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Barcelona Wine Bar Review – Spanish Tapas and Wine Downtown

Barcelona Wine Bar is a new addition to the downtown Pittsburgh drinking and dining scene offering small plates and a huge selection of wine by the glass. Although it's a national chain, we absolutely love the concept of Barcelona Wine Bar- snacking our way through a meal and sampling Spanish and South American wines is our idea of a great night out.

Occupying the former Sharp Edge space on Penn Ave., Barcelona Wine Bar has completed a stunning reservation of the space; the decor suggests the kind of high end wine bar you might find in a much larger city. A long bar with sleek pendant lights runs the length of the space, with large, comfy booths beside the bar, and an adjacent room offers a larger dining space with tables.

Both the food and wine menus here are pretty extensive- it took us a while to take it all in and make decisions, as we truly wanted to order some of everything!

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Phipps Conservatory for the Orchid and Tropical Bonsai Show

The Orchid and Tropical Bonsai Show, aptly themed “Into the Mist” for 2024, brings these two beautiful plants (both favorites of ours) to the forefront of the Conservatory while highlighting how some of the flowers with special water features and lighting.

As always with our show features, we wanted to share a few of our favorite rooms from this show and hope you'll make it out to visit for yourselves!

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Fun Fore All Holiday Lights – Mini Golf With a Holiday Twist

You may know about the family-friendly entertainment complex, Fun Fore All, in Cranberry.

This staple north of the city is home to a large assortment of fun activities be it mini golf, arcade games, bumper cars, rides for kids, and so much more.

But did you know that Fun Fore All gets into the holiday spirit by decorating the mini golf course with holiday lights? This one certainly makes for a different kind of winter experience if you can visit on a night with good weather!

We were invited by Fun Fore All to check out the Holiday Lights mini golf and have to admit we had a lot of fun here!

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Tinseltown is a Different Kind of Holiday Pop-Up Bar

Prior to 2023, Tinseltown was known as The Tipsy Elf and was located in Hough's in Greenfield. Starting this year, the popup was renamed and can be found at Mixtape in Garfield.

Tinseltown is a ticketed pop-up bar experience with mulled wine, cocktails, holiday games, and more.

As we are always on the lookout for the best Christmas popup bars in Pittsburgh, you know we had to check this one out. As it so happens, we were invited to this event by the folks at Hidden Pittsburgh for a media night and couldn't pass up on the opportunity.

As ticketed pop-up bars are a different kind of bar experience, we thought we'd share a bit about what the pop-up was like and then dive into the ticketing aspect of it more to share what you get for the entry fee.

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Epic Pass Review – An All Access Pass to Vail Resorts

We are quite fortunate enough to have several major ski resorts right in our backyard- Seven Springs, Hidden Valley, and Laurel Mountain.

These Laurel Highlands gems have been our go-to spot for winter skiing each year. But at the end of 2021, these properties were sold to Vail Resorts to become part of the larger global brand of ski resorts.

With the merger came access to Vail Resort's incredible Epic Pass, a season pass valid at most all Vail Resorts properties with little restriction.

We were fortunate enough to get our hands on this pass for a few seasons courtesy of Vail Resorts and wanted to share a bit more about our experience in this one!

Note: Epic Pass sales are typically only available prior to the start of the season. In 2023, Epic Pass sales will end on December 3rd. After that, only individual lift tickets will be available.

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TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition Comes to Pittsburgh

When it comes to tragedies that are known the world over, the sinking of the Titanic is one of the most documented.

But the touring show, TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition at the Carnegie Science Center, takes what you know about the Titanic and moves it one step forward. While this one does cover the building, sailing, and subsequent sinking of the ship, there is a human element in this one that ties the experience together.

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Zombies of the Corn Offers a Family-Friendly Haunt

Everyone wants to shoot a zombie horde during Halloween, right?

If this is something you have always wanted to try, you are in luck! Zombies of the Corn in Freedom, PA, offers a chance to contain a zombie apocalypse armed with glow-in-the-dark paintballs!

Although the star attraction at this one is indeed the Zombie ride, the grounds are home to four haunted attractions and makes for a fun, (mostly) family-friendly haunt north of the city.

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Phipps Conservatory’s Fall Flower Show – Hometown Harvest

Phipps Conservatory is known for being one of the largest botanical gardens in the region, and also for its seasonal flower shows that are truly events not to be missed.

For 2023's Fall Flower Show, Phipps is celebrating all things harvest with the theme Hometown Harvest. From beekeeping to grape growing, apples to the harvest moon, there really are a number of gorgeous harvest designs in this one!

As with all of our show reviews, we're not going to share every room in the Conservatory (you'll have to visit yourself to see them all!). Instead, we're going to feature a few of our favorite rooms from the show to highlight a cross-section of the displays!

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Wine & Cheese Tasting with The Indian Somm and Nosh & Curd

We love good wine and cheese pairings and must admit that for how much we are into wine, we have not taken many formal classes that showcase this epic pairing outright.

It wasn't until our friend Kanika, The Indian Somm (whom I've been studying WSET Diploma with), started wine and cheese classes with Nosh & Curd in Mars that we made this a reality. 

Wine and cheese pairing from experts in the respective fields? We're all about that!

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Chef Alekka Offers a Pittsburgh Chef Experience at Home

We have to admit that cooking at home is one of our favorite activities. When we're not out exploring the city or eating at local restaurants, odds are good you can find us in the kitchen whipping up an involved meal that takes all day to prepare, baking, or setting up an unusual fermentation project.

But as we are always excited to learn more cooking techniques, we were really excited to have Chef Alekka, a in-home chef in Pittsburgh, come over to our house for a cooking demonstration with some delicious summer appetizers.

All the best things about cooking with a chef but in the comfort of our kitchen? Sign us up.

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