Foodie Adventure PGH Edition 2023
Ever since my coworker Chang Shu from Northeast Division said she was interested to learn about how I host Chinatown Crawl events, I began to show her how I host these types of foodie events. But explaining in emails is very limited. I decided to do it in person. On October 29, 2023, I took a group of coworkers to a Foodie Adventure in Squirrel Hill Pittsburg Pennsylvania.
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| Finally meeting everyone in person as we planned virtual events during Covid |
Back in May, me and my foodie friend, Nahun booked our airfare to visit Pittsburgh. After chatting with Chang, I learned Squirrel Hill as the area of interest. I started to plot my plan on which restaurants to feature.
Few months later, I created a Google Map with restaurants that I thought might be a good fit for this progressive-dinner event. She started to share the event with her teammates and contacts. Meanwhile, I started to read the restaurants reviews on Yelp and get familiar with the area. For the ease of RSVP to the event, I created an Eventbrite page, which contains preliminary details of the event. After fine tuning the event, I updated with a precise step-by-step itinerary.
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| Popular Asian snacks are found in the Goodie Bags |
A week before the event, we met on Teams and discussed which restaurants to eat at. She thought to feature Taiwanese Bistro 33 for appetizers and Everyday Noodles for entrees, Tsaocaa for desserts and Panda Supermarket for shipping. Everything is within a street block of less than a quarter of a mile. I have never done 4 establishments in 3 hours before. This would be my first to try it out.
I flew from Houston to Pittsburgh the night before the event. We met at Taiwanese Bistro 33 to discuss the menu and venue the next day. Part of the event is to share the history and background of each dish. So, I researched the dishes' and prepared the goodie bags to give away.
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| Restaurant prepared a section for our event |
On the day of the event, all guests arrived on time at the first restaurant at 1 pm. We had Taiwanese sausages 台式香肠 and braised eggs 卤蛋 as appetizers; along with Salt and Pepper Squid 椒盐鱿鱼, Be Feng Tong Shrimp 避风塘大虾, Three Cups Chicken 三杯鸡 and Pan Fried Egg with Dried Radish 菜脯蛋.
After we finished at around 2 pm, we walked across the street to eat pulled noodles and other noodle house dishes at Everyday Noodles. We met with the owner, Michael Chen, beforehand because the noodle chef had limited time to perform from the viewing window. We filmed the performance and gave him an interview at 12:15 pm.
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| Drizzle didn't stop us from walking from restaurant to restaurant |
We originally ordered 2 dry noodles, 1 soup noodles, Pork Soup Dumplings 小笼汤包, Wood Ears with Tofu Skins 凉拌腐竹 and Pickled Cucumber 凉拌黄瓜. But the waitress came to tell us how to pair the dishes with noodles. She changed our selection to Hot Spicy Wonton Noodles 抄手燃麺, Noodles with Minced Pork Sauce 炸酱麺, Braised Beef Noodles Soup 红烧牛肉麺 and Pork & Vegetables Potstickers 猪肉锅贴. Overall, they were abundant. We could have ordered less in quantity.
After noodles at around 3:30 pm, we walked 2 doors down to Tsao-Cha for boba tea desserts. Everyone ordered from kiosks and picked up our drinks from the counter.
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| There was no place to sit at Tsao-Cha. So, we grabbed the drinks and walked to next stop. |
Soon after everyone got their drinks, we walked to Panda Supermarket at around 3:55 pm. I took everyone from the produce section to the general merchandise aisles. It didn't take very much to explain what we just ate at the restaurant and how to prepare certain dishes with what kind of ingredients.
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| The best part of this food crawl is seeing what to buy at the store. |
The event concluded after everyone checked out from the shopping destination at around 4:30 pm. We missed the mark by 30 minutes. But everyone has tried many dishes that they have never tried before and gained knowledge from experiencing them in the most effective way.
Goodie Bags are usually snacks from the grocery store, which we will visit at the end of crawl. I sometimes ask local businesses or bakeries to sponsor the cost of contents. It can be expensive, if you have a big crowd. Make sure you ask guests to chip in for the cost of contents.
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Backgrounds of my infamous Chinatown Crawl HTX events and how I helped my local community with foodie meetup engagements:
I had never done anything like this before and I was so grateful to be invited to this delicious and educational experience with my colleagues/friends! There were foods I've never tried, so this was an ultimate opportunity to have foodies order for us. I slowly savored every bite to enjoy the flavors and textures of each dish. I'll be revisiting Everyday Noodles for the potstickers and braised beef noodle soup. Thank you again for coming to Pittsburgh!
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