Rabbits and Tongue and Sushi, Oh My!

I have to preface this by saying that I’m not the most consistent of eaters. And by that I mean that I don’t generally eat three square meals a day, mostly because I’m a busy mom with a husband who works long hours at his restaurant. I’m also a bit lazy.

My body is used to maybe a piece of toast and two cups of coffee for breakfast, crusts of the kid’s grilled cheese for lunch, and then I’ll for the most part eat a mostly kinda sort of oh, who am I kidding. I am a "restaurant widow." Dinner is a joke. I’ll feed my children well, but for me, four days out of seven, dinner might be a bowl of Frosted Flakes at 11:00 at night.

Right now, my father is composing a strongly worded email to me that will include phrases like "The Food Pyramid" and "cancer-fighters" and "metabolism" and "I thought I raised you to eat better than that." And my mother is standing over his shoulder all, "Make sure you include ‘The United States of America’ in there somewhere."

The reason I tell you this is so you understand that my body isn’t used to rich foods in a wide array of cuisines and in plentiful amounts. My body is used to coffee and Cap’n Crunch Berries.

Which explains why my body was all, "WHOA, HORSEY!" when I attended Pittsburgh Magazine’s Best Restaurants party recently.

Sixty restaurants. One room. Food everywhere. I started with the first table I reached that didn’t have a line and found myself nibbling on rabbit. Yes, rabbit! My stomach muttered, "Hmm. This doesn’t look like Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Odd."

I followed that with a plateful of sweets from SweetHouse Bake Shop that included tiny cupcakes, miniature oatmeal cream pies, and brownies stuffed with icing. You can see a bit of that in this picture right here:

I have that weird smile on my face because I currently had a white chocolate/peanut butter cup of heaven in my mouth and because my stomach was screeching, "INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"

I followed that with things like tuna, and sushi, and marshmallows dipped in chocolate, and carrot cake, and spoonfuls of a delicious lentil concoction, quesadillas from Mad Mex, meatballs from Bocktown, more sushi from Nakama, and by the time I drank some strangely delicious, super cilantro-flavored, spicy drink from Yo Rita, my stomach panicking, "I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS!"

At another table, I eschewed the meaty triangles of cow tongue something or other that my husband said were delicious because I knew my stomach would have taken one look and yelled, "EVERYBODY OUT!"

It was the most delicious, and, by the night’s end as I sucked down the Pepto, the most painful evening of my life. But a good pain.

My eyes have been opened to the wide variety of delicious, rich, colorful, extraordinary foods offered by Pittsburgh’s best restaurants. I mean, I found a sushi taco from Typhoon that was so delicious, I’m having my next dinner date with my husband there with nary a bowl of Count Chocula in sight. And I’d never even HEARD of Typhoon before that party.

If you’re a foodie to any extent, you really must check this party out next year. I plan to be there and hopefully by then, my body won’t be so hell-bent on rejecting anything that didn’t come out of a box with a prize on the bottom.