Salt of the Earth | cairns&carrots

Greetings from Pittsburgh!

This morning Chris and I flew to Pittsburgh, PA. We’re here visiting his parents and also to run the Pittsburgh half marathon on Sunday. This is my second time visiting the city and I’m super excited!

We grabbed lunch at BWI today–Au Bon Pain style. I got the Mediterranean wrap. It was pretty tasty and filling for fast food.

I also had some Food Should Taste Good Chips! And they did taste good–ha ha. 🙂

We had one short flight from BWI to Pittsburgh and then it was time to get stuck in massive amounts of traffic going into the city.

Thankfully we made it just in time for dinner.

Chris’ parents made dinner reservations for us tonight at Salt of the Earth restaurant (or NaCl). I could tell by the vibe this place was going to be pretty cool.

We were seated in the upstairs dining area (for the people with reservations). The downstairs is sort of the communal area/bar. They also had an open kitchen.

One really interesting thing about this place was that we didn’t get any menus–it was written on a chalkboard on the wall.

Chris and I had our minds made up pretty quick for the starter. We ordered the lettuce wraps.

Inside: tofu, sheep’s yogurt, pickled ramp, lemon.

They were really tasty! The yogurt was a bit sweet and mixed with the salty ramps and tofu, it was a good combination! The tofu was cooked pretty well, I was a big fan.

I saw seitan on the main course menu, so that had my interest piqued. After having it a few weeks ago at New World Home Cooking, I had been wanting to try it again to compare. I went with the Seitan Baguette. On the sandwich was mushroom pate, pickle, cilantro, jalapeno. And it was SPICY! But not too bad where I couldn’t eat it. The seitan tasted a little different than the one I had at New World, but still pretty good. The texture is so meaty!! I loved it! I could have done with out so much cilantro, though, so I took some off. I think there might have been some shredded cucumber (ick) on the sandwich too. I don’t usually like cucumber but I think it worked pretty good with the sandwich considering.

Looks like meat! And the bread was chewy and delicious.

It was a pretty tasty sandwich! Now, if all restaurants could have this kind of vegetarian option!

We were all in the mood for dessert after dinner, and the restaurant had two options: a cheese plate and a white chocolate custard served with goat cheese ice cream (!). Goat cheese ice cream, you say???

I had no idea what to expect! It was served with raw honey, granola, and a few pistachios. The white chocolate custard was amazing. And believe it or not, the goat cheese ice cream was awesome! And I thought plain goat cheese was good. The ice cream was a lot creamier and had just a hint of goat cheese flavor. So good!

So, I would go back to Salt of the Earth in a heartbeat.