Parsells Avenue is part of a residential neighborhood. Children and dogs play behind chain-link fences in shaggy grass, men and women gather to chat on porch stoops, and teenage men bicycle bare-chested down the street, their wheels gliding past a broken bottle or two.
"This is so far removed from Flour City Diner cooking," says chef Jerry Manley, who recently put his popular comfort-food repertoire on the back burner in order to try his mano at Mexican cuisine, which involves a bevy of ingredients that Manley hadn't worked with professionally... until now. Lucky for us, the results of this intriguing career shift are now being served up at Wylie Chayote's Fine Mexican Food & Cantina, Manley's new venture with former Chilango's co-owner Donna Heiller.
On the surface, Pomodoro Grill and Wine Bar in Pittsford appears to have little in common with its older sister establishment in Rochester. The original Pomodoro, which opened in 1994, occupies the rear of a former sawmill factory on an otherwise restaurant-free stretch of University Avenue.
Well, a crucial chunk of the Inner Loop is off-limits for the next few months, traffic circles are apparently the new cupcake, and where Mount Hope and Elmwood avenues meet is being hacked to bits so that College Town may rise. But no amount of minor inconvenience is going to keep a true Rochesterian from good food, especially not if there's a burger with fries and a milkshake at the end of that road.