Archive for the ‘in Philadelphia’ Category
and the hits keep comin’ …
t says: Sooooo … I’ve been told that my last post, despite containing some of the funniest things I’ve ever written (so I’m told), contained a lot of negativity. In an effort to minimize the spread of sorrow, I’ve lumped together into a single post a few other recent letdowns …
library bar: we went with a and v to the new-ish bar in the bottom of the Rittenhouse. the cocktails are splendid – very professionally executed with premium ingredients … however … nowhere in Philadelphia should a cocktail cost $20 … nowhere. g, who likes to play the optimist’s card, likes to point out that “at least they were very good cocktails!” … but still … it’s not like they were 50% better than any drink at Franklin Mortgage (I’m not sure they were any better, actually …) So we decided that Library Bar would be a nice place to go (good environment, very posh) to meet people for -A- drink and nothing more … but I still hope there never comes a time in my life when I’m “ok” with a $20 cocktail … (I have been known to splurge on a $20 glass of wine once or twice, but usually to taste something I’d never be able to get otherwise – so I’m ok with that)
my dumb idea: I wanted to make myself some chocolate chip pancakes but lacked chocolate chips. I reasoned that peanut-butter M&M’s would be appropriate, especially because I’ve even had the PB chips and chocolate chips in the same pancake at Honey’s before. However, unlike regular M&M’s, the moment these guys hit the batter, their colors started bleeding. The end result was the psychedelic pancake you see above. So what was the disappointment? Yea … so peanut-butter M&M’s in pancakes is actually not as nearly as tasty as it sounds [to me]. That might be a “no duh!” thing to you, but for me, I was a little sad :-(
i saw this on a ?moped?/?motorcycle? on my way to work and I just had to take a picture. I love the bumper sticker … what’s the sad part? it’s not mine. (the sticker … not the vehicle)
“they changed my f*ing soup!!”
t says: Recently, a, v, and I had a very sad dinner. By the end of our time there, our souls had been crushed. It was like finding out Santa Claus isn’t real, that your dad isn’t the strongest man in the world, and that, indeed, no matter how hard you try, you will never fly … all in the same meal. We didn’t know if we should mourn in sadness, scream in terror, or shout in anger. And it all started because yours truly wanted to go out to dinner on a Thursday night …
Thursday Dinner, July 2013, Table of 3. a and v had just returned from Ireland (and more). I pulled out some wine, they pulled out some wine, and we chose to eat at a “safe” favorite. We ordered a bunch of “oldies”. A server we recognized and had had before opened up our wine. We buckled up for what was essentially an easy “win” of a dinner …
boy were we wrong …
bigtime …
Garces Trading Company just kept screwing up … again and again …
#APPETIZERS:
– v’s tomato soup: acidic and off-balanced
– a’s vichyssoise: an unappealing brown-grey in appearance; clumpy, viscous on the spoon; gritty in the mouth; it was like they changed it from a delicious creamy soup to a peculiar puree of sad potatoes
#ENTREES:
– v’s duck salad: someone forgot how to poach an egg properly (i.e. it was cooked through completely … i mean I could do that!); the confit, despite being a confit, somehow lacked the moistness one would expect from something cooked in fat …
– t’s “unlimited” steak frites: the steak was grey, bland, and limp; the Bordelaise sauce was unusually sweet; the au poivre sauce was nonexistent (as they forgot to bring it)
– a’s fish: fish was overcooked (although the puree of pea accompanying it was pretty tasty!)
In retrospect, the only dishes that went unscathed that evening were the salad that was part of my steak frites (which is a very simple salad – a few greens and a light dressing) and the “artichoke appetizer”. Wait. Scratch that. The artichokes didn’t have much going on aside from “artichoke” – that’s pretty darn lackluster! Consider it scathed!
Conversations included such quotable quotes like:
– a protests: “they changed my f*ing soup!”; t explains: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a so disappointed, ever. … but can you blame him? It was his favorite. He literally (literally) orders that same soup every time he goes to GTC … and now … with every aspect of the soup that made it so remarkable before now gone, he has only his memories of his previous joy and happiness. So sad. He requested that I annotate his “flavors of the month” to reflect his broken heart.
– a politely inquires: “soooo … are you guys using a different recipe?”; t explains: a tried to be very polite and tactful in inquiring about what had happened to his beloved soup. We were informed by our waitress that they “went through a menu change a month or so ago”, to which we all nodded and said “oh, ok”, as if that was a reasonable explanation … Seriously? A “menu change”? If you “change the menu”, shouldn’t you change the items and not just keep the same dishes but make them worse?
– a exclaims: “i’m going to go to the bathroom while you wait for your f*ing steak!”; t explains: While my steak frites were technically unlimited, they were indeed limited because the servers took forever for refills. They actually tried on several occasions to clear a’s and v’s plates while I tried to flag down our main server to request additional meat … but to be honest, I really only requested a refill to see if maybe the second round would have been cooked better … it wasn’t. Actually, it featured quite a stripe of sinew that was so tough it resisted every attempt my [reasonably sharp] steak knife made to sever it. Crazy!
Soooo … the food wasn’t quite “up to snuff” this trip. And while I’m normally the guy who says, “yea everything’s great!” whenever a server comes around to ask “how are things?”, I felt that this time was an exception. Devastated that they had just robbed me of one of the “sure-to-be-great” meals in the city (seriously – the $25 all-you-can-eat-steak used to be amazing!), I just had to let someone know. I very politely flagged down our waitress and expressed my concerns about our food. I avoided blaming her (i.e. “we know it’s totally not your fault, but we just really wanted to express our concerns about the kitchen”) and calmy and nicely demonstrated that each dish had issues with it … including the knife-immune piece of meat in front of me. She apologized on behalf of the kitchen, which was big of her, took my dish and walked away. Not five minutes later, the ?GM? came out and kinda-sorta-defended the kitchen with a “we’re sorry about your experience with the steak – you know, flat iron steaks can have those pieces of sinew in them” – I didn’t pick a fight, I told him I understood completely and that indeed, such a problem is unavoidable (i.e. I lied). I guess he felt that our concerns were limited to my steak … but then he came back another five minutes later and comp’d my steak and v’s duck salad (apparently, a’s vichysoisse wasn’t enough of a travesty for it to be free, although out of all the dishes, it was probably the worst).
So I guess I have to give GTC some props for trying to understand a customer’s point of view. Be that as it may, comp or not, the truth is that I know that a, v, and I will not be dying to go back to GTC anytime soon. As a matter of fact, I have no choice but to actively dissuade people from going because I’m afriad that if I suggest that they go and then they proceed to have this caliber of meal, they might think that I thought it was sublime … and then never talk to me again. I’m sorry Jose – you’ve lost some customers, at least until we grow up and forget all about our broken dreams …
Swiss Cro-Creme
t says: I ordered up one of those “Swiss Cro-Cremes” the other day … actually – it was two Swiss Cro-Cremes. Check it out:
pre-bite photo …
post-bite photo!
They were pretty tasty (yep, I ate two in 24 hours), but I’m not sure they’re worth all the “fuss”. Here’s what I learned:
Fact #1: If you take a lot of sugar and fat and put it together, it’s going to taste pretty awesome. I mean, how can fried dough with cinnamon-sugar outside, a nice creme on the inside and a frosting on top possibly taste bad? It can’t!
Fact #2: After eating said amount of sugar and fat, it’s nearly impossible to feel “good” afterwards (seriously, I was full for ~6 hours … well … until I ate another one …)
However, I am reluctant to bother with going through the hassle of having to “reserve” them because I just don’t think they’re “interesting” enough. I mean, where’s the “fun”? Fednuts if fun because of the wacky flavors. Capogiro is fun because of the vivid flavors and possible combinations. But the Swiss Cro-creme, while tasty, can be a little monotonous – I know that by the end of my second donut, I had had enough of that particular creme that’s on the inside (I did, however, quite enjoy the viscosity of the icing!). Maybe put a bit of chocolate in there? Or maybe a fruit swirl? I don’t know – I just need something a little more compelling to keep me coming back for more …
breakfast wine with kanella
t says: Today [i.e. the day I’m writing this, not the day this will post], Kanella served us the best brunch they have ever served us. It was a perfect storm that looked a bit like this:
Step One: Bring Riesling. g and I pulled out a delightful little not-too-sweet-but-just-sweet-enough Riesling and it was a perfect style of wine. Kanella’s breakfast is entirely savory (I mean, there are some desserts on the menu, but you’re not going to find pancakes and syrup or anything on the menu). With enough citrus flavors and a touch of honey, it’s the perfect accompaniment. And yes, if this means that you have a 10:30am reservation, you start drinking at 10:30am – it’s never “too early” for a good Riesling!
Step two: Dips of the Day are compulsory. They are that good. The above combination (one was lentil, one was fava bean, and one was garlic+potato) featured the absolute best dips I’ve ever had at Kanella.
Step three: Shaksouka … no – not everyone needs to get the Shaksouka, but one person [who shares] does. g is a shaksouka-sucker … and boy am I glad she is! The stewed tomatotoes and peppers with the multigrain bread and that just-cracked egg was stepped up to another level with lamb merguez (a $2 supplement that’s totally worth it) – it was amazeballs (before the lamb wasn’t an option and it was still amazing!).
So there you have it – three steps to a perfect Sunday brunch. Better take advantage of it now while all the people in Philly are out of town at the shore on the weekends …
Percy Street BBQ tries to class it up [some]
t says: sr, ha, and j came to visit us for my bday last month, and I chose to go to Percy Street BBQ. Now, I didn’t choose to go there because it’s the absolute best food in the city. I chose to go there because it is our Father’s Day tradition! As I’ve mentioned before, Percy Street is probably my dad’s favorite restaurant in Philly. It’s pretty spacious, it has large television screens, there’s a lot of tasty meat, he gets to use his fingers, and he loves the root beer float dessert. This year, though, things are different … it turns out that Percy Street is no longer doing it up like before – gone are the platters of meat – now things are served with accompaniments so that the dishes more resemble dishes that you could find at a normal restaurant. For example, the pork belly entree is now a sandwich with accompaniments that emulate a banh mi … it’s no longer a few hunks of pork belly and some sliced white bread. So here are the plusses and minuses of what they’re doing:
Minuses: 1) The above is the free “starter” course, kinda like bread for the table. As a note, crackers and cheese that has the consistency of squeezy cheese should never start off any meal, ever … 2) The Lockhart is changed forever – pork belly is NO LONGER INCLUDED, thus meaning that my family will never order the Lockhart ever again (*sadface*). 3) There’s no more whitebread. This is saddening. Now Percy Street is operating more like a real restaurant and less like a meatery (is that a real thing? i have no idea). This is dangerous because I never thought of Percy Street is a real “restaurant” before …
plus: So I can only think of one “plus” and that is that because things are going to be classed up, you have access to dishes like the above: wondrous pork belly, maple syrup, egg yolk, and toast that was so divine, I would have traded in my main sandwich for another two of these (maybe a sandwich made of the above concoction?). It is true – O’Shea can cook for sure and showed Philly back when she was at Marigold – I hope that the menu, now that it’s more than just meat, is going to show off her panache like this.
bonus photo: as you can see, dishes are more composed, but now you can appreciate the various pickled items (g had a pickled watermelon rind that was quite delicious!)
Overall, the family and I are shocked about the changes at Percy Street. In general, I liked a lot of what we tasted, but we still missed the pork belly in the Lockhart, which was a super-critical meat for our family. While Percy Street will probably still be the place we go for Father’s Day, I do have to confess that without the Lockhart, it misses that little bit of “fun” that it used to have. Maybe by next year, it’ll be back!
Post #500: Return to “The Table”
t says: This is our 500th post. That’s a huge milestone for us! And boy do we have a food experience for it: Talula’s Table! This little psuedo-restaurant in Kennett Square needs no introduction, as we’ve been there several times before, so let’s just roll with the pictures:
The Menu for the Evening!
Bluefish, toter tot, green onion: a surprisingly strong (but delightful) fish flavor atop a wonderfully salty, crispy tater tot. After demolishing the plate, we tried to pretend that we hadn’t received any … surprise – they were not fooled … so I guess we do have a criticism of this dish: it needs to be about 17 times larger …
golden beet ravioli with goat cheese, romaine salad on top: this was my favorite hors d’oeuvre – it starts off with a very vivid romaine that then has a palate-coating goat cheese and ends with the distinct crisp golden beet flavor – what a roller-coaster of flavors and textures! nice!
soup of cauliflower, salmon roe, cucumber, chevre: most found this to be a refreshing start to the meal. I found the cauliflower to be interesting because it tasted like straight-up cauliflower, but not roasted or anything.
Chesapeake blue crab omelette: holy crap – this dish totally blew people’s faces off. I suspect it was because it had a benign name: “omelette”. Seriously – when’s the last time an “omelette” ever did anything surprising? Well this one was like a ninja to your palate because you take a bite expecting “egg”, but instead get rocked by crab and greens and herbs, with the egg plays some mellow background music – v’s favorite of the night!
foie, turnips, radishes: a fun combination: an impressive demonstration of foie married nicely to its accompaniments. I think that foie-lovers would have gravitated more towards this dish, while I tend to prefer my foie darkly seared and deeper (this one was more light-and-springy)
pea ravioli with pork belly surprise (hiding underneath!): this was my favorite of the night – and for the record, it was not just because there was a hiding mass of pork underneath (many attested to the greatness of the ravioli sans pork). I can’t even begin to describe what made this dish so remarkable other than to admit that “pea ravioli” as I’ve called it does it a tremendous disservice.
blue fish: this dish probably had the most fans – I give it props for having just the right balance of novelty (garlic flan … no, it’s not the next generation of cooking, but when’s the last time you had garlic flan?) and integration (putting the fennel and the fava beans and the perfectly cooked fish and the flan and the sauce together resulted in a symphony that forced you to stop and ponder the meaning of life …). a’s mom just couldn’t get enough!
chicken: perhaps the weakest dish of the evening – the chicken was nicely-done, as were the curried carrots, but ultimately it didn’t quite come together in the end as we would have liked. v felt that this flavoring of this dish didn’t quite “fit” with the progression of the rest of the meal, and I tend to agree. Sorry chicken – every meal is going to have its weakest link, and that’s you (even though technically, every single item was indeed perfectly cooked).
steak 2 ways: this was a’s favorite dish of the evening, and he’s not a guy to just give props to meat for the sake of being meat. Maybe it was the squash blossoms? Maybe it was the perfect seasoning? Maybe it because the main character was given an opportunity to shine, and shine it did, with a tenderness I have never seen in a skirt steak? Or maybe it was because a brought out his 2004 Opus One that was drinking beautifully, with aromas of cigar box and dark fruit and a palate of cola, raisins, and tea? Whatever it was, it was an appropriate finale to the steady crescendo the meal had been trending towards.
cheese: cows: gouda, parm reg, cheddar, something else, and a local blue. All in all, a nice cheese plate. Personally, I would have preferred a variety of milks on a cheese plate, but the point of the plate was there to be all cows, so I understand why they did it. I think I was most surprised by the pickled asparagus and pickled cauliflower – they really reset your palate between cheeses, which I appreciated (especially because I was getting full by this point).
and now the final course …
dessert! pancakes! yay! nuff said …
double-dessert: chocolate truffles: because every meal needs a little chocolate, otherwise, it’s not really a meal …
This was one of the best Table experiences we’ve had! With really only the chicken being a little snooze-y, it’s safe to say that Chef is doing a wonderful job – I haven’t had this good a food there since Sikora’s time. The Table still delivers amazing flavor combinations despite unassuming ingredients and simplistic plating – it never fails to surprise me. The service was top-notch and the staff was very approachable, not hesitating to allow us to get up from our seats and watch them cook up and plate the dishes (even though we clearly were a few glasses of wine into dinner). The kitchen table is a fabulous experience – we [still] highly recommend it and feel that it’s totally worth the price of admission (e.g. go to Vetri once, but go to Talula’s Table as many times as you can). And so, I went to end by thanking sr and ha for their generosity that allows us to eat out like this – thanks guys! Thanks to a and v, as this event would not have been as much fun without them – we love having friends with a similar love of and priority for fine dining. And, of course, thanks to a’s parents – it’s always a pleasure to eat [and drink] with them.
Philly’s not-so-secret weapon’s secret
t says: So yea, Serpico has been getting a crap-ton of press lately – be it the pedigree of of the chef and his menu, the new digs, novelty of a grated foie dessert, whatever. So, with some reservation, I made a reservation this past week, as it was a triple-celebration:
1) g & t anniversary
2) my birthday
3) after I had just finished the final installment of the national medical board licensing exam
So … basically … it was time to party … To illustrate how important the confluence of these three big momentous occasions was, I had originally made a reservation at Vetri (i.e. that makes the combination of the above three occasions about equal to one celebration of g’s birthday … or at least one celebration on one weekend of g’s birthday … g’s birthday lasts a whole month …). But in the end, I cancelled because I wanted something a little more unique (because 2 of the 3 things were more me-cenric, I got to call the shots).
So … did Serpico live up to the expectations?
Hell yea it did …
So, first, this review has no pictures. g and I had ringside seats … meaning that when you’re that close to the executive chef, you feel less inclined to disrespect by taking pictures of every dish. Sorry guys – no eye candy this time. But what I can say about the food is that it was all superbly done. We started with the scallop crudo which was so delicious that I asked myself “gee – how come more people aren’t serving raw scallop?” And then I realized that our other favorite Philly restaurant, Bibou, does … so Serpico’s in good company – ha! It was a delicious combination of buttermilk and poppy seeds and a green chili oil and a tiny sliver of chive. As g and I ate, we were impressed with the flavor combination – it was a perfect balance that I couldn’t get enough of (truly, we were sad when the dish was done).
Next up, we did a duo of pasta. The hand-torn pasta with the Chinese sausage, chicken skin, snail, cheese, was put in front of me first. It was this peculiar combination of pasta carbonara meats snail and a flair for the Asian. I loved it – I could totally come home and eat me some of that at the end of a rough day, where the intention is to eat myself into a food coma while being hugged by that cheesy-salty flavor. Yummers. The corn ravioli was the most surprising dish – I had not expected the dishe’s richness given the description including corn, onions, and lime. It was actually also very smokey, probably due to the chorizo – so much so that it had this paprika-y flavor that was so strong that g was reminded of eating paprikash when we were in Budapest … right up until the sweet sweet corn hit you. I remarked that “really, these two flavors [the corn and the smoke] need eachother – there’s no other two that can be put together better”. Nice job, chef.
We finished up with the wagyu “chuck flap” (i.e. kinda-lika-short-rib). This was the most traditional of the dishes we had, with two pieces of meat (they was nicely done – not the absolute-most-tender braised beef I’ve ever had, but I don’t think they wanted to go that way – they wanted you to approach it more like cutting into a steak that a fall-apart-at-the-slightest-touch hunk), some perfect broccolini, and “potato” that were perfect little globes of hashed brown. And these were all put together with a sauce that was one-part ?mustard?, one-part ?bbq sauce?, and one-part sweet fruit (?Asian pear?). As you can see, there lots of question marks because in actuality I have no idea what the sauce was, but the sweet was an addictive component that nicely balanced out the rest of the dish.
The rocky road dessert was a bit unremarkable (so go for something more interesting when you go). In its most simple form, it was chocolate ice cream, marshmallow, and some candied nuts. It wasn’t bad, but let’s just say that Talula’s Garden’s chocolate desserts could wreck this one any day of the week … BUT, that brings up an interesting comparison: The Garden vs. Serpico – who’d win that rumble? We decided that Serpico’s food was indeed “fussier” than Talula’s Garden, but it paid off with more interesting flavor combinations. That said, I don’t think there was any one point where we wanted to bathe in any one dish, rather, with each dish, we’d be surprised/impressed and then excited to see what was next – nothing in particular was so great that we’d absolutely have to have it again next time … but don’t get us wrong – we still wanna go back asap!
So what is the secret to this not-so-secret weapon? Check it out (get ready to squint!):
our wine selection for the evening: TOR napa valley 2010 and Alexana Riesling 2012 … Now those who know us also know that our body size and our wallet limits our drinking-out ability – so did g and I really splurge on two bottles of wine off the wine list in one meal? Nope. And if you scrutinize the drink menu when you arrive, you’ll notice that neither of these bottles are listed. How so? Did we have the hook-ups? Were these from the private cellar of the sommelier? Nope and nope. You see, the “secret” is that Serpico doesn’t charge corkage. I’ll write that again so you know it wasn’t a typo: Serpico doesn’t charge corkage. Now when I made the reservation, I asked repeatedly to ensure that this was true (e.g. “So, when you say ‘no corkage’ is that like when restaurants say ‘no corkage’ but actually mean ‘you can’t bring your wine here’ … or do you mean like ‘yea we have a liquor license, but you can BYOB’?”) So at least for now, somehow, the snowball has made it out of hell, Sisyphus finally got that frickin’ boulder up the frickin’ hill, the Pope stopped wearing the funny hat, and the bear did not crap in the woods: a Starr restaurant is not charging corkage so you can BYOB!! You want proof?
so … as you can see, there was no corkage fee, and I don’t think it was because g and I had an extra special consideration. For example, at no point did someone say, “oh it’s your anniversary celebration, so your corkage is on us” or “you guys are just too cute, so your corkage is on us” – they just kept saying “we have no corkage fee” (but they never said “we’re BYOB”). In any case, g and I were “in” to Serpico originally because of the food, but just so long as this no-corkage thing holds out, we will be back many-a-time for sure (of course, then we give the server a super-large tip to compensate because we feel bad … but it’s still cheaper than corkage x2 for the two bottles we brought!). Also, for $81 of food, g and I were stuffed – that’s pretty cheap if we’re going to start drawing comparisons to Talula’s Garden! (But don’t worry, Garden – you know you’ll always be the one we go back to …)
In summary: go to Serpico for the interesting flavor combinations, the friendly staff, and the spectacle Chef Serpico doing what he does (he was great to watch – he was teaching some new guy the ropes while we were there). Stay for the BYO. And finally, debate the “beauty” of “Philadelphia’s most beautiful restaurant” (that was such a stupid title/focus for a post), but instead agree that the chalk drawings by children on one of the walls near the open kitchen are adorable (and secretly wonder if the restaurant staff, themselves, drew it …).
after dinner sneeze 