Upon entering the Spaghetti Warehouse in the Strip District, you are greeted by items from years gone bye.  Antique games and signs abound, even some old rail road memorabilia, I was even fortunate enough to have my meal on an old trolley in the trolley room.

The menu here was nothing spectacular, and I knew that going in, the place is called The SPAGHETTI Warehouse.  Upon selecting my Warehouse trio, which is an appetizer, entree, and dessert for one low price, my other guest took advantage of calamari, ravioli, but most of us took up spaghetti, be it with meatballs or Italian sausage.  My personal choice was the spaghetti and meatballs with mozzarella sticks as an appetizer,and finishing things off with the brownie delight.  My soup choice excited me, as I had not had a good bowl of Minestrone in a long time.  Upon learning my appetizer came out with my entree, as puzzled as I was about that, I was served my sourdough bread and garlic butter, with my soup.  Short of anything else, I am still waiting on that good bowl of Minestrone.

The high point of any Minestrone is pasta, and my bowl was pretty lacking in pasta.  What it lacked in pasta, it made up for in salt it seemed.  The usual variety of vegetables was present here, but the soup just seemed too salty for my taste.

Shortly thereafter, my spaghetti and meatballs arrived.  I mean we are talking pasta here folks, kind of difficult to mess that up.  The pasta was excellent, the meatballs were excellent as well.  The meatballs had a spice edge to them but not overbearing, coupled with the pasta it worked quite nicely.  Upon managing to snag bites of calamari, Italian sausage, and even a children’s meal chicken finger (hey, I like to be thorough) I can honestly say not bad.  However, I was not blown away either.

At this point of the meal, however, it started to get rather warm on the trolley car.  There were several of us dining in there, seemed like a fan or some sort of temperature control system would have helped things along.  But it was just plain uncomfortable.

Upon getting my dessert, I was disappointed because it mainly looked nothing like the delicious brownie I saw in the picture, not that they ever do, but this was not even close.  The layer chocolate cake was great, and the tiramisu was terrific as well, made me jealous that I did not order either of those instead.

My waitress was terrific, truly top notch, I was treated kindly by the entire staff.  The place was clean, not too hard to find, all in all top marks for all the intangibles.  The food is average, nothing fantastic, the prices average around $15 for a dinner, again not too bad for a restaurant in Pittsburgh.  Kids meals are all around $4, so take the family and give it try.  Just steer clear of the pasta less minestrone, and brownie delight, and you will be all set.