New Girl in Town: What's New in Pittsburgh?

Far from heralding the winter of my discontent, this fall has ushered in a season of merriment thanks to a number of new openings in Pittsburgh.  How can things be anything but bliss when I have finally found affordable, delectable Asian cuisine?

At Plum Pan Asian Kitchen in East Liberty, colorful Chinese lanterns are suspended from a way-up-there ceiling and a white hi-backed leather banquette hugs a swath of room and plays off chocolate brown everything.  I imagine Nancy Sinatra and her go-go boots walking in the door at any moment.  My tour of Asia starts with Tasmanian Salmon Tataki, a hunk of glistening salmon paired with burrata cheese and tomatoes.  Best of all is the duck dipping sauce served alongside, a pinkish-orange goo that positively sparkles.  I decide to order the Marilyn Mon Roll on my next visit and continue on to General Tso's chicken, which is utterly fresh and also sparkly (must be the lighting).  A Malaysian yellow curry brings more freshness and is composed of countless chunky vegetables and the only thing missing is a bit more heat on everything I eat.  Cool perfection comes in the way of Plum's ice cream sundaes, each more inventive than the next (yes, I do try all three).  

Coolly elegant is Tamari in Lawrenceville, where a hammered copper wall mirrors the sex appeal of a curvilinear bar.  If Plum is about food, Tamari equals food and mood and the Latin/Asian fusion being created has a sophistication that matches that in New York or L.A.  By all means take a seat at the eat-in bar, where knowledgeable chefs plate the offerings.  The white tuna ceviche rests on a fried green plantain (which is actually yellow) and makes me want to eat three.  The Tamari maki is even more impressive, a roll stuffed with white tuna, crab and chipotle mayo and topped with torched scallops and the sum total is a flavor explosion.  I make my way to the intimate second-floor lounge and peek out onto the rooftop deck and pronounce Tamari ready for its close-up.

Whimsical by nature is the Toonseum, which will open its new location along Liberty Avenue mid-November.  "There comes a time when every comic book geek knows it's time to move out of his parent's basement," says Joe Wos, the Toonseum's Executive Director, in explaining the move from a corner of the Children's Museum to a space five times the size.  The self-styled "museum with character" is an homage to cartooning past and present, which is what the inaugural exhibit, "Enchanted Drawings: A Century of Animation," represents.  Favorites from Gertie the Dinosaur to Sponge Bob will be on display as will a desk touched by Walt Disney himself.  "Pittsburgh has always embraced pop art and its quirky cultural aesthetic," continues Wos.  "You see that in cartoon characters – it's the characters we fall in love with, whether it's Charlie Brown or Snoopy.  Cartoons are one of the most accessible art forms around."  

Right across the street and equally accessible is the spanking-new August Wilson Center, whose namesake did much to bring the African American experience to life.  The Center combines exhibit, performance and educational spaces under one roof and if that looks like a giant sail at the front of the building, well, it is, since architect Allison Williams was influenced by majestic sailing ships plying the waters off the coast of East Africa.  It's also meant to mimic a puffed-out chest, or the pride that is increasingly evident in the African American community.  While the Center is already a repository for first-rate musical and theatrical performances, it's the building itself that may speak loudest to Pittsburghers.  The "Drum" at the center of the lobby is a spherical wall that encases the primary performance space and boldly employs a mix of zebra wood and dark purple paint.  Close by is a grand staircase flanked on one side by a slanting wall that evokes the shifting sands of time and the Sahara.  The visual cues are many and varied so by all means come see for yourself.

Another architectural marvel, the Gates Hillman Center, has sprung to life on the campus of CMU and if MIT isn't nervous yet, it should be.  The building is flooded with natural light and there are myriad places throughout for students to meet and connect.  Walls saturated with color (chartreuse, chocolate brown) sidle up next to cool yet functional furnishings, extra-wide doors encourage interaction and there are white boards everywhere so students can create on the fly.  An expansive Reading Room is a glass-walled space that could double as Madonna's eco-friendly living room and has sight lines to The Cut, the university's central greensward.  Ah, to have Bill Gates' money – but wait!  He just gave some of it to us.  Now all we have to do is get our kids into CMU.

Forever new is the Warhol Museum, whose fall offering is "Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand," a retrospective of the street artist and agent provocateur best known for his now-iconic Obama HOPE poster.  Whereas Warhol's message was commercial yet artistic and imbued with celebrity, Fairey's take on the boldface names is fraught with withering political commentary.  "Obey Bush One Hell Of A Leader" sends up W as a Dracula that's all bloody fangs while another poster, "Uncle Sam Do As He Says Not As He Does," sends up human rights, democracy, peace and privacy as hollow skulls incarnate.  Fairey jauntily offers his take on the Campbell's soup can and there's no better place to debate his role as heir apparent to our Andy.  

Final destination after any outing this fall has to be Round Corner Cantina, a Lawrenceville gastropub populated by denizens of the neighborhood (and others) who, seems to me, appear to be engaged in their community and world. That's not to say that a visit will devolve into a debate of Greenpeace vs. green peas – there's plenty of partying going on, it's just that the crowd is cool and conversant at the same time.  Exposed brick and a painted tin ceiling parry with chocolate brown wallpaper (clearly, choco-brown is the color of the season) and create a cocoon of easy living greased by mean margaritas and well-prepared small plates (the quesadilla with onions and brie is a winner).  It's easy to fall for the city's newest It Bar.

Elaine Labalme loves the old and the new in Pittsburgh and eagerly awaits wasabi pierogies – anyone? To comment on story, click here.

Captions: Joe Wos at the Toonseum; Plum Pan Asian Kitchen; Tamari; August Wilson Center; Gates-Hillman Center; Shepard Fairey at the Warhol Museum

Photographs copyright Brian Cohen