Pittsburgh part 4 - Monterey Bay Fish Grotto & more

An excellent meal tonight, after a decent lunch (Chinese place with some decent heat on the Kung Pao Chicken lunch - but I've forgotten the name. It's on Penn between 6th and 7th).

Monterey Bay Fish Grotto is one of several upscale restos on Mt Washington, which overlooks the downtown three rivers area. Mt Washington is less of a mountain than the river pallisades: a steep cliff borders the river with enough room for some railroads and one block of businesses; at the top are pricey hotels and restaurants on Grandview avenue. Chowhound recommended MBFG over several others up there, and I can't say I'm disappointed in the results.

The restaurant is on top of an apartment building, and tiered so that everybody gets a nice view of the downtown, and the sunset out the opposite windows.

The table shared a couple of the appetizer platters: Shrimp with a wasabi orange marmalade sauce (shrimp a little dry, sauce awesome), generous crabcake (mmm), and an "Ichiban" skewer: swordfish, salmon and tuna, rare, with a teriyaki glaze and some spicy mayo of some sort. All very good.

My dinner was a black pepper-encrusted yellowfin tuna, rare, with a green onion sauce that turned out to be a lump of butter with chives. Not what I would call a sauce, but very nice, nonetheless. Others ordered sashimi-like ahi (actually seared, but served with gari and a pair of sauces (wasabi and teriyaki)), a wahoo special, trout, lemon sole... uh I forget what else. Six sides are offered from which you can pick two: mashed spuds (very rich), rice, green beans, spinach salad with bacon dressing, field green salad and chowdah. Desserts made on location were very good too (creme brulee, carrot cake cheesecake, hazelnut ice cream and chocolate truffle cake).

Prices are about $18-38 for entrees including the aforementioned sides. The surprising thing was we were never even offered a wine list (the company budget wouldn't permit it, but it would have been nice to see what they have). Nice destination.