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| - What a night of serendipity, surreality, and pop culture. Andy Warhol, eat your heart out.
On a pitstop between Detroit and D.C., my copilot (no, not God, though my best bud is really awesome) and I swung by Pittsburgh for some grub. We ended up at the Brillobox because hey, where else can you get half-decent food late at night besides a hipsterish bar?
I'm a huge sucker for the decor here - it's a mishmash of a bunch of different aesthetics (contemporary, kitschy, antique) and everything ends up feeling warm, inviting, and even a touch magical. The gigantic open-in-warm-weather store front doesn't hurt either.
The crowd was mostly in their 30s - hip but not rocker - more like geeky tech and graphic design industry people. That and so many attractive queer women I almost forgot to eat the meal in front of me (my eyes were feasting elsewhere?). Their presence, I found out later, was probably due to Sharon Needles promo celebration something-something that ended up happening while we were there. Good timing!
The bartender was pretty brusk but efficient. I love no-bullsh*t attitudes but I don't really love you're-not-human attitudes. This guy really teetered on the border. Decent selection of beer. I had something local and tasty.
Food was ok. Overpriced for what it was. The buffalo wings are where it's at. Ate those suckers up. The spicy udon vegetable soup was really heavy on the bouillon and really tomatoey. Other than that, it was fairly bland. The chorizo tacos were good, albeit a little dry.
I liked the tables and booths - and though it was packed, a couple shared their huge table with us. I get the sense people in here are pretty open and generally friendly.
Three 1/2 stars in all. Rounded up to four because I'm stealing some interior design moves from these guys.
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