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| - I would be more inclined to rate the joint 3.5 stars, but there is no such thing in Yelp land. Definitely not worthy of 4 stars, but this Christmas dinner that we had here was taking the place of the Christmas Day Dinner that my recently departed Gram would prepare. So it had big shoes to fill. There weren't many restaurants that were open on Christmas Day, and this was the one that seemed to be more middle of the road with a touch of elegance.
For a Pittsburgh joint, the decor and ambiance is pretty spiffy. We arrived promptly at 3:20 for our 3:30 seating, and we had to wait approximately 30 minutes before we were seated. A tad annoying when you have a reservation. Another item that ranks high on the annoying list is that when we were finally seated closer to 4pm, we were ready to order the courses, the server announced that they were out of ham. That indicates incredibly poor planning on the part of the restaurant? To run out of ham on Christmas Day at 4pm in Pittsburgh? The likelihood that they would have Christmas ham on their menu is the only way we were able to convince my Great Aunt to dine there in the first place. After our orders were placed, the service improved significantly. The food was decent, but the prime rib was a bit too fatty for my Great Aunt's taste. I ordered Medium Well, and it wasn't served that way. I held up a visibly chunk of red meat for the server to view, hoping she would say something, but she didn't notice. Everyone else seemed to enjoy their seafood dishes, but I think it would be a tough sell to have an encore meal there next year on Christmas Day.
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