What to Eat in Pittsburgh

Our time in Birmingham taught us that amazing food can often be found far from the city center. Rents are cheaper, which can lower the bar for risk-taking. So, whenever we venture out into Pittsburugh’s burbs (typically to go shopping for something we can’t find closer to our Southside apartment), we make a special point to forage for food.

A few weeks ago, we made a trip to Ross Park Mall so I could some Ann Taylor Loft gift cards before they expired, and so we could pick up a few things at nearby Harbor Freight. After a hot and spicy dinner at Taj Mahal (another incredible food foraging find), we pulled up Yelp to find some dessert nearby. We noticed a relatively new place (opened in October) that seemed to have a small but devoted following. It was only another 15 minutes further away, in Wexford. And, based on the name and the Yelp reviews, it claimed to have rolled ice cream.

We have learned that there are two categories of rolled ice cream: fad and authentic. Both can be delicious, but we always have a special place in our heart for the latter. And we had the good fortune to have our first authentic Thai rolled ice cream experience in June, 2016. Mr. Foodie and I were at my sister’s graduation in upstate NY. Due to a flight cancellation, we ended up switching our airport to LaGuardia, and our flight time to the next day. I booked the cheapest hotel close to the airport. When we pulled up, I realized we were in Flushing Queens’ Chinatown, a place we never actually made it to during the year we lived in Manhattan. We had already eaten dinner in preparation for the flight that never departed, but no matter. I pulled up this Eater article and off we went. We set a goal of eating at 7 of the places listed, and any other place we found along the way.

We easily met our goal of 7. As we walked between places 2 and 3, approximately, we spied this through the window of 10Below, at that time the first (and perhaps only?) place serving this treat in the US. Part of the intrigue was watching the staff meticulously make the tightly packed rolls. We had to have it, and fell instantly in love. And because we take food photos and videos whereever we go, we were able to dig this out of the archives. Many kudos to Mr. Foodie for his video editing skills:

Here’s a still shot:

 

And also, this, the finished product:

A few hours and about 40 dumplings later later, we happened upon this place. These were the first bubble waffles we had ever seen, and this dish remains one of the benchmark desserts of our lifetime. Not only was it beautiful, but the bubbles have a way of perfectly accepting the ice cream to create a classic hot-and-cold, wet-and-dry situation.

OK, keep all of that in the back of your little foodie minds.

Back to Pittsburgh, 2018. When we pulled up, our Foodie hearts jumped. A tiny new place in a strip mall. We knew from our food scouting experience that this had a high probability of being amazing.

Here’s a picture of the exterior. It’s very colorful and easy to spot.

From the sign, you can tell it is a rolled ice cream place. Here’s the menu:

 

You can also build your own with the bases listed and these toppings:

When presented with these types of options, we always choose the Asian-inspired flavors since we adore them and they’re so much harder to find. And based on our fuzzy recollection (and confirmed by the photos above), this is what we had in Queens, so we could compare apples to apples. Our first order was a green tea base with strawberries. Note the similarity of the technique with what we saw in Queens. Nice, tight rolls, with an even thickness. Pretty amazing.

Here’s the beautiful finished product, topped with a few extras of our choosing:

Excellent matcha flavor. The rolls had a nice, light consistency, exactly as we remembered it from Flushing. We could hardly contain our delight.

While we were waiting, we noticed this sign:

And then this out of the corner of our eyes:

A bubble waffle! Of course, we ordered Thai tea ice cream inside that beautiful bubble waffle. We were giddy with anticipation.

Here’s the finished product:

In all of our excitement, we struck up a conversation with the woman making our ice cream. Her name is Ebi, and just our luck, she’s the owner. She was excited that we were excited, and before you knew it, we were old friends. She told us that, before moving to Pittsburgh, she and her husband lived in…. wait for it…. Flushing. She was inspired by a friend who had a rolled ice cream place there, and wanted to open a store of her own. When they moved to Pittsburgh, her husband’s job brought them to the Wexford area, and she decided to open a store close to home – hence the location.

Ebi takes the art of rolled ice cream really seriously, which came out in conversation and which we had also noticed while watching her make those perfect little rolls. We talked for quite awhile about our mutual love of rolled ice cream, our admiration for her authentic flavors, and of course, and how glad we were that she had decided to combine the rolled ice cream with bubble waffles, which we have not seen elsewhere in the Burgh.

The place has such a warm, happy vibe, a tone that Ebi sets with her passion for the craft. As we chatted, kids from North Allegheny high school, which is just next store, filtered in and out. Ebi’s friends and family were also there, munching on their desserts. It’s just your typical Flushing-inspired Wexford-located neighborhood Thai rolled ice cream bubble waffle place.