Asian Food Weekend, Part 3: Salt of the Earth's Ramen Brunch

Special meals come but once in awhile.

Salt of the Earth has a fantastic dinner menu.  It changes occasionally, but no matter what appears on that chalkboard menu, you know it's going to be unbelieveable.

But remember my cardinal rule if you can't decide what to order - you can never go wrong with the duck.

A few months ago, Salt of the Earth started offering my favorite meal - brunch - on the third Sunday of each month.  Not a brunch from the chalkboard menu, but a special ramen brunch, where your only options are pork, vegetarian, or vegan ramen.  Anyone who ever spent any time in college is familiar with "ramen noodles", the dried noodles when, mixed with hot water, created a cheap yet filling meal for a poor, overworked student.

But this ramen was better.  SO MUCH BETTER.  The real deal.

When we arrived, we were told to place our order with Maggie Meskey, the cocktail wizard of Salt of the Earth.  The communal tables downstairs were pretty full, but there was also seating upstairs if needed.  A line of at least 10 people was already at the bar, so we worked our way to the end.

Spanish teachers must know good food (no matter which culture it's from), because in front of us was my colleague, Rachel, whom shares my room at school when I leave to teach my English as a Second Language Students.  A strange coincidence, but of course, we know what's good, right?

When we arrived at the bar, we placed our ramen orders - pork for James, vegetarian for me, and decided to stick with water to drink (cocktails are available, though).  We found two seats that communal tables, and waited for my name to be called with our orders.

After several minutes, my name was called, and we approached the open kitchen to fetch our food.  I couldn't wait to dig in to the steaming hot bowl of ramen!

My vegetarian ramen consisted of tofu, seitan, and egg, with plenty of veggies and ramen noodles:

Vegetarian Ramen with Egg

James's pork ramen had...pork (duh), ramen noodles (double duh), scallions, radishes, and even some fish cakes for flavor:

Pork Ramen

This apparently was the last time that the ramen brunch was going to be offered - because, according to the Tweets, ramen will be available 7 days/week at Station Street Hot Dogs (another Kevin Sousa restaurant) not far from Salt of the Earth.  Hot dogs, ramen...and their new taco menu?  Interesting...

The brunch will be changing to a spaghetti and meatballs meal, with details coming soon.  I can't imagine what awesome thing Kevin Sousa will do with spaghetti...

Salt of the Earth
5523 Penn Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15206 (Garfield)

Website: http://saltpgh.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saltpgh?fref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/saltpgh