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Friday, August 20, 1999 By Woodene Merriman, Post-Gazette Dining Critic
If I hadn't been tipped off, His Honor and I would never have gone to the Mighty Oak Barrel for dinner.
From the outside, it looks like a neighborhood bar -- a small, square, windowless building, parking lot on the side, lighted Honey Lager Beer sign by the front door.
Inside, they're serving cutting-edge culinary creations like grilled marinated pork loin with fresh port and pear chutney, and a glass of Lindeman's pinot noir especially selected to go with it. If you prefer a different wine, the Mighty Oak Barrel has about two dozen other selections by the glass -- a rarity in the Pittsburgh area.
What's more, prices are reasonable for the quality and style of dinners they're dishing up. The pork loin, with bread, potato and vegetable of the day as well as the glass of wine, is $11.95. If you prefer a three-course, fixed-price dinner, it's $25. Again, that includes the wine.
The Mighty Oak Barrel is the long-awaited dream-come-true for owners Lisa Rusak and Grainne Trainor. Rusak is local and Trainor is from Ireland, but they both have extensive experience in the hotel and restaurant business throughout the United States. They met when they both worked at the Ritz-Carlton in Kansas City.
Most recently, they worked at the Vista, then the Doubletree, Downtown, and went with chef Mike Fischetti, now at the Sheraton Station Square, to open the Monterey Bay Fish Grotto on Mount Washington, working with owner Glen Hawley. They stayed about a year, as they had planned.
Meantime, they checked the communities along the Allegheny River from the Strip up, Trainor says, hunting for a place to put a restaurant. They found it in the neighborhood tavern just off the Hulton Bridge on Third Street in Oakmont, and started renovating. In July 1998, they opened.
Rusak is in charge of the kitchen. (She doesn't like to be called the chef because she has no formal culinary training, just a love of good food.) She also has a full-time assistant, Justin Dzikowski. Trainor is the wine guru, learning as she goes.
Trainor suggests a wine to go with many of the entrees -- Clos du Bois chardonnay with grilled Jamaican pork loin and grilled fresh pineapple, Estancia chardonnay with the grilled rosemary chicken, R.H. Phillips syrah with seared yellowfin tuna.
His Honor is skeptical, of course. He likes to do his own wine choosing. When a glass of the Centine Banfi chianti comes with my pan-seared, garlic-crusted New York strip steak, he says, "Of course. A big red is a natural with the steak."
The man is opinionated, to be sure. With salmon, for example, he usually likes pinot noir. But the waitress suggests a shiraz and merlot blend from Australia to go with his grilled, peppered salmon laced with a warm strawberry balsamic vinaigrette and hey! He likes it!
Trainor says she doesn't like formality in wine. "Customers are allowed to disagree with me. I just suggest," she says, adding: "Affordability and approachability are what's important." When she's in the restaurant, she walks around to tables and asks customers' opinions on the wine they're drinking.
We've had some excellent food at the Mighty Oak Barrel, and one entree that was terrible. It was the New York strip steak. It was not a good piece of meat -- too much fat and gristle -- and was not hot enough when it was served to melt the two balls of rosemary butter on top. It wasn't crusty on the outside either, as a good steak should be.
On the other hand, snapper with tomato and basil, a special one night, was superb. It was translucent, fell apart at the touch of the fork, and was served on a bed of flash-fried spinach, which had a wonderful light but crisp texture. The grilled marinated pork loin was an amazing piece of meat, more than an inch thick, tender and delicious.
Some of the appetizers on the menu are ordinary -- chicken tenders, fried provolone sticks, chicken wings and fries with the works. Maybe they appeal to the people who stop in for a beer at the horseshoe-shaped bar that still fills one corner of the building.
More interesting is the bruschetta platter -- three each of three different kinds of bruschetta built on crunchy baguette slices, $5.95. We had roasted peppers with feta cheese, grilled salmon with capers and Southwestern chicken with diced peppers and Monterey jack cheese. It's an attractive, original appetizer platter.
Fresh crab claw salad on a lettuce leaf, topped with a cilantro pesto vinaigrette and an edging of chopped tomato is a another fine appetizer -- when it's available.
In addition to the regular menu, a small selection of chicken, salmon, pork, beef, tuna and pastas, the Mighty Oak Barrel now has a $25 fixed-price menu of the night, plus a selection of eight other entrees and four appetizers that can be substituted for an item on the fixed-price menu. At least that's the way I think it works; it's very confusing.
The third course on that fixed-price menu, incidentally, is dessert and it's reason enough to go for the three courses for $25. Desserts are made at the restaurant. We highly recommend the sour cream cheesecake, a big wedge with thick graham cracker crust and raspberry sauce, the warm caramel nut tart drizzled with caramel sauce and white chocolate (it's like eating a candy bar), and the apple and pear strudel with ice cream.
The Mighty Oak Barrel is such a good restaurant that I wish it had a nicer space. It seats only 36 people, with maybe 15 more at the bar. It's noisy when the restaurant is full, which seems to be most of the time. Glass tabletops over the colorful tablecloths don't help much. It has a bar-like atmosphere; it's not intimate. It's not a restaurant that would appeal to children.
Still, maybe the Mighty Oak Barrel is better the way it is, with surprisingly fine food and wines for a neighborhood restaurant. People who want high prices and fancy surroundings can go elsewhere, leaving the Mighty Oak Barrel for the rest of us.
Mighty Oak Barrel
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Hours: Lunch, Tues.-Fri. 11 a.m.- 2 p.m.; Dinner, Tues.-Sat. 5-10 p.m.