking?

What is your favourite kind of salad?

Sunday....MAC Mystery, MAC Brun & great ribs

Sunday: movie + foodies at my boyfriend Evgueni's studio

My favourite place to get a full rack of ribs --> Swiss Chalet (I'm not kidding. I've tried many places)

We watched Sherlock Holmes and I really liked it! Evgueni did not like the movie very much - he actually read the books and felt the books were much better. I on the other hand, have not read any of the books so I wasn't sure what to expect except for a detective movie. Whenever there is a movie based on a novel and I have read the book, I always think the book is better. Always. Is it just me?

MAC Mystery eye shadow (left) and MAC Brun eye shadow (right) with respective swatches just below each shadow pan.

I love both shadows. They're a nice matte charcoal slate colour.

Part of Evgueni's show room. The room holds his sculpture works as well as some of Maryon Kantaroff's works.

A hallway in Evgueni's studio....the three art reliefs are Maryon Kantaroff's. Evgueni and Maryon are really close friends :)

How was your Sunday? How's your week coming along so far? :)

Karen

Friday Night Branthouse + Parsley to fight onion breath!

Last night my friend Alex and I wanted to check out The Courthouse nightclub. We found out it was closed after taking a cab there. Ugh, closed on a Friday?!! Anyways, I decided we should go to trusty Brant House nightclub.

My signature sleepy look ;)


And here's Alex. Not the most flattering picture but in all his other pictures his eyes are shut




And sometimes the strangest things make me happy - like these two basil and parsley herb plants I bought on Thursday




They were only $2.99 each at Sobeys!

And maybe I'm crazy but I think these plants are kinda cute :)

I intended on buying the parsley plant because I love to eat foods with lots of garlic and onions in them. If you're like me, you'll know that even if you brush your teeth after eating, about 10 minutes after that the garlic and onion scent creep back into your breath.

Chewing gum helps. But if I'm drinking beer (any carbonated beverage), it makes me burp and yep....no need to explain further LOL.

So I heard eating parsley really helps onion breath and parsley is also often found in doggie dental bones so it must work - hence my new plant. Now I can eat my favourite foods on nights that I'm going out and drinking carbonated beverages :) I'll just wash down my onion/garlic ladden dinner with a few leaves of parsley and basil. I hope it works!

Are you currently growing any indoor plants/herbs? (no not those kinda herbs silly! LOL)

How did you spend your Friday evening?

;) Karen


And don't forget to enter my giveaway if you live in the USA or Canada and would like to win a prize! Check it out here.

Weekend Movie + Foodie

Friday night was DVD + pizza night!

I saw Law Abiding Citizen.



(source: google image)


It was interesting yet totally unrealistic, but it got the point through to me. There were definitely scenes that were too violent for my liking and I would have difficultly watching this movie on my own.

Have you seen this movie yet? What was the last movie you saw?

My condo is right beside a pizza joint called Panago Pizza. The toppings are really good! So far it is my favourite pizza place!

Evgueni and I tried the new Italian Deli pizza here. OMG, it's better than the New York Deli pizza (I'm such a meat lover)

Mmmm and wings! My favourite wings at Panago are the Honey Mustard ones here

I was flipping through a magazine a couple of weeks ago and came across this ad:



How neat is that? It's a straw made of oreos. Yum.

I use to eat a few Oreo cookies every night along with a glass of milk as a kid. And I love anything Oreo flavoured!

Have you heard of Oreo Fun Stix or tried them yet?

How was your weekend?

=) Karen