Sunday Night Pot Roast at Pittsburgh Blue

Sunday nights can be slow in the restaurant business, so it's not a bad time to play around and try out some recurring, customer-building, weekly specials.

Few places in the area have approached the dead zone/opportunity with as much smarts and moxie as Pittsburgh Blue, the relatively new Parasole property out in Maple Grove.

For $8.95 — an amount fractional in terms of the restaurant's other offerings — you can get a share of a table-sized helping of old-school pot roast (two people are needed for a minimum order, and it scales up as needed). It's not much more than a humble cut of beef stewed until forkably tender and served up with carrots, potatoes and small (possibly Bermuda?) onions.

Covered in pan gravy, impeccably seasoned, lip-smackingly moist and flavorful; this is old-school home cooking, available, surprisingly and affordably, at an upscale concept restaurant. The craziest thing is that while the name suggests a load of heavy food, the actual portion sizes are modest and reasonable. The stuff sticks to your ribs, but doesn't bust a gut.