Beauty in Pittsburgh
Well this is my first post to my new site www.eatshopstaylive.com for your perusing pleasure. As the home page states my goal is to provide the world with reviews from my daily living in the city of Pittsburgh, PA but to pepper in my times traveling around this great country I live in the United States of America.
Where did this page evolve out of is a question I have asked myself repeatedly till I finally ended up here. I have a passion for food, fun, and living that I want to share with you the reader. No I’m not a journalism major, professional writer, culinary expert, industry insider, or celebrity auteur. I’m just a regular guy with a regular job living with my awesome wife and daughter tired of being quiet about great service and horrible service.
See I believe I’m not alone on this front. We have all had that experience of getting set for a nice night out, or an impromptu hey let’s go grab a bite to eat and ending up at that place that we drove by, Yelped, or had a friend recommend. Then it’s the craps shoot of will I get a table, is this casual, dress up, or should I wear my fancy clothes. You wonder if the food is worth the wait and the price. Then you start looking at the menu and thinking am I good with that price, I thought this was a (fill in the blank) type of place with how the heck did hot dogs du jour which is going for $18.00 get on the menu! You wonder if this is one of those restaurants that has the magical server who is professional, polite, informative, non-intrusive that you won’t even blink leaving a nice tip for because well they rock; or do you get the joy of that server who disappears, is unengaged or worse rude who only has time to smile and be really nice when the check comes trying to get you to tip well, though their service fell far short.
Then there is the vacation time! You happily pack up, grab a flight and head off to the destination of your choosing looking for that magical moment in time where you can take some pics, post em to Facebook, Instagram, and Google + relishing the relaxation smiling every time your friends like or comment on the awesomeness. Then you get that anxiety that comes with the trip, I know TripAdvisor and the myriad of travel sites recommended the hotel, we booked through a trusted site, and well we are headed to this great place but is the hotel really a good stay or am I going to be sleeping on a bed made of lumpy straw with a pillow like a marble slab? Will I be able to find this place is it REALLY only a block from the beach or an “easy” walk to shopping. Not to mention the fun of breaking out the black light and special CSI goggles to see if the staff actually cleaned the room or it looks like a television crime scene.
How about the magic of shopping? This is something we as Americans have taken from a task or chore and turned into a hobby with some elevating it to a true art form. Well being that this is starting in the first week of the New Year 2014 it means we have all survived (in theory) the Christmas shopping season and I’m sure we all have a plethora of stories about the horrors we have all experience in the (fill in the blank) store.
So I’ve mapped out the negative side of where I will be covering and reviewing these different establishments from restaurants, stores, and lodging. I’ll be covering the good stuff also! Yes that’s the real point of this blog is to highlight the real gems that we all are hoping to find in the rough. It’s like dating, the princess has to kiss quite a few toads to find her prince or the prince has to battle through the monsters to make it to the damsel in the tower. My goal is to save you your hard earned money, precious time, and sweet sanity to let you find some absolutely amazing places to… well the name says it… eat, shop, stay, live!
I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you all and reading your feedback in return!
Eat Shop StayLive 