HABITAT!

Not realizing that it was the one-year anniversary of my blog, we went to one of my favorite restaurants during the Holidays . . . Habitat at the Fairmont Pittsburgh. When mom made the reservation for our dinner, she requested a table with a view of Habitat's open kitchen and let the restaurant know that I was interested in watching the action of the chefs. While the Maitre d' was not sure that they would actually have a table with a view, it turned out that we ended up with front row seats. Just after we sat down, Sous Chef Agustin Oliva visited our table and said that he heard that I liked food. He asked if we would like a tour of the kitchen and very surprised and excited I said, "Yes!"

While we couldn't go up front where the chefs were working, we were able to all have a tour of the HUGE kitchen behind. We saw big walk-in coolers full of vegetables, an entire cabinet of cooked lobsters, a smoker for salmon, and three HUGE pots for making soup (for like 200 people each)! There was a butchering cooler that freaked me out a little (I wouldn't go in) and a giant kind of chilling machine that could cool an entire pot of soup down REALLY fast. We saw coolers full of dishes prepped for Christmas Eve brunch and dinner and saw how a hotel prepares for room service. It was an amazing beginning to a truly wonderful meal.

A picture of Chef Oliva and me after the tour.

Because our dinner was after an exciting excursion to see Santa, we were hungry and so began with a few appetizers and a salad. Habitat has a tandoor oven where they make their own naan bread that is soooooooo good. My dad told me that they flatten the dough and throw it onto the side wall of the oven to cook and then we saw the chefs do this. The naan was served with house-made apple chutney, raita, and hummus. We saw the beet salad being prepared in the kitchen and ordered that as well - it was amazing! Roasted beets with curly endive and River View Dairy goat cheese and a light drizzle of local wildflower honey with a sprinkling of coriander on top. We liked it so much! We were already planning to have beets with our Christmas dinner and talking about the beets with the chef, he gave mom the recipe and she made her own version. Hers was good but - sorry mom - not as good as Habitat's.

Naan, fresh from . . .


. . . the tandoor (as my dad likes to say).
The walls look kind of like fire bricks for a kiln, or like our cob oven at school.

This is the amazing beet salad before we gobbled it up!

The chef also sent us some ricotta gnocchi with braised oxtail to try. Because the gnocchi was filled with ricotta instead of potatoes, it was so much lighter than usual. Sometimes gnocchi - a kind of pasta filled with potatoes - can load you up fast. The oxtail was really flavorful, though my parents liked it more than I did, it was a little too . . . meaty tasting for me.

Because I knew I would fill up fast (and wanted to save room for dessert), I ordered the chicken noodle soup, which I'd had there before for lunch one time. It was perfect! Warm broth, chunks of chicken, delicious noodles and carrots - warm and comforting for a winter holiday evening, especially with Habitat's delicious hot chocolate, which I love. The chef also sent over the Crab Mac and Cheese in a cool little Le Creuset kind of pot with a lid for me to try. I liked it okay but was getting too full already to taste very much. My dad had it for lunch on Christmas Eve and said it was terrific - he's a big Mac and Cheese fan too.

My parents both ordered fish and loved their dinners. My dad ordered the pan-seared Lake Erie walleye - he always likes to order something that he probably can't make at home (how would he get fish from Lake Erie?). My mom ordered the pan-roasted Laurel Hill golden trout (she'll order anything that has capers and brown butter). She was "over the moon" with her fish and almost wouldn't offer dad a taste. He liked the walleye but thought mom's was more flavorful. Next time, we all want to try the mushroom tart - it looked fabulous!

Next up . . . the desserts:

I ordered the Raspberry Sorbet, which was topped with a fan that was a wafer cookie. It may have seemed like the least fancy of the desserts but it suited me just fine because I love raspberries (we are growing them in our backyard) and Habitat knows how to make even a bowl of ice cream fan-cy.


My mom is a big gingerbread fan and ordered Habiat's Warm Gingerbread for dessert that had a hot brandy sauce, some warm apple chunks, and was served with lemon ice cream. She thought the dessert was perfect and didn't want to spoil hers by trying anyone elses (but she did try). She thought that the lemon ice cream was the perfect balance with the different kinds of sweets and spice of the gingerbread.

Dad ordered a dessert called Apple A Day because A) he loves apple anything, and B) because it was made with apples from Kistaco Farms and we know Tim Kistaco who grows the apples because he sells his apples at our farmer's market! That is another thing about Habitat that is really cool, they try to use as many fresh, local, and organic ingredients that they can manage (even in a Pittsburgh winter when there isn't much growing). It is awesome to go to a restaurant and have a dessert made with apples purchased from an apple grower that you also buy apples from at the farmer's market . . . makes everything seem really friendly, really close. It is cool, and important, to know your farmers and to know where your food comes from too, that is what I love about going to the farmer's market every Saturday morning.

The Apple A Day had Kistaco Farm apples, sour cream pound cake, caramel apples, crisp streusel, Gala apple chips, and Kistaco Farms apple cider sorbet. I think dad ordered it without the streusel. (We drink a 1/2 gallon of Kistaco apple cider every week, anything with that cider in it is good.)


The chef ALSO brought over their Chocolate Oreo Tart for us to try. Oh my gosh, we were about to explode but each managed to have a little bite. The green part was minty and the chocolate was really light. I especially liked all the little nibs on the bottom.

In seeing the restaurant reviews each week in the paper, and knowing how important service is to my mom, since she worked in restaurants for awhile through school, it seems important to talk about other things I like about Habitat too. I was glad to see that Raj was still working there. He was the waiter last year that helped us turn a slow start into a really good dinner experience. Nathaniel was our waiter this time and whenever we had a question, he knew the answer. He seemed really comfortable, even when a really big party of guests came in toward the end of our dinner.

I also like the vibe of Habitat: the dishes (the square plates, cool mugs, and glasses), the sea glass candle on the table (my mom says it is Riverside Design, a local glass company), the lamps in the dining room, and the Andy Warhol prints (yes, I do know who he is, my parents are artists and I live in Pittsburgh after all). I especially like the dining room that has the view of the open kitchen - the two other dining areas are nice but this one has all the action. As we were sitting for awhile after dessert we got to watch the kitchen take on two really big orders (maybe 16-20 plates each) and it was very much like a show, watching the different chefs buzz around, mixing salads, plating dinners, all of the attention to detail that makes this such a special restaurant. From our table it was a real treat to get to see it all.

And . . . everyone is soooooo nice too! From the house manager to the Maitre d', from Nathaniel to Chef Oliva, and it wasn't just because they knew I liked food - it has been that way EVERY time we've been to Habitat. With such nice people and such great food, it kind of feels like home, but mom and dad get a rest, and we get to try great food from one of my favorite restaurants.

Thank you Habitat for a wonderful dinner out during the Holidays!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Chef Oliva plating the Halibut.

Coming soon . . . our lunch at Marian's . . . !