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

Salt of the Earth Never Gets Old

Oh, Salt of the Earth.  <3

I know I'm "supposed" to write about Hispanic/Latino restaurants and foods, but if you haven't noticed, I'm a fan of ALL foods.  All.  Hispanic/Latino is a favorite, and it's what I require my students to focus on for extra credit, but come on - Pittsburgh has SO MANY AWESOME RESTAURANTS that to restrict myself to one category and ONLY write about that would be...prejudicial.

After all, if I only liked one kind of food, wouldn't I contradict my own motto: "Try something new"?

And if I only liked Hispanic/Latino foods, would I ever consider Salt of the Earth to be one of the most fabulous restaurants in all of Pittsburgh?  No.

But I do.

James took me there on a whim on a recent weekday evening.  We went early, as I knew the crowd would be light and I don't like to be out late on weekdays (since I go to bed so early).  We were seated at the end of a communal table (with no one else around us), and I let James handle the appetizer order.

We began with 3 appetizers, all fish-based: Escolar (which is no longer on the menu - this day was the last day), Hamachi, and Trout:

Escolar

Trout

Hamachi

It's a shame that the Escolar is not on the menu anymore, because it was AMAZING.  My favorite of the three, no doubt.  The rice cakes were fried - we were told that they come as small cubes, and throwing them in the fryer makes them puff up like they did.  SO GOOD.  The Hamachi and Trout did not disappoint, either.  The Trout contained sunchokes, which I had not tried before and found to be a great compliment to the fish.  The Hamachi's blend of flavors (chestnut, mint, kelp, kohlrabi, and prosciutto) was interesting and delicious.

Of course, when I go to Salt of the Earth, I have to get the Duck - each time I go, it is prepared differently, and as I've said before, "You can never go wrong with the Duck."  James agreed and ordered it as well.  On this day, the Duck was prepared with flageolet, persimmon, shiso, and duck ham:

Duck

Mannnnnn, I love being right.  I did my best to eat this as SLOWLY as possible so that I could savor every last bite.  The flageolet is a white bean with great, soft texture - a perfect accompaniment to the duck, as I was sure to smother the duck pieces with it as I ate it.

As someone who cannot eat regular ham, I found the duck ham to be a wonderful alternative.  I like the taste of ham, but my body doesn't like digesting it properly, so this was a fantastic way of getting the flavor through another medium.

The sweet flavor of the persimmons reminded me of the flavor of...icing.  Vanilla-y, I guess you could say.  Sounds weird, but when I mentioned it to James and he tried them, he understood what I meant.  Definitely a wonderful finish to the dish.

But, dessert was also in order.  First, the Cheese:

Cheese

Seven Sisters cheese, a pear sauce. and...wait, is that BREAD?!  Well, brioche, but still...no bread is served at Salt of the Earth, so this was rare.  An anomaly, even.  The dish was good, nothing too special (aside from the brioche).

Ahhh, and the Butternut:

Butternut

A butternut squash, quince, walnut, honey, miso, with a sorbet unlike any I've ever had - less sweet, more savory.  Yum.

Kevin Sousa knows what he's doing at Salt of the Earth.  Although I'm not a fan of Union Pig & Chicken, and this tacos thing at Station Street Hot Dogs has me perplexed, no one could convince me that that man does not know what he's doing in the kitchen.  He does.  More than most.

I can't wait to see what he brings to Braddock, as I'm only right across the river....

You can buy this shirt from Steel City Cotton Works.  100% of the proceeds help to rebuild Braddock, PA

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

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

Union Pig & Chicken

Um.  I'm sorry.

That's all I can really think of to start off this post.  Have you ever really wanted to like something, give it a real, REAL chance, and hope that it turned out as wonderful as you imagined...?

...and fail?  Yeah.  I'm sorry.

I had visited Union Pig & Chicken not long after they had opened.  My personal problem with the restaurant is - I can't eat pig.  If I do, my intestines do the most violent dance, causing me pain, nausea, and cramping. Gross, right?  So I don't do pig - unless it's cured, like bacon, which seems to not have the same effect.

Union Pig & Chicken

TMI?  I'm sorry again.

Anyway, I had tried the fried chicken, and it was good - not great, but much better than KFC or Popeye's or any chain restaurant.  I really did want to LOVE it, but I can't say that I did.

Then I went back, hoping to confirm that it was indeed the wonderful place that it should be.

I went with James and some other friends of ours - John, Christina, and Gabi.  However, Christina and Gabi are not from Pittsburgh (although I would definitely consider them "honorary Pittsburghers") - they hail from Germany and Croatia, respectively.  We had gone to Salt of the Earth on their last trip to Pittsburgh, and decided to keep the Kevin Sousa tradition alive on this trip.

I started off with a beverage with which I am currently obsessed - horchata.  Their version was a Pumpkin Horchata, which seemed to have some pumpkin spice mixed in with the usual horchata ingredients:

Pumpkin Horchata

To eat, I went with the Fried Chicken again, with a side of cornbread:

Cornbread and Fried Chicken

I'm so, so sorry.  The chicken didn't TASTE terrible, but it was SO GREASY that anyone who has any consciousness with health would agree that it is just not ok.  Yes, things that are bad for you taste the best, but...I mean, there's a fine line between "greasy food" and "so-greasy-it-slips-out-of-your-hands food".  The cornbread...*sigh*... it was very hard and not easy to eat.  I didn't finish it, nor when I got the rest of my meal boxed up did they even put it in my bag.  I used the leftover chicken in a salad the next day, so that I didn't feel as bad eating it again.

James had ordered a few different items: pork shoulder (which I did not try, of course), brisket, and collard greens with bacon:

Pork Shoulder, Brisket, Greens with Bacon

The brisket was good - but, again, too fatty to properly enjoy.  I realize that they don't cut the fat off and smoke it as-is, but...I felt horrible eating it.  There is such a thing as too much fat.  The collard greens were equally as greasy, but I did like the way that they tasted.

Probably the best thing that James ordered was the Shrimp Ceviche, which was a special that night:

Shrimp Ceviche

I do love ceviche, and this did not disappoint me.  A smoky flavor (from what I do not know) accompanied the usual flavors of cilantro, lime, peppers, etc., giving it an original flavor not uncommon of most of Mr. Sousa's traditional dishes.  Bravo.

Christina and Gabi decided to order a dessert, and upon all of us trying a taste of theirs, the rest of us followed suit:

Apple Crisp

Apple Crisp.  But not just any Apple Crisp - this included smoked almonds, and the smokiness could be tasted throughout the dish.  Unbelievable flavor.  Definitely a redeeming moment.

I can't apologize enough.  I really, really, REALLY wanted to love the food, but I didn't.  I don't think I'm biased due to the inability to eat pig - the non-pig items were just not balanced.  The special and the dessert were great, but not the main attraction to the restaurant.

I'll stick to Salt of the Earth.

Union Pig & Chicken
220 N. Highland Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15206

Website: http://www.unionpgh.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Union_PGH

...Station Street Hot Dogs [off-topic]

I'm not a fan of hot dogs.

I'm not.  Sorry.  If there were any food more disgusting to me, it is the hot dog.  Do you know what they put IN those things?!

If you don't, you need to see this:

However, James assured me that the hot dogs that Kevin Sousa (chef at Salt of the Earth) and his brother, Tom Sousa, chose to use at their re-working of Station Street Hot Dogs are NOT your typical hot dog.  They are 100% beef, natural casing hot dogs - I can handle that, due to the lack of pork (remember - my tummy can't handle pork) and the..."natural-ness".

So I figured I'd try.

I love the vintage look of the sign inside!

Trying a menu that Kevin Sousa has a hand in is always going to be an interesting experience.  I had so many things that were so out of my comfort zone at Salt of the Earth - and loved every single bite that I took.  Every time I see what Yo Rita tweets, I say to myself, "WHY IN THE WORLD HAVEN'T I GONE THERE YET?!  TACOS!  FANCY ONES!  THEY SOUND AWESOME!"

I shouldn't talk to myself.  Back to the hot dogs.

The menu itself is simple - hot dogs, beef or veggie, 8 ways.  Plus, they have fresh-cut fries (like the Potato Patch fries at Kennywood, for us Yinzers) and duck fat fries, about which people have raved, not just from here, but from other establishments as well.

The menu

 I opted for the Devil Dog, since I like things spicy and it sounded the spiciest: egg salad, potato chips, tabasco sauce, and scallions.  James chose the Hawaii Dog with pineapple salsa, mint, bacon, and sweet soy.  We decided to share an order of those famous duck-fat fries, too:

Hawaii Dog, Devil Dog, Duck Fat Fries

My hot dog was definitely spicy, like I predicted.  Best part?  My stomach didn't hate me for it later, like it would with a "normal" hot dog.  I tried James's Hawaii Dog, and it was sweet and tropical.  And the fries?

Oh, the fries.  I'm in love with duck fat fries.  This is so, so bad for my diet.  I need to train HARD for the 1/2 marathon to reward myself with them again!

James liked his hot dog so much that he ordered another - this time, the Traditional Dog, with yellow mustard, Heinz ketchup (the only ketchup that matters), relish, sriracha, and onions:

Traditional Dog

I think that the best part of Station Street Hot Dogs, though, is the charming atmosphere.  I felt like I was in a retro 1970's hot dog shop - ordering the fanciest hot dogs I had ever seen.  The decor, we were told, is mostly original from the previous ownership, but it's adorable.  The red-and-white checkered parchment paper and paper hot dog trays add to the nostalgia, in addition to these:

Men's Room

Ladies' Room

Trash

 And did I hear rumblings of roller skates on Twitter?

I am sure that Tom & Kevin Sousa will add more to the Station Street Hot Dog experience as time goes on and as the weather gets warmer.  In the meantime, I now know that there is a safe place for me to enjoy a hot dog in Pittsburgh.

One suggestion though - Heinz Balsamic Ketchup.  Tried it at home.  Love it.  It could only make things better...

Station Street Hot Dogs

6290 Broad Street

Pittsburgh, PA 15206 (East Liberty)

Website: http://stationstreetpgh.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Station-Street-Hot-Dog-and-Sandwich-Shop/63078237726?ref=ts&sk=wall

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/StationStHotDog