DIVERSE Food Options in the East Liberty Corridor

For a small area of a small city, the East Liberty Corridor offers a startlingly diverse number of eating opportunities.

Starting in the block where the Arists and Craftmens Store USED to be......

Paris 66 Bistro 6018 Centre Ave.
As I understand it , this is a good basic crepe/French restaurant. Nothing groundbreaking. Which sounds wonderful to me. And the chef (Cesar Dubs) looks so happy flipping the crepes in the window that the food has to be good. There is also outdoor seating in the back.
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/23/1453083/restaurant/Shadyside/Paris-66-Pittsburgh

Pizza Sola 6004 Penn Circle South/Centre Ave. (several doors down from Paris 66)
Yes, just one step above a standard Pizza joint, but very good pizza and the hours are GREAT!
Oddly, I couldn't find the hours on the web....anywhere...but I called and closing times are:
Friday and Saturday: 3 a.m.
Sunday and Monday: Midnight
Wed-Thurs.: 1 a.m.
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/23/1415316/restaurant/East-Liberty/Pizza-Sola-Pittsburgh

Cross the street for: Plum Pan-Asian Kitchen 5996 Penn Circle South
It is certainly beautiful. And it has the distinction of being the only restaurant in Pittsburgh significantly damaged by a hit and run accident. (All repaired now).
http://www.plumpanasiankitchen.com/

Across the street...opening soon .......formerly the Red Room soon to be the site of two new restaurants (same owner)

"Spoon, an upscale casual restaurant featuring modern American cuisine. The team plans to open Spoon in July. In the fall, they plan to open BRGR, a gourmet burger restaurant, in the former 2Red, which served as a companion to the Red Room before both restaurants closed in late January.
“We were pretty much ready to close on the Cafe Allegro location, and this opportunity came up in the east side,” Stern said. “We just decided that we felt the Red Room location was a better fit for our chef’s style of cooking.”

http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2010/05/17/story6.html?b=1274068800%5E3347651

O.K. Look up...near Borders......
Dinette (also listed at 5996 Penn Circle South).
The chef as noted in the blog some weeks ago, was a James Beard Award semi-finalist!
http://www.dinette-pgh.com/

Back past the Red Room site, around the corner and down to
ABAY Ethiopian Cuisine 130 South Highland Ave.
A very popular restuarant since 2004. And a bit of trivia from Urban Spoon;"If anyone takes issue with the $2.50 corkage fee, according to their facebook page, Abay donates this fee to Doctors Without Borders!"
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/23/270015/restaurant/East-Liberty/Abay-Ethiopian-Cuisine-Pittsburgh

Global Food Market 132 South Highland Ave.
This place has a very NYC convenience store and market for expatriates look.....could be in Queens or Brooklyn. I am curious to check this place out...I've just never gone in. I may avoid the frozen section though......from City Paper (CP)"And if you need a frozen goat's head, he's your man."
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A41372

The Waffle Shop 124 South Highland Ave.
An art project that is a resaurant. Yes, there is a bit of everything in this small crosssection of East Liberty. Run by CMU's Department of Fine Arts. To quote Melissa Meinzer of City Paper (CP

)"When it comes to art appreciation, "People being drunk goes a long way," allows Jon Rubin, an assistant professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University.
Or so it seemed late one Saturday night (or early Sunday morning, but who's counting?) at a former tuxedo shop at the corner of Baum and Highland avenues, in East Liberty. Here, in an emerging cultural nexus formed by the Shadow Lounge and a spate of trendy new restaurants, students from Rubin's Contextual Practice course hosted a combination art happening, waffle house and reality-TV show."

http://www.waffleshop.org/

Kubideh Kitchen (corner of Highland and Baum)
A very new addition. Also a project of CMU and the Fine Arts Department, the first of a series of "Conflict Kitchens". From the CMU 2010 Press Blog

"Artists Open "Conflict Kitchen" To Stimulate Dialogue About Countries in Conflict with the U.S.Carnegie Mellon University School of Art Professor Jon Rubin, adjunct assistant professor of art John Peña (A'08) and Dawn Weleski (A'09) are opening an Iranian takeout restaurant in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh on Saturday May 7 as part of a yearlong art project called "Conflict Kitchen." The kitchen only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with to raise awareness of the issues between the countries and to gain a better understanding of the highlighted countries social and culture life.
"Kubideh Kitchen," the Iranian take-out restaurant, will be the first iteration of Conflict Kitchen. Brett Yasko, an adjunct professor in the School of Design, created the graphic design work and Pablo Garcia, the Lucian and Rita Caste Chair in Architecture and assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon, created the architectural design of the storefront (pictured at right). Illah Nourbakhsh, assistant professor in the Robotics Institute and a member of the Pittsburgh-Iranian community, advised the project."

http://www.kubidehkitchen.com/
And last not least continue next door to the Shadow Lounge for coffee and music and Urban Poetry. If not for this linchpin....would all of these riches have appreared?