Gingerbread Houses, The Oyster House, And The Ladies' Room From Hell.

...Continued from yesterday: 

     After the sun went down we again set out, this time walking west from our hotel,

...to the Pittsburgh Christmas Market,

...Pittsburgh's version of the German Christkindelsmarkt,

 ...where visitors can come to stroll and shop among the booths, which sell traditional European Christmas ornaments and crafts,

..or for some yummy food such as these giant soft pretzels,

...a couple of which we shared.

    We walked across Market Square,

...to the PPG building to see this year's  Gingerbread House Competition, where there were hundreds of enchanting gingerbread houses on display.

     After we'd seen all the gingerbread houses we decided to seek out some dinner,

..and so we headed towards a restaurant we saw at the corner of the Market Place.

     It was a cute, crowded little place,

...but we were able to snag a table.

    While we were waiting for our food I wished to head for the restroom, but though the Men's Room was right next to our table, I could not see a Ladies' Room anywhere.

    I asked the bartender, a rather surly youth, where the Ladies' Room was, and he directed me to a hallway, which dead-ended in the kitchen. A helpful kitchen worker told me to go to go down the narrow hallway off to the right then around the corner.
     I followed his instructions, and found myself here:

...in the Bar From Hell.

  One could not cross the floor of this place without pushing someone at every step. Nor did I see a Ladies' Room anywhere. Still I pushed my way around a little, then asked a group of girls I'd pushed into if they knew if there was a Ladies' Room in this place.
    They directed me to the line:

...in which, I noticed, there were also some guys standing.

     I t occurred to me that in the Bar From Hell one would expect to find the Ladies' Room from Hell. (I pondered how long ago the last shred of TP in that single-seater room had expired.)
     And so I pushed my way back to the dining room.
     Now, here was the situation: the Ladies' Room had a line at least a dozen deep.
   

   The Men's Room across from our table was still vacant.

      Thus  I asked Tom to ask the surly young bartender to buzz open the door of the Men's Room (see post from 2/6/2014, "The Men's Room Crashers").
     Tom did so, but when I entered the Men's Room I saw to my dismay that this bathroom had two urinals but no commode. (Which I guess explained why there were guys in line at the Ladies' Room).
      As I was returning to my table the young bartender shouted at me, eyes shooting angry flaming daggers, "I told you, yours is in the other room! What's the matter, can't you hear?!"
    To which I shouted right back, "Yes, I can hear, you young whippersnapper! But there's a line 15 deep at the Ladies' Room and nobody in the Men's, so what the heck difference would it have made for me to use this bathroom if you'd have had the common decency to put a toilet in there out of consideration for all these paying customers? And further more, whoever owns this bar and restaurant should be ashamed of themselves for being too stingy to even put in enough bathrooms for all the people who crowd into this place and pour their money into it, and I wonder what the Health Inspector would think if I dropped them a line about all the people  jammed into that bar without even acceptable facilities?!"
       That's exactly what I said to that kid. In my head.
       In reality I said nada. Instead I whipped out my camera, 

....and shot him.

     Then I zipped over to the Five Guys I'd spotted on the other side of the Market Square.

    When our food was delivered by our server, a middle-aged lady who, for all I know, could have been the owner - or not - I began snapping photos of our food, as I always do.
     Tom, in a feat quick thinking, said to the server, "My wife is a blogger. She travels around and writes about restaurants."
      The server, who'd surely heard my public bathroom-shaming along with the rest of the restaurant, got a look of horror on her face. "Oh my God," she cried, "I hope you're not gonna write something bad about us!"
        You think? Thought I.
         I will say, to her credit, that for the rest of the night you never saw such a solicitous server to our table in a such a crowded restaurant.
         As for the food?
          OMG, it was the best.

   The crab cakes were delicious, all crab and some vegetables, no filler,

...the fries were hot and crisp,

...and the fish was delicious and coated in a feather-light, crispy batter.

   And so I guess some, if not all, of the offense by one of the staff against myself was forgiven. Still, as I always told my children, it doesn't matter how smart you are or how good you are at what you do, there's never any excuse for being mean.
     Anyway, we did have a nice walk back to our hotel through the theater district.

 The following morning we returned to the the Strip for another once-around-the markets.

   I, for one, had a hankering to at least look at all the Italian pastries one more time.

   We grabbed some lunch at a famous Italian sandwich place off the Strip called Primanti Brothers,

...where the sandwiches were, indeed, wonderful.

    Apparently the Primanti signature is that the French fries are in the sandwich. Inventive, and actually quite good.

    After lunch it was time to leave Pittsburgh, so we walked back to our cars, then drove home to Columbus.

     It was the best trip.