Murray Avenue Restaurant Challenge: Gullifty’s, A Squirrel Hill Institution

Achievement: #2. Eat at every restaurant on Murray Ave

Another Saturday night, another trip up the hill for dinner! This time, we hit Gullifty’s, which is a restaurant best known for its desserts and appeal to CMU students. This is one of those rare occasions where we visited something I’ve never seen before that Michael has. He had been to Gullifty’s once in college, but never since.

We’d been planning on walking up the hill so we could have some cocktails, but as we were just putting on our jackets, the skies opened up and another Saturday night rainstorm rolled in. Instead, we drove up and got a parking space right across the street from the restaurant, so we only had to dodge a few raindrops on our way in.

We had quite a nice waiter, who bashfully informed us he’d just turned twenty-one a few weeks earlier when I asked for a totally oddball cocktail. He also won himself some brownie points by pretending to be interested when I explained why I was asking for this rare drink. (You see, I’d just read Sophie Kinsella’s newest book, Twenties Girl, wherein they talk all about 1920s period stuff, and they discuss the cocktails, and lo and behold, this majestic cocktail I’ve only had made correctly once or twice in my life – the Singapore sling – was mentioned, and since I read the book, I’d just been soooo in the mood for one! Thankfully, my fantastic husband had agreed to DD for me so that I could indulge a bit. 🙂

Being the kind soul he was, our waiter worked with the bartender (and their iPhones) to come up with a recipe for one just for me! Unfortunately, it wasn’t even close to what a Singapore sling should be, I mean, not even the right color, but I appreciated the effort all the same.

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We started with the artichoke garlic dip with parmesan pizza crisps appetizer. This was just incredible! So salty and flavorful, and the artichokes were perfect. I am getting hungry just thinking about it! And there is my pathetic Singapore sling. It’s supposed to be the color of a Shirley Temple. In fact, that’s what it’s like: a grown-up Shirley Temple. But I do appreciate the effort, regardless!

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For entrees, Michael got a black angus burger with fries. Those fries were pretty good. I may have sampled a few. (Just a few!)

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I got the wild mushroom pasta, which was far too much food for any one girl to eat. Not sure that I’d get this one again, as it was pretty heavy, but still nice to try!

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They have a pretty unique, extensive cocktail list, so I opted for a ‘rangtangtini’. It is made with this new Three Olives ‘Rangtang’ vodka, which tastes basically like an alcoholic creamsicle. It was worthy of a silly face in the picture. 🙂

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We finished the night with this incredible dessert: chocolate intemperance. From their menu, it is a dessert made of brownie crust, chocolate and coffee mousse coated with a bitter sweet chocolate ganache and whipped cream dollops. Look, I’m just going to say this: I don’t know what a ganache is, but I freakin’ love it.

Yes Gullifty’s, we will be back. 🙂

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