The Pittsburgh Dish
Do you really know the food scene of Pittsburgh?! The Pittsburgh Dish introduces you to the people, places, and recipes that make our regional cuisine so special. By sharing personal stories, weekly recommendations, and community recipes, we aim to inspire you to connect with local taste makers and experience the unique flavors that shape our city.
The Pittsburgh Dish
020 John Yianni King's Olympos Gyro Journey
(01:02) Discover how a small gyro shop in Robinson has blossomed into a beloved local institution over the past 15 years. John King, also known as Yianni, is the owner and mastermind behind Olympos Gyros and Catering. John shares the secrets behind their unique gyros, from diverse tzatziki flavors to their signature feta fries, and reveals the challenges and triumphs of expanding into food truck and catering services.
(11:36) What drives someone with a troubled past to become a successful entrepreneur? John’s inspiring personal story offers insight into overcoming adversity and the power of family support. From a tumultuous youth to a transformative intervention by his grandfather, John recounts his journey from incarceration to the creation of a thriving business. He emphasizes the importance of accountability, hard work, and the added motivation of being a father to his daughter. Aspiring entrepreneurs will find his advice on commitment and hands-on involvement invaluable.
(31:54) Plus, hear about another Pittsburgh culinary gem, Wise County Biscuits, known for its mouth-watering offerings, and a 'recipe of the week' featuring shredded beef with a Salvadoran flair from Ingrid Portillo of @tiaingrid_recetas_mixtas. Enjoy our whirlwind culinary trip from Greece to El Salvador.
Welcome to the Pittsburgh Dish. I'm your host, Doug Heilman. How did the idea of a humble gyro shop turn its owner's life around? We'll hear all about it, including its nearly 15 years of success. This week, Craving a breakfast biscuit? That might change your life. We'll talk with Ashley Cesaratto and find just the place. And if the grill isn't your thing for the season, we have a shredded beef recipe with El Salvadoran flair in our recipe of the week. All that ahead, stay tuned. Thanks for listening to T the Pittsburgh Dish. You can help us to continue to share these great food stories by supporting our show. Just go to our website at www. pittsburghdish. com and click the support button. You can sign up at three, five or ten dollars a month and cancel anytime. Thank you, Now on to the show. Hey, thanks so much for coming on to the show. Would you introduce yourself and what you have going on right now in the world of?
John:food because that's the Greek side of my family. So right now we have a gyro shop in Robinson. It's called Olympos Gyros and Catering. We also have a food truck. So we're doing a lot of events for graduation parties, business-to-business catering, lots of party catering for the summer, and then we have the brick-and-mortar store where we're doing lunch through dinner. So right now we're open Monday through Saturday and, yeah, we're just making gyros and trying to do a lot of catering, I guess.
Doug:I think what's really amazing, though, to me, john, is you all have been open for like 14 years. Yeah, you kind of have this humble storefront. It has a McKees Rocks address. It's right along Steubenville Pike. I would have said you're in Robinson, which is sort of out towards where I live, but you've just been going strong for well over a decade and you've got all these different sort of facets of the business. When you started, did you start out with the catering and the food truck in mind, or did those things kind of grow over time?
John:It was always eventually going to be catering and the brick and mortar store. But once the food truck industry started to move into Pittsburgh, which was right around 2015, 2016, we started looking into it, talked to the health department and we decided like this would be a good idea. The problem was finding a food truck that wasn't you know, 50, $60,000.
John:So it took a lot of research to find it and, you know, when we eventually found one that would work for us, we hopped on it. We actually found it on eBay, believe it or not.
John:So this guy drove it up we hopped on it.
John:We actually found it on ebay, believe it or not. So this guy drove it up. He drove it up, I think, from tennessee and you know it was kind of like sight unseen but like I knew, okay, if this went wrong with it, like we could fix that. So we got it for a reasonable deal and then we got the permit, which that was a little bit difficult. You know, they were just kind of starting out so they were kind of being real critical of food trucks and stuff. And now you see there's like so many food trucks, it's like the whole, it's like the west coast right.
Doug:So, timeline wise, the store your, your storefront opened in in 2010. Yeah, when did the food truck come?
John:along. We got the food truck in about 2016, all right, so you really had a couple years under your belt before you went into that. Yeah, yeah, we've we. It started to just as like just the catering. You know, we kind of figured out. You know what we needed to do to make gyros be good but like be able to serve them to a lot of people you know what? I mean Cause that was the initial hurdle is nobody's ever really done. Gyro catering in the Pittsburgh area Not Mike and Tony's, not anybody really.
John:So it took a lot of experimentation and we found the perfect stuff that works for catering, for as far as equipment goes and keeping it warm and all that good stuff. So we evolved from just a brick and mortar store to catering and then we went from catering to the food truck and now we just do you know, we do a lot of private catering for food truck events and we do.
John:We do pull up events too. For, like we did the neighborhood tour when COVID was happening. Yes, Like we kind of had to evolve from that because we were only able to do takeout. So we got together with a lot of the neighborhoods in the Robinson area and we would go to the neighborhood and basically serve the neighborhood. So kind of had to do that to survive.
Doug:You know, I think it was probably really an advantage to you that you had diversified right From just being a storefront, which I think you guys do a lot of takeout from the store as well, but to have a mobile truck to be able to go out do even more, especially probably because you couldn't do all of that big catering.
John:Also, people weren't having those.
Doug:There was no gathering, you were able to balance and flex that is. That's so critical, probably throughout the pandemic.
Doug:You know everyone thinks they know what a gyro is, but I want to talk a little bit about some of your specialties out of the shop. I know that you guys have a ton of different like tzatziki flavors and the feta fries I really like. Can you describe to our listeners, if they haven't come by or been to a catering event, what are some? Some dishes or some items that you think are really unique to your shop?
John:When we started, my whole concept was built around like doing it differently. You know what I mean Taking like the traditional gyro that, like your Greek uncle, is used to eating and turning it on its head, making him upset about it, probably because we're doing something that we shouldn't be doing traditionally. So I decided we were going to experiment and come up with some different tzatziki sauces. After months and months of just testing out different ones, trying new recipes, we have our base recipe, tzatziki sauce, which is more on the traditional line, but then we have a Haiti sauce, which is a spicy tzatziki sauce, which is pretty much what we became known for after so long. And then, from the spicy tzatziki sauce, we want to have a narrow haiti sauce, which is like a spicier version of the tzatziki sauce, which is becoming more popular than the haiti sauce oh, that's so interesting.
Doug:it's almost like you got your own. It's almost like a hot sauce brand or something too, you know, if folks don't know that, you know tzatziki is that yogurt and cucumber, but you're adding some different things in there to give it a little bit of heat. Yeah, I love it.
John:Yeah, and we have other. You know other versions of it also, like ranch and you. But we partnered with Liokareas olive oil and they developed a chili oil for us Wow. So that was one of the things we decided would be good to go with the Haiti sauce. Rather than using regular olive oil. We have a chili oil. Wow so that's one of the ingredients that's in the Haiti sauce. So if you guys want to make that, you have to come and get some chili oil from us. It's Liokareas. You said cars. Are they local? Yeah, they are local. Yeah they. They started in um in greece and I guess they moved over to here and their whole, their whole process is over in greece, so everything's made there. It's like organic olive oil, the best quality olive oil you can get. They won all these crazy awards and they then built a facility in Bethel Park, I believe. So now they're moving some of that here, but everything comes straight from Greece.
Doug:So, yeah, they're a good company to definitely check them out, and I would also encourage listeners to go ahead and check out your website, because when we were talking about the catering too, people can get an idea of you know what you can do. So it's not just the traditional gyro meat and fixings, but you guys do chicken and steak and a whole bunch of other stuff. You did get me thinking when you were saying you were disrupting some tradition and probably making some uncle.
John:Yeah, some, some papu. We have like a halloumi, like spicy halloumi, gyro, that's becoming more popular now. I love halloumi yeah, halloumi is good, yeah. And then we have like a falafel one that's becoming popular, like a lot of people seem to like that. And then we've even made a gyro without the pita and instead used like romaine big, like romaine leaves as the pita, and that's, you know, that's something that's people were starting to like too yeah, you're getting into the low carb lettuce wrap, yeah, version of we just kind of was like I don't want to eat so much bread today.
John:It's hot out, so I'm gonna try this, you know, and it ended up being good. My wife actually was the one that came up with it, so I had to give her the credit on that one.
Doug:So you were talking about the chili oil company. Are there any other locals that you get some of your products from?
John:Yeah, we like to use a lot of the local companies that import things from Greece, like Salonika Imports down in the Strip District. We've been dealing with them since we opened pretty much.
Doug:I've had their olive oil. A nice little shop, if somebody hasn't stopped in there.
John:Yeah, chris, belarus, he's awesome. I've been dealing with him since we opened. Yeah, he has a lot of great products down there. If you want official Greek teas or olive oil, like you said, he makes his own olive oil and I believe he even carries Liokareas o live oil there. Also Nice, all the Greeks know each other. One way or another we're somehow related or somebody's related to our family. It's just like you can't go somewhere without them being like oh, I know your papu's uncle's aunt, you know.
Doug:So you have me thinking about family. So I'd love to take a step back and talk about how you grew up and how family has played a role, even in the business Are?
John:you a lifelong Pittsburgher. Yeah, I actually grew up in Southside area. My uncle he basically started Mike and Tony's the original Mike and Tony's that was in Southside. My uncle George, actually his sons were mike and tony okay he started the original gyro shop down there.
John:So I grew up around gyros pretty much my whole life. Yes, um lived in the south side from the time I was a kid till about 14 or 15. Then from there I started, uh, I lived on my own at one point I was 15 through 17. Oh my goodness. So I was living in Southside, getting in all kinds of trouble A little bit of unsupervised, a little bit of unsupervised gyro making, I guess.
Doug:Oh my, but I did see you had a business partner that you started with Chris, so can you tell me, is that a relative?
John:I was raised by my grandparents and Chris is my my grandfather technically. He's your grandmother's second husband, grandmother's second husband. You know we're not blood related, but he was been my mentor, like father figure, grandfather Papu.
Doug:Okay.
John:That's what everybody calls him, Even people at my business. They all know Papu.
Doug:They always ask about them and and in greek papu is grandfather, grandfather and grandmother is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just we're filling people in in case they don't know their, their greek speak, right?
John:right, yeah, yeah they're. You're gonna learn a lot of greek speak yeah.
Doug:So you got into a little bit of trouble and, uh, it sounds like maybe your grandparents and your grandfather helped get you out of trouble and kind of on the right track right?
John:yeah, I was. I was getting in, you know, I was getting in all kinds of trouble living in Southside, like doing things I wasn't supposed to do, and my grandfather was like you know, this is enough, is enough. You know you can't be living on your own doing what you're doing. So he came in, took me out of Southside and was like that's it, You're done here. You know, I just lost my best friend. Like he was 16 years old, he was, you know, he knew the route that I was heading in you know, Okay, so from there went out, moved to Canonsburg actually.
Ashley:Okay.
John:So started over, was still getting in trouble up until the point I was about 17. And then I made you know, made some mistakes, ended up 17. And then I made you know made some mistakes end up getting arrested about a month after I turned 18.
Doug:So talk about bad timing.
John:Yeah, bad timing, you know maybe, good timing, depending on whether you look at it. I was going to say so so you, you get arrested.
Doug:Uh, some things aren't looking so good. Where does the thought of this business start, then, for you?
John:So I was actually doing 11 and a half months in jail. Wow yeah, I decided it was a good idea to be a marijuana salesman Not door to door, but doing things I shouldn't have been doing. So caught the adult charges, just turned 18.
Doug:So I did my time and and, and we should say too I mean the the attitudes towards all of that was very different 14, 15 years ago than there is today.
John:So, yes, so completely different ball game this was like big deal. I don't want my kids to be around you type person because you're dealing with that kind of stuff. Now it's completely different. You know exactly. It's completely different, exactly. It's not really frowned upon anymore.
Doug:To say the least, we're not exactly in a legal status in Pennsylvania Right.
John:We're moving towards Amsterdam.
Doug:Exactly.
John:We're almost there, near California and Colorado, but get in trouble, go to jail. And then I end up telling myself I'm not going to let this define me. You know what I mean. I want this to be something that pushes me to not to not get in trouble anymore, seeing the route my friends were going. So I decided I was going to come up with a business plan and when I got out I was going to, you know, pitch my grandfather on let's open up a business.
John:You know, we didn't have a ton of capital, so we had to do a lot of the work ourselves, like anything that we couldn't outsource. We did it ourselves. Oh wow, and he was in like the. He was a general contractor or like a laborer floor man type career. So he knew a lot of these things, he knew how to do a lot of the things that we needed to do, and we built it out ourselves. And then we went and got a business loan and told him listen, I'll, I'll pay back every single thing and interest. And he was like, took a chance on me, and from there we went and here we are, 14 years, almost 15 years later.
Doug:What a story you know from and I know you know kids can go through such a sort of a rough time Rebellious stage yeah confused, not knowing the consequences, you come out. You know I did some bad stuff. Maybe I have a record. I don't know where I'm going to work. You just kind of mean. He was. He literally picked me, made me leave.
John:He was like just randomly showed up, it's like hey, I'm bringing some food, you know. And then he was like you're coming with me.
Doug:This is from the South side, from the South side. And he basically took you to Canonsburg. Right, he took me to Canonsburg.
John:Okay, but it took me, you know it took me getting in trouble. To really put things into perspective. It's life-altering, Absolutely. Unfortunately, you end up with a record and whatnot, but you've got to be accountable for the things you do, right, you can't just expect to not ever be accountable.
Doug:Amazing story of where you are today. Again, your business has been open 14 years. Are we coming up, well, 15 or?
John:15, it'll be 15 on January 20th Congratulations, yeah, so that's a huge, huge milestone. It doesn't feel like that long, but no, but it really is.
Doug:And a lot of businesses, especially a lot of food-based businesses, never last quite that long, or you've really got to be dedicated. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And you've been surrounded by family. You're married now you have a daughter.
John:I have a seven-year-old daughter, iris. She's yeah, she's the best.
Doug:And it changes your perspective on why you're doing all the things you're doing.
John:Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you hit a whole. When you have a child, you definitely hit a whole new grind mode, I guess. Yeah, this is John King with Olympos, Gyros and Catering or Yianni, and this is the Pittsburgh Dish. Thank you for listening.
Doug:I would love to also take a step back and talk a little bit more about lessons you learned from beginning and opening the business. Yeah, were there any you know, other aha moments or mentors when you started the shop or started the catering that if somebody else was now embarking on their own place or their own gig, that you would want them to know.
John:If you're planning on opening up your own business or getting into a new venture, expect it to be a lifestyle. It's not a, it's not a um. You just hand it off and let other people do it for you. Like you have to put in the work you got to put in the time, like we put in so much time, like the first five years working every single day like open to close, pretty much you know of course eventually bringing on employees and trying to get them to follow your lead, and you just kind of have to be prepared to live a lifestyle of whatever it is you're going to do.
John:You know everybody's situation is different, but yeah, I would. I would say that would probably be the number one thing. You've kind of got to prepare yourself.
Doug:Right Be committed.
John:Be committed to it because you know you have to want to do it. You have to, you know, be passionate about it, because when you're passionate about something, you're not going to be really working right. You're going to be doing something you like.
Doug:Once the shop got open, how long was it until you started the actual catering?
John:thing, or figured that part out. Well, we started getting people like customers asking about hey, can you like make food for a party? And you know it just kind of went from making food for, like, smaller parties to like okay, how do we do this on a larger scale? For like bigger parties Because we started getting people that wanted to do like weddings or, you know, office people of 50 to 100 people right.
John:Corporate events. So trial and error really. You know getting feedback, doing it for family, you know what I mean, getting family to. You know try stuff and then like offering them catering, even if it's just for free, just to kind of get the experience Right, cause there's no experience with like hands-on experience.
Doug:Right, what are some of the big challenges of the catering? It's about keeping stuff hot, keeping it in like a fresh kind of way.
John:Like keeping it in the state that you want it to be in for the process of eating it, because if, if it, um, if it gets cold especially gyro it's not the same. No it's not the same at all. Even if it gets a little bit cold, it's completely different.
Doug:It's nice Hero to zero.
Ashley:It's hero to zero right.
John:Some people call them heroes. I know. I think that's why they call them heroes from hero to zero. That's the exact, but you couldn't have said it better from hero to zero.
Doug:That's the exact, but you couldn't have said it better. Well, let me ask that's sort of a sidestep Gyro, gyro. I don't think I've ever called it a hero. What would your family say is the right pronunciation? Oh, depends.
John:Depends on who you talk to what side of the family you talk to.
Doug:Are you Greek on both sides of?
John:your family. No, I'm actually. My grandfather was Lithuanian and my grandmother was Irish, so I have that side of my family which they're all going to say gyro, of course. And then you have my Greek side of the family, so they're all going to call it gyro.
Doug:Gyro. Okay, is it an H or a Y, or both? It's a.
John:Y.
Ashley:Gyro.
Doug:It's a Y.
John:Okay, is it an H or a Y or both? It's a Y, yero, it's a Y. Okay, yero, yero. I love that. Yeah, it's kind of hard to say. We get customers Well we're Pittsburghers.
Doug:Yeah, you're like, get me a gyro.
John:I've heard so many different names. I've heard hero, I've heard kirigoro or all kinds of different names, just from people like trying to say it, they're trying.
Doug:I'm just like.
John:I give you an A for effort. Just call it a gyro.
Doug:This is why, at the end of the day, you just go by, john.
John:Yeah, exactly, exactly yeah.
Doug:You know, you and I were talking, when I was in your shop too, a little bit about the balance of the food truck. So we talked a little bit about how it was a good sort of saving grace during the pandemic and the lockdown. But you have also said that it's really been a learning experience that you most of the time don't just show up or drive up because it may not make money.
Ashley:Right.
Doug:So how did you sort of figure that out, or what's your method now?
John:So if you're doing a food truck and you're just starting out, it depends on your experience level. Like, of course, if you just want to go and get some experience in, that's always good too and you're okay with not making a bunch of money, Like a lot of people do like farmer's markets and stuff and they're okay with not just making a bunch of money, right, you, you want to make some money.
John:You know that's why you're doing it. So the best way that we found out, based off of trial and error, is we lean towards more of the private bookings, where they get a set amount of food, and we come up with a plan. Basically, we make sure that we have enough food for your event and it's either a set price or a per person price. And you know, that's more along the lines of if we're dealing with, like, corporate customers to have a budget that they have to stay in mind with and we have to kind of do a contract and we make sure they have enough food. Basically, it's almost like another extension of your catering.
John:Right, yeah, it is more of an extension of the catering. At least that's what we try to lead towards because, like you said, you are taking a risk when you go certain places and you show up and you don't know what to expect, like we did a lot of breweries when we first opened, and some of them you don't make any money you know, and you, you show up and you're there all day long and you, you leave with like $200 and it's like I just spent like $200 to set up here, or maybe $300.
John:Right yeah, or $300 if you're paying somebody, or things were a little cheaper back then, so you could, you know you could take those risks. But now I think with everything being so expensive, with inflation, and you know those type of mistakes- you can't really afford to make that.
John:That could be something that makes or breaks you from doing future events. You know, those type of mistakes you can't really afford to make, that that could be something that makes or breaks you from doing future events, you know. So we decided like to do a minimum amount, like if we're going to show up somewhere and just sell food, we have to make whatever eight, nine, a thousand. And if we don't hit that amount, then the host, whoever is hosting us there, will be responsible for whatever. The difference is Gotcha, and then we will share the sales with them. We're transparent with how much we make through our POS system, because there's no way around that. Most of the time we're taking just cards. So we share that information with the host and then if we hit the mark, then we hit the mark. If it comes up short, then the host has to cover it and you can really weed out a lot of the people that know how many people are going to show up and that are confident about that Helps to keep them honest with their event Right.
John:It keeps them honest or it tells you that they don't know.
Doug:Yeah, they're not confident, they're not sure, right.
John:And if they're not sure, then should you really take that?
Doug:chance Right A great thing to keep your eye on if you're doing that side for your business.
John:One I hate to waste food. I don't like to waste food. I didn't grow up under terms where food was always available, so wasting food is a big deal to me. I don't like to waste anything. I try to recycle everything I can. I love the environment, I like doing things outdoors, so I don't like to see people lose money also, so like you don't want to see somebody go out of business, so cover yourself first before they take the chance.
Doug:Yeah, you know I'm going to jump us forward to you just said something that reminded me of another chat we had. I know you like the outdoors and you like gardening. Yep, can you tell me the story we talked about?
John:uh, trying to bring some produce in right, like tomatoes and stuff, like you're doing that in the shop yeah, absolutely like I'm definitely passionate about the outdoors, like I love hunting, fishing, like just being outside like my daughter's the same way, like just something that I like to do, care about it deeply so gardening is obviously something you do outdoors, so I like to do care about it deeply.
John:So gardening is obviously something you do outdoors, so I like to garden as much of the things that we can for the shop, which you're totally allowed to do, if in case you're curious. I've already reached out to the health department about that. You're allowed to make, you're allowed to grow your own produce, so like tomatoes, which can be super expensive.
Doug:Yes, you can do this throughout the summer and have really excellent quality yeah, excellent quality tomatoes. Save a ton of money, save a ton of money.
John:Yep, Now you have to have the space to do it, but you also don't have to have the space to do it because we have a hydroponics system that you can yeah, you can use a hydroponics system and you can grow them indoors.
Doug:And you're doing this.
John:Yeah, we have one right now. We've experimented with it for the past few months and it seems to work out good. We've been doing it more along the lines with the lettuce, because tomatoes are a little bit more difficult to grow in this type of hydroponic system.
John:So we've been doing it more along the lines with the lettuce and trying to just grow the tomatoes like our garden. Outdoors we have 50 or 60 tomato plants. We're trying to grow them um upwards now, like we're experimenting with growing like the trestle version of the tomatoes, just to get more out of them and make sure that they're a better quality and tomatoes will keep growing. If, if you like, get them upward going, they'll keep going. Yeah, so we're trying to grow as much produce as we can and and the oregano too, we have a we're growing, we're experimenting with a spicy oregano.
Doug:So Used in so much stuff.
John:Yeah, using a lot of stuff. We use oregano in pretty much everything.
Doug:I'm trying to think of where you can expand to. Maybe maybe someday cucumbers and onion can come into some of that. Yeah, Onion.
John:We do onion too, but not so much Just because onion is difficult. Yeah, they're a little more difficult space-wise and they're not that expensive to just buy them and you're not going to notice the difference in taste.
Doug:Not like a tomato Wow that onion is amazing.
John:That's a great onion.
Doug:Most people are like leave that off, yeah leave the onion off.
John:I'm good on the onion. Most people are like leave that off, yeah, like leave the onion off. I'm good on the onion, especially our customers. A lot of our customers are people that are working, so they just care about their breath, I guess.
Doug:They're going back to the office, right, they don't want everybody smelling the onion breath Okay. I would love to ask, john, you've been open for 14 years. You're doing a lot with the catering, from corporate events to weddings to, probably this summer, some graduation parties. Yep, the food truck goes out when you make it work. What are some other goals for you, either this year or in the future with the business, or maybe even just personal goals?
John:Just continue on expanding into the catering, because that's, you know, that's something that I'm passionate about. It's something that I don't I don't know any other gyro shop that own products and bringing our own products, things that we make you know what I mean.
Doug:Yeah.
John:Like being able to grow all our lettuce or being able to grow all our tomatoes, using more local instead of big companies.
Doug:You know what I mean. I think consumers today, myself included, we love that kind of stuff.
John:Yeah, you need to be more involved with your community and you need to bring more things to the table and make more things, and especially produce, because your produce comes from far away.
Doug:Yes, and the more you as a business can actually say, hey, we're doing this ourselves. From a local perspective, it just is a win-win. Yeah, absolutely.
John:And it feels good, like it doesn't like like to be like. I grew this, you know, or I made this, you know Exactly.
Doug:Okay. So, John, I always love to give you a moment to plug yourself all the social places and the business, like where can people find you and follow you if they're hungry for a gyro or they just want to know more?
John:So you can find us on our website, wwwolymposgyroscom. We're pretty active on all our social medias. We're on Facebook, so you can just yeah, you can Google us, but you can look us up on Facebook too, and we're really more active on Instagram as far as like posting videos and posting content.
Doug:So our Instagram. That's how I get you guys, yeah.
John:That's how I found found you too. So our Instagram is at Olympos gyros, underscore catering, and then you know we're, we're on like some of the other social medias and stuff, but I don't really do the whole tick tock thing.
Doug:And it's just too much, not your primary place thing and it's just too much.
John:Not your primary place, me either. I'm not there. Too many, too many social media places and not enough of me to go around, exactly, right.
Doug:Oh, john, thank you so much, and I always have one more question. You know the name of the show. It's the Pittsburgh dish. Yeah, what's the best dish you've had this past week, this past week?
John:Oh, this past week. Hmm, that's a good question. Speaking of the outdoors, I made, um, so like crab cakes? Right, you've had a crab cake before, right? Yeah, so I like crab cakes and you know, I like experimenting with stuff and I also like fishing. So I did a lot of trout fishing with my daughter over the course of April and May and we have a lot of trout, so we have a freezer full of trout and I decided I was going to make a trout version of crab cakes.
Doug:I like this, yeah.
John:So get it down to the point where it's like crab almost. Yeah, you just have the meat. Yes.
John:No bones, no scales none of that, none of that skin then you mix it with like breadcrumbs and like mayo or whatever your your choice is of making your how you want to make your trout cakes or crab cakes and then you deep fry them. So, oh, we deep. We use like avocado oil because we just like to use the healthier version of the oil. But yeah, we had those and dipped them in like habanero, haiti sauce or chili oil, and they're so good. That was something that we had.
Doug:You need to send me that recipe.
John:I like this recipe. I can definitely send you that they're so good.
Doug:All right, john, best bite of the week, your version of a crab cake, a trout cake, a trout cake that you caught, that I caught, yes. Or your daughter, yeah. Crab cake, a trout cake, a trout cake that you caught, that I caught yes, or your daughter?
John:Yeah, actually, she did catch it. And she actually won the fishing tournament in Cecil Nice. Yeah, she won free miniature golfing to. I can't remember what's that golfing place in Green Tree. Have you ever heard of it? Miniature golfing, F forsyth. Yes, yeah she won free, free golfing there, so we used her trout.
Doug:I love it. What a great story. John King, I'm not going to say Yianni, say it again for me, yianni.
John:Okay, john King, otherwise known as Yianni. I always hear it in the version of Yianni Like I'm doing something wrong. Oh, like you're still getting in trouble. Yeah, like I'm still getting in trouble.
Doug:Well, thank you for being on T the Pittsburgh Dish.
John:Absolutely. Thank you for your time, man. I really appreciate it. It's been awesome trying to share all this experience and story and have a great day everyone.
Doug:Yeah, you too. Thanks so much. Yep, are you craving a biscuit that might change your life? Well, A ashley Cesaratto, the co-founder of the popular Facebook group Pittsburgh Foodies, might just have the place. Hey, everybody, so we're back with our friend Ashley Cesaratto. And, A ashley, thank you so much for stopping back on the show.
Ashley:Sure Excited to be here.
Doug:So, A ashley, I was wondering if you've been to any place that's been sort of a standout new like breakfast or brunch spot.
Ashley:I Any place that's been sort of a standout new like breakfast or brunch spot. I have Wise County Biscuits on the north side.
Doug:Oh yeah.
Ashley:Honestly changed my life recently. What?
Doug:I've seen a lot of good stuff on Instagram and I haven't been there yet.
Ashley:Yeah, you have to make the trip and the great thing is they are actually open on Mondays. The only day they're closed is Tuesdays.
Doug:Oh, that is good. A lot of places are closed Mondays. The only day they're closed is Tuesdays.
Ashley:Oh, that is good.
Doug:A lot of places are closed Mondays and Tuesdays and so you're sort of stymied for a place on a Monday. So that's good to know.
Ashley:Yeah, yeah for sure. So I went there recently and I got the fried chicken biscuit and I added pimento cheese and honey because I love the sweet and salty combination.
Doug:Oh, my goodness.
Ashley:It was just fantastic.
Doug:I love that combination and like such Southern things that we don't always hear about in Pittsburgh, like the pimento cheese. Right, and you got to tell me how was the biscuit?
Ashley:It was so buttery and soft and flaky and just everything that you want in a good biscuit.
Doug:Oh, my goodness, it sounds amazing. It looks amazing if someone hasn't checked them out on their social feeds. Was there anything else you had or that others had that you thought looked like a standout?
Ashley:I had the collard greens too, and I'm really trying to incorporate more veggies into my diet. So you know, fried chicken biscuit really no vegetables there. So it was nice to get a veggie side with breakfast. And also the place itself is just so cute it almost feels like you're just walking into your grandmother's house for breakfast oh, that's amazing, and so it's.
Doug:It's right along like G galveston avenue, is that right? yeah, their address is 911 G galveston avenue okay, yeah, it's a great neighborhood and if anyone is in search of breakfast or brunch or just like a really good biscuit Wise County Biscuits Yep Over in the north side. Absolutely, Ashley. Thanks so much. Thank you. You can follow Ashley on Instagram at eatingwithashleypgh. If you're following my personal feed at Doug Cooking, you may know that I am on this season of the Great American Recipe on PBS. We're doing something special in our weekly recipe spot and sharing a recipe from each of the contestants that I had the pleasure of competing against. This week we check in with Ingrid Portillo of North Carolina with her shredded flank steak recipe. Let's give her a call and learn a little bit more about this dish. Hi Doug, hey Ingrid, how are you?
Ingrid:Good, how are you?
Doug:I'm doing well. It's so nice to hear your voice.
Ingrid:Have you ever heard of ropa vieja? I think so. Have you ever heard of ropa vieja? I think so. It's called old clothes. Like you know, legend goes that the family was so poor that they started cooking their clothes and magically turned into what you see there.
Doug:This shredded beef. So it translates I mean, the history translates into something like old clothes that just turned into a magical meal. I love that. So, ingrid, this recipe sounds so flavorful and delicious.
Ingrid:You take flank steak and you like to use a pressure cooker. Is that right? Yes, I love using the pressure cooker. It's done so much faster.
Doug:Yeah, yeah. If someone wanted to use an instant pot and use like the pressure cooker setting, can they do that too? Yes, all right.
Ingrid:And you know it's um. You know your pressure cooker.
Doug:Yes.
Ingrid:So or your instant pots, and you know your equipment right.
Doug:Right.
Ingrid:So whatever works for you, you could also do it on the stove, or you could do it in the oven.
Doug:Yeah, so if we do it in the oven it just takes a little bit longer, I think. For the pressure cooker your recipe says it's about 45 minutes, but in the oven it's more like an hour and a half, and you'd probably want to keep it covered. Yeah, you're throwing in like some beef, bouillon, red onions, garlic, bay leaf, cumin and a couple cups of water. It goes for like 45 minutes under pressure, and then you rapid release the pressure and then tell us what. What do you do next?
Ingrid:after I release the pressure to let it cool down sure to shred it. I usually, you know I work with my hands a lot versus, you know, using utensils yes but, um, but you can also use a fork yes to um, you know, to shred it apart just a couple forks to shred it apart, just a couple of forks to shred it apart. Yes, you know, the more I shred, the better yeah it's a good tech.
Doug:I mean, it really does change the texture. And then we should talk about the sauce. So you're getting a sauce going with tomato, like diced tomatoes, and red and green bell pepper, and white onion tomato paste, more beef broth. Are you doing that on the stovetop then yes, and so you get the sauce going and then you put the beef, the shredded beef, in the sauce for like 15 minutes, covered, so it like absorbs all the flavors. Is that right?
Ingrid:Yes, to give all that flavor from the broth, from you know that sauce, the tomatoes. You gotta give it time to you know all those flavors to dance in there.
Doug:Yeah, I love it. You know, what I didn't mention is that you also you put a bunch of spices in yours but you kind of listed on the recipe that the spices are to taste. So what are some spices that you like to add into the sauce as well?
Ingrid:Yeah, I love cumin. That's like that is when it comes to any central american dish it has to have cumin. When you're making the sauce, you can add more of your favorite spices, or because you know, um, I don't want to add a lot of spices into the pressure cooker because it get um the spices can clog it yeah yeah, and then you know you don't want the pressure cooker to blow up oh, yeah, no yeah, so that's why, you know, I just added um bay leaf and garlic.
Ingrid:You know the big chunks there. Yeah, so if you want to add any spices, you will add it when you're making the sauce.
Doug:Yeah, you have some things written down like rosemary thyme, basil, oregano. Those are some other options for people depending on what their flavor profile is.
Ingrid:Yes, All right. You know that's the beauty of home cooking. You add your flavor to any recipe. You know, I love that we share recipes because you may not have all the ingredients I I have yeah but you have your own and you're making your own yeah you know your taste buds right, you may and you also just might not like what somebody else does, but you can customize it.
Doug:And then, ingrid, just to wrap up, you kind of gave me a couple serving suggestions. You serve this with a salad and over rice, but you said over carrot rice. So what you're doing is you're shredding up a carrot or two per cup of rice or so, cooking it the way the rice normally gets cooked, but it makes it a really nice yellow color, and then you're putting the shredded flank steak over top of that and some of the sauce. Is that right?
Ingrid:Yes, perfect.
Doug:That sounds so delicious. Ingrid, thank you so much for the recipe. If people want to find and follow more of your cooking, where can they find you?
Ingrid:You can find me on Instagram with Tia Ingrid Recetas Mixtas and on TikTok by Tia Ingrid Recetas Mixtas. Tia means aunt in Spanish. When I put one of my recipes online, it's like I want to be your aunt. I want you to feel like you're coming to your tia's house, so that's kind of where I took the name from.
Doug:Oh, I love it. So you want to be the auntie to everybody with your mix of recipes. I love that.
Ingrid:Yes, I was born in el salvador, but I grew up here in the us. I feel like you know it's mixed, that means mixed. Yes, like I'm a mixture of both cultures, of course, and recipe, that's the means recipe. So I have mixed recipes of both cultures. You know, not just the culture from the US, but in general. There are so many cultures.
Doug:Of course.
Ingrid:And I feel like I'm a mix of all those cultures here in the US.
Doug:I love it. You know, ingrid, what we didn't mention is how you and I met, so people can also find you on season three of the Great American Recipe on PBS.
Ingrid:Yes, that's the way you're going to see us cooking there. Amazing stories from Doug.
Doug:And for all of our listeners, that's going to be airing Monday nights on PBS or on pbsorg and streaming on the PBS app. Ingrid, thanks so much for the recipe this week and all the best with your own summer cooking.
Ingrid:Yeah, thank you you too. It's been amazing. Thank you you too. It's been amazing talking with you, you as well, getting to share a little bit of my culture with you.
Doug:All right, we'll talk soon.
Ingrid:All right, take care, doug.
Doug:All right, bye-bye. That's our show for this week. We'd like to thank all of our guests and contributors, and to Kevin Solecki of Carnegie Accordion Company for providing the music to our show. We'll be back again next week with another fresh episode. Stay tuned.
