Monday, May 4, 2015

Meadowlark Travels :: Pittsburgh!

Hello everyone!

It’s hard to believe that 2 weeks ago, I was in Pittsburgh rehearsing and performing more than 10 hours a day with the Meadowlarks. 




Since then, we’ve gotten our first competition under our belts as finalists of the Arriaga Chamber Music Competition, and will be competing at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition next weekend!  I'm currently sitting in the airport for my 3 hours layover en route to Cleveland to meet up with these crazies, and I just can't believe that we’ve been going at this long distance trio relationship for 3 years! I feel so blessed to get to do what I love with these two goofs I call my soulmates/soul siblings/my larks, etc.




Whenever we are together, it always ends up being a frantic rehearsal/performance marathon since we usually only have a day or two to prepare for performances - the lot of the long distance marriag… i mean, chamber group…  It was no different in Pittsburgh, but we still got to fit in a lot of our favorite extra curricular activity - eating.  work hard, eat hard.  mhmm

We had amazing dumplings at Everyday Noodle,





Experienced our first Waffallonia




swung by Conflict Kitchen for some awesome Palestinian food,





and also had a bit of an unfortunate Indian food experience right before our performance….  but let’s not talk about that...


Instead, let’s talk about Pamela’s Diner
We still can’t believe what happened here.

It was our last day in Pittsburgh, so it seemed fitting that we end our visit with Pamela’s Diner experience.  We don’t now anyone who has visited and didn’t like the place!  So we went and sat down and started drooling over the menu, only to discover that the place was cash only…  Among the three of us we only had $17 in cash, so we debated leaving, but Tim insisted that we stay.  Then began the money Tetris of trying to figure out how much food we could buy with the $17 that would include tip and tax.  We were literally debating over $.80 and I remember laughing at how petty we were being, but you know, when you only have a small, fixed amount of money to spend to feed three people, that’s what happens!  

We almost had everything figured out except for the tax, so when the server came around, we asked what the tax would be.  This was when a lady suddenly came up and said that she would cover our tax! She dropped a $10 bill on our table and returned to the table behind ours.  We started protesting, and that was when the server informed us that the lady was Pamela herself!!  We couldn't believe it! We thanked her profusely, hugged her, kissed her, took a photo with her, you know. everything that you do when you're overwhelmed.


We got the two things we were going to get--an amazing Chorizo omelet and their signature crepe style pancakes (which are..  I can't even put into words how INCREDIBLE these are).




When we finished those, we had some extra change for another dish, so we asked Pamela (who was still sitting behind us) what we should order.  After asking us what we liked (Janny likes the sweets and Abers likes the salty), instead of just telling us, she disappeared into the kitchen, and told us that she would send us something.


We couldn't believe it.  She sent us a croissant french toast and corn beef hash, and... we were just speechless!



As we were going through this amazingness, Pamela came back with another dish, and told us that it was from a restaurant next door (that she also owned), and it was the best cured meet we have ever tasted!


Pamela, I highly doubt that you will be reading this, but we just wanted to thank you from the bottom of our hearts!  If we didn't have the photos, we would have a hard time believing that day actually happened--your warmth and generosity really made our trip to Pittsburgh, and we hope to see you again sometime soon!  As we've mentioned, if you ever want us to come play for anything, we would be so happy to perform for you!  =D

If you have never been to Pamela's Diner, all we can say is to go straight there right now and try their hotcakes.  Really, you can't go wrong with any of the dishes there, but if you can only try one, hot cakes is our pick!  and if you have the good fortune of meeting Pamela, tell her the Meadowlarks sent you!  ;)

Happy eating, and thanks for stopping by!
--Janny


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