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| - The sky was a spurned lover, sobbing angrily, dejectedly as Kay and I tried to find dinner on our way home one evening last week. The renovation of the Liberty Tunnels forced us to make a detour through Mount Washington. Combing through my memory banks, I was able to recall the name of one of the hilltop neighborhood's mainstay pizzerias: Cestone's. From there, our trusty GPS led us towards shelter and nourishment.
Framed posters of Broadway shows populated the scenery along with cherry-red seats that looked to have been pilfered from a demolished stadium or arena. Amicable, nosy, world-weary regulars loafed about the dining room, dying for someone to conversate with about anything or nothing at all, watching our every movement. So inquisitive were they that I was reluctant to snap photos. The images I did manage to capture were done on the sly.
I started off with a half-hoagie that I would have enjoyed more had there been more meat to chew on.
The stinginess of that subpar sub was forgotten once our Kay Kombo pizza slid onto our table on a dented grey disc. What I found most striking about this pie was the crust which while crunchy on the very bottom was rather plush in the center. Chewy bits of savory bacon dotted a landscape rendered manna-like by a smooth mozzarella and sweet by a vibrant sauce. While watching the droplets batter the pavement outside from the heavens and listening to the patrons remark on "that there storm," Kay and I quietly dined, thankful that the weather diverted the attention of the "nebby" patrons away from us, the people they didn't know.
Cestone's (pronounced 'sess-tone's') surprisingly excels at soft serve ice cream, something I thought DiFiore's had a lock on in this part of town. Whether they use a pre-fabricated mix or their own concoction (is whipped topping folded into it?), I haven't any proof, but never before have I had a soft-serve ice cream that came off as so much luscious mousse. Beyond a mere custard, the dairy product fell, slithered into a paper cup, coiling like a vanilla/chocolate serpent. The whipped aerosol foam and microwaved hot fudge were not only immaterial, they were almost in the way.
Just as we paid our check, the downpour halted, and the local folk went back to their lives, watching us leave, nudging each other, pointing to us curiously while we jogged to the Kaymobile, likely asking each other if they recognized us from somewhere.
"I wonder if that's Elsie's nephew or Donny's boy? You know, the big, bald kid? The cop!"
"Oh, I dunno. The girl kinda looked familiar, though."
Cestone's is one of those Pittsburgh eateries that exists out of time and remains unfazed by trends, renewal, or upheaval. May it stand proudly without giving a crumb over what anyone else thinks of it.
P.S. If it reads like I was slagging the neighborhood people for whom Cestone's is obviously a hangout, I wasn't really. They were actually amusing, harmless, and surely well-meaning. We were both just feeling beaten up from work and weren't much in the mood for chit-chat that evening.
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