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| - This is the second location of the Franco's located in Dormont. It should be noted that there is a Franco's in Fox Chapel, but he just sold the naming rights to this location. And, it is no relation to the Bravo Franco downtown. I made my first visit here yesterday for lunch and had a pretty good time. It's in Peter's township located in a strip mall, but don't let the strip mall location deter you. In fact, I've found a trend recently of some decent restaurants choosing inexpensive strip locations (Jimmy Wans Tai Pei in Cranberry for example) and serving above average food or some might even say fine dining in a casual atomosphere. The interior itself is quite pleasant. They use grey and black colors along with hardwood floors and sparse seating to give it a cool or relaxing feel. When you walk in there is a bar area to your right with about enough seating for 7 or 8 and a few other tables or hi tops in the middle section. Directly to the right of the entrance are several large booths and further back is I guess their version of a wine cellar with several bottles displayed. They also have a section that is somewhat seperated that allows for a lot of lighting to come in and I noticed doors that can be shut, so they may even offer this room for private events. Tom and I sat at the bar and there were a couple plasmas behind the bar and I noticed a couple othe ones in the bar area dining section. We were greeted quickly by a friendly server (don't recall her name) who said they just started offering lunch in February and it seems to be doing well. She also stated the bar area is packed in the evening and the locals seem to really have embraced this place. I guess I can understand that Peters did need another option besides Atrias for this type of bar. Okay onto the food. I let Tom order since he dines here often. We stuck mainly to the appetizer menu. First we tried the greens and beans or according to the menu "braised white beans with escarole", we also added two sausages for the reasonable price of $1 each as an add on. I think the whole dish was $8. The greens were okay, but I found them in general underseasoned and not that flavorful. The sausages tasted reasonably welll, but were kind of luke warm. They could have used more heat. We also tried the sesame calamari, which was calamari with what they termed a sweet soy glaze and sesame seeds. This was pretty much a miss for me. I love calamari, but this calamari was overcooked and overbreaded and the glaze (which was like general tsao's sauce) was wayyy too overpowering. If this dish was lightly breaded and quick fried (not overcooked) with about 1/3 the sauce or the sauce on the side I'm sure I'd love it, but all in all this wasnt that great. The only standout that we had were the crab stuffed mushrooms. This was probably the only thing somewhat freshly prepared as the mushrooms were still sticking to the hotplate. It's lucky we were able to get these because for some reason they are not on the lunch menu, but luckily Tom knew enough to ask. These were four mushrooms overflowing with a very good jumbo lump crabmeat mix with only a small amount of filler. It was by far my favorite of the three we tried and pretty much the only redeeming offering foodwise. If I were to base this review solely on this experience with the food I'd probably only give it two stars, however I've been to the Dormont location and I know they usually have very good food. Also, the service was excellent and I really liked the overall feel of the space. I'll give it another shot. The waitress told us the owner is thinking about opening up a North Hills location, which I hope they do because both spots are a pretty long drive from where I'm located.
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