So, the hubby and I actually got a date night on Monday. We went down to Market Square to check out a restaurant called Ciao Baby. I love their logo/slogan. (It’s a big kiss mark, and the tag line is ‘Passionate Cuisine.’ If you can’t see the pic). I guess it’s been around for a couple of years, but we had just recently heard about it. The owner’s wife was chatting with my hubby, and suggested that we try it out. Plus, Tony (my hubby) is in a good position to send people to different restaurants, seeing that he’s a bartender at the Pittsburgh Airport Hyatt.

Anyway, we went. And even though Market Square isn’t exactly where it should be yet, the restaurant was beautiful. Marble bar, beautiful fixtures and nice colors inside. Great service…we had a bottle of Shoofly Shiraz, an eggplant appetizer (which was INCREDIBLE!!! The marinara sauce was the best EVER), and I had pasta with a vodka cream sauce, salmon and asparagus (also extremely yummy). Tony had one of the specials which was duck in a blueberry/Chambord reduction. The bite that I had was quite good. So, very good restaurant. I wish that downtown (aka dahn tahn) would become a little bit more of a hub. Not that I get the chance to go out all that much. Once a month, if I’m lucky. But I think that next month I’ll go back to Ciao Baby.

Afterwards, we headed more towards home, and stopped at Fertie’s in Carnegie. My 2 sister-in-laws used to work there when it was the IronHorse and Sammy Alexander’s. They prettied up the inside a bit…ceramic floors and a new bar…some flat screen tv’s. Of course, it was Monday night, so it wasn’t very busy. All in all, it felt a lot like it used to…which means I wasn’t extremely impressed. But it’s nice to have an OK place to stop in Carnegie other than the Pour House for a drink.