Roadfood Cross-Continental, Day 2

Knowing that we were going to feast in Pittsburgh, we chose to indulge in the scenery along the Pennsylvania Turnpike instead of stopping to ruin our appetites. Sadly we got our wires crossed in planning to meet Buffetbuster in Pittsburgh's Strip District for dinner (he was out in Kansas City sharing a Stroud’s chicken dinner with The Travelin' Man on Sunday afternoon). However, Cliff was kind enough to talk us through his planned eating itinerary over the phone. Our first stop was Primanti Bros., where we shared a homemade hot sausage and cheese sandwich heaped with Primanti's famous fries and coleslaw. Even though the restaurant was incredibly busy, our waitress was able to find the time to drop off an extra “dish” to share the sandwich (read: a second sheet of wax paper). From Primanti’s, we quickly rounded the corner and made it inside the Robert Wholey Co. fish market mere minutes before they closed up shop. We ordered the final sandwich of the day, and watched as the counterperson placed a foot’s worth of fried cod within the cushion of a Mancini roll. Our only regret was that we missed the condiments in our rush to leave the closed store—an ample dousing of malt vinegar would have been the perfect complement to the golden-brown filet! Our last stop before leaving the Steel City was Klavon's, an old-time ice cream parlor on the edge of the Strip District. Although Klavon's doesn't make their own ice cream, they do serve up a local Pittsburgh favorite—Reinhold's. We ordered a fountain-made vanilla Coke and a dish of the Whitehouse ice cream (vanilla ice cream laden with maraschino cherries). Both more than satisfied our sweet teeth, and the ambiance made for the finest ice cream experience in town. Our dinner stop was at Orr’s Drive-In in Dyersville, Ohio, where the foot-long chili dog was prime, and our wickedly peanut-buttery milkshake refused to be photographed clearly. Our first night of camping at Salt Fork State Park couldn’t have been nicer, too. Tomorrow we head to southern Indiana to eat with CajunKing at the newly re-opened Zaharako’s in picturesque Columbus!