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| - In honor of receiving a 4-star award recently, Habitat chose to offer a $4 special on its burger at lunch (regularly $12). With that offer, how could I say no - an opportunity to try one of the hot-list new dineries downtown? So my coworker GH and I braved the bitter cold for a chance at nirvana.
Environment: very mod. Loved the color scheme - very soothing blues and browns. Open dining room. Dishes are very cool (white but not your typical plates) - and the salt and pepper are so unique, it was tempting to slip them into the pocket (no, I didn't take them, Chef, but I REALLY liked them - that was the first thing GH noticed on the table). The water pitcher was even better - but that would never have fit into a pocket.....The commmitment to green manifests itself in everything from the placemats to the lighting - despite the grey winter day, the room takes advantage of all of the natural light available with the glass curtain walls. Pittsburgh is not known for having an overabundance of sophisticated cosmopolitan dining establishments. Habitat made me feel like I was in Frisco or NYC. Contemporary, not cookie cutter mold, and not at all stuffy.
Very quiet restaurant which means it is conducive to talking without the next table eavesdropping. That alone makes this is a unique restaurant these days - I get weary of trying to talk over the music and hear about the next table's most recent fling or surgery.
Wait staff: very good. Rajee was our waiter. Attentive, but not overbearing. Service was quite fast - when I remarked to the server that our lunch came quickly, the response was "we recognize that most folks don't have a long time for lunch so we try to serve you quickly". I liked that. We lingered way too long chatting after our lunch was consumed and, yes, we were still back in the office within the allotted hour. I have a hard time doing that with any restaurant downtown.
Now on to the food. I came for a burger. I wanted that burger. But I looked at the menu and found a dozen other things I wanted more. But I went for the burger (so this is an indication that I will be back).
The burger was good. I am not going to say it was the best I have ever had, but it was good. It is served on a wonderful egg bun with nice thick ripe tomato, a slice of onion, lettuce, and a crispy dill pickle slice. And the burger is a nice size - with all the fixings, it was a handful. GH could handle it, I cut mine in half so as to not look like the ravenous carnivore that I am. The meat was rare as I requested - but here is where it doesn't yet earn it's fifth star. It wasn't messy. I understand that a well-done burger will never drip juice - after all, you don't expect shoe leather to be juicy, why would you expect a well-done burger to be any different. But a rare burger should leave some juices running down your fingers or chin (ok, it's a nice restaurant, maybe the chin thing would be too much). But there was no juice which kind of was odd to me. The meat seemed to be chopped more than ground - which was not a bad thing, a little different but not bad. It was not dried out or overcooked, it was just not juicy.
The burger came with a white cheddar slice melted on top. And the flavor was kind of lost on the burger. Now, it was not a large thick slice of Cheddar (after all, the sandwich is a loss leader) so maybe a thicker slice would hold up to the flavor.
Again, the same with the bacon. I knew it was there but didn't get a really good taste of it. Again, I am willing to consider that because of the low price, perhaps the bacon was quite thin and lost on the sandwich.
For sides, GH chose the obligatory fries which came in a cone and seemed to be quite good (when a coworker doesn't offer to share a fry, I figure they must be good). I chose the butternut squash soup which is on the menu daily. That soup alone brought the 3-star lunch up to a 4-star lunch. It is not a large side serving of soup - maybe 1/2 a cup at most. But it was a tasty soup, just the right thickness, lightly seasoned. It came in this adorable little cup/bowl - which I wanted to lick clean then stick in the pocket behind the salt and pepper shakers and the frog pitcher. I would come back for the soup alone - and one more chance at those salt and pepper shakers....
So I am holding at 4 stars. I will return - I will need to try that burger again to decide if it deserves a better rating or not. And that naan pizza with ricotta and hummus is just calling my name....
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