Archive for the ‘in Philadelphia’ Category
Pardon Our Absence …
t says: Yes, yes, it’s been very-nearly-forever since our last legitimate post. We’re sorry! The holidays have left us with very little time. And with those little times that we have had, we’ve spent dining on already-proven-delicious foods (if you have limited time, why risk a bad meal?) For example:
Han Dynasty is still blowing us away. Lately, we’re digging the double-cooked fish (new to us!) as well as oldie-but-goodies, like Cold Sesame Noodles, Dan Dan Noodles, the fish soup (whatever it’s called), Cumin Lamb, Eggplant in Garlic Sauce …
Sotto keeps me coming back with their Matriciana and BYO policy – just the hug you need when it’s cold, windy, and rainy outside …
Talula’s Garden’s December menu rocked our socks with some delightful sweetbreads and cheese and lamb belly and dessert and everything … We also used it as an opportunity to try out a wine we’ve been cellaring for some time:
it tasted like … sea salt … kinda weird, but very interesting
Ekta’s Laamb Saag, Masalader Chola, Vegetable Samosa … we love you!
Indian attack!
So, all in all, there’s a lot of old news here … we’ll hit up some new places in the new year … we promise!
all i wanted was a.salad …
t says: g and I wanted to go to Parc the other weekend for our favorite “Warm Shrimp Salad” brunch. Sadly, they had no space. Rouge similarly had no space. Day-by-day had a half-hour wait. g and I were hungry-verging-on-hangry and getting rained on, so I suggested visiting a.kitchen, as opentable assured me they had space. Here’s our review in a slightly different style than we normally go for: a list-lover’s review!
December 2012, Sunday Brunch, Party of 2.
1) Your hostess made us wait for a table … when there was only one occupied table in the entire restaurant (i.e. at least 8 unoccupied tables, not including the seats at the chef’s counter) – that was weird. I took a photo of it (but won’t post it because you can see patrons’ faces very well … which is creepers). She didn’t move to attempt to assist in the turning over of another table (which I’m not exactly sure anyone did anything to – no one was clearing anything!). She didn’t offer us a seat at the empty bar. She didn’t smile at all. After five minutes had passed, g and I began looking through opentable for seats at Dandelion. Meanwhile, we were subjected to inane chit-chat between the hostess and the patrons who were leaving the restaurant (they apparently knew each other from somewhere). During this time, your bartender, having noted that we were standing off to the side, seemingly exiled to limbo, came over to us and asked, “She’s the hostess – you should talk to her if you want a seat.” To which we replied that we had …
2) … your bartender, upon hearing that we were stuck in the very peculiar predicament of waiting for a table in a restaurant with no dearth of open spaces proceeded to do nothing to help the situation: no offer to get us started with drinks, no assistance in pushing along the seating process, no nothing … just silence … Aawwkkwwaarrdd …
3) Your server was excellent. Fire the hostess and bartender and clone your server twice. She was polite and prompt and was able to answer my queries by confessing that your pastries are not made on-site (no big deal!) and that your “Namaste tea” was “just black tea”.
4) “Namaste” black tea? For real? Is that different from “Bonjour tea”?
5) Cava bar? For real!
cava bar!
Why are you not publicizing the hell out this? This is awesome!
5) Your pancakes could use a little something …
Super-simple pancakes
They’re not as good as Cochon’s (which are twice as thick and moreso fluffy … by the way – why did Cochon take it off their menu?), not as good as Parc (which has better, but definitely between the golden brown outside and pillowy inside), but still better than ones I can make at home using Bisquick or Aunt Jemima … but for $10/plate I should hope so! My feeble-minded suggestions are either add an interesting topping (?bruleed banana?) or flavor (? lemon ? orange ?) or something! You could charge a buck or two more!
6) The “mushroom scrapple” (pictured above) is more like a fried polenta/grits cake with mushrooms interspersed throughout. I don’t know what the composition actually is, but in my mouth, that’s what it reminded me of. Personally, I feel that this is not very scrapple-like, but moreso disappointing because it was quite bland from a salt/pepper perspective and a lacking-mushroom-flavor perspective. Give me more mushrooms!
7) g applauds your use of the English muffin on your burger, but wishes it was just a little fluffier in the middle and a little less burned on the outside (it’s hard to eat a burger if the “bun” part is crunchy like this.
burger attack!
The meat was well-seasoned and nicely-cooked, so definite props for that! And the sauce was a nice addition!
8) Why on Earth do you insist on the tiniest plates possible to fit the food? Maybe to make it seem like you have more food? But a problem arises in that there’s no real space to create a puddle of syrup or for your burger to drip its medium-rare blood without soggifying your chips. And forget trying to rest a utensil on them … Add like 1 inch to the radius – what youll give up in “artistry” you’ll make up for in utility – I promise …
In all, it was an “ok” brunch. As good as Parc? Not really … but surely better than falling prey to hanger on a Sunday when all the other places on Rittenhouse are packed – and that cava bar is definitely worth checking out. I think the better question is why is it not so packed? g pointed out that on one hand, a.kitchen is kinda-sorta-lika hotel restaurant, so they don’t really have to push any boundaries and that it might even be safer not to. I disagree – if they want the street cred (as clearly this blog is the ultimate bestower of “cred”), I just need a bit more “oomph”, be it in innovation or just straight-up flavor. I’m glad we got to go to a.kitchen for brunch, but I only wish that it would have sidled its way into my heart … Maybe next time …
a & v ascend to “Steak 9”
t says: After my great experience at GTC for their all-you-can-eat steak adventure, I brought some friends to get a second opinion. Just to recap, it’s all-you-can-eat steak, all-you-can-eat French fries, and [presumably] all-you-can-eat salad … for $25 … and GTC is corkage-free for the first bottle, and $10/bottle corkage therafter. Oh, and now it’s officially on the menu! Hooray! Long live steak! In any case, this is what a and v had to say:
v says: Mmmm… steak was delicious. We are on steak 9. My favorite sauce was a’s, but I couldn’t have eaten as much of his as I could mine… It was so good I could have continued making room for more if I wasn’t worried about undoing the buttons on my pants. The fries were also great. What stands out, though, is the salad. I immediately noticed they used the same dressing for this salad as their Lyonnaise one. Great decision, unfortunately, they’ve toned down the flavor due to a couple of complaints about the intensity of the dressing. The service was more than eager to continue serving us, which was great, because we didn’t feel like the gluttons that some of us (a and I) were.
I will wear an elastic waist band next time…
a says: I agree with v’s take. Best $25 complete meal in Philly and bonus: it’s AYCE. My dessert was good but I really didn’t care at that point since I, too, was on steak 9. Let’s do this again real soon! N.B. Plan to walk to AND from the restaurant.
Also, the wines were delicious and fun. Most had a typical aspect: nose for the Pinot, mouth for the Sauvignon Blanc and Cab, but then proved more interesting in other aspects. The Pinot was full in the mouth with nice viscocity, it stood up to the steak – the standout of the night (check it here). The SB smelled like rubber (burnt rubber, actually) and hay then switched to strong petrol in the mouth. The Cab smelled more like a Shiraz or Merlot with lots of red fruit and some green earth but then went to dark fruits, vanilla and good grip (t gestures: “grip!”) on the tongue (check it here).
t says: Ah, yes, the wine … That Sineann pinot noir was most definitely a cab-drinker’s pinot. It was rich and full and void of a single rough edge anywhere, even if it was missing some of that hallmark Oregon funk and acid … but it was still delicious. Not a single person, including me, could object to it. I wish more of the ’08 could still be found (I personally don’t know if other vintages taste as good – but one can hope!). I’ll give it a nod as wine of the night, as it was straight-up more interesting than the Hall cabernet. Even moreso interesting, however, was the Sauvignon Blanc that we had. Now, this is not some “easy-breezy” Sauvignon Blanc. This one slaps you in the face with petrol, petrol, and more petrol. I estimate that 99% of casual wine-drinkers will not like this wine. I estimate that 90% of wine enthusiasts will not like this wine. But g and I love it (a and v liked it, too, but it’s not like they’re clamoring for more). It will now be added to the cellar so we can have some of this $10 beauty on hand at all times. If you manage to find it, buy a bottle and give it a try (or take us to dinner and we’ll bring a bottle for all to try!). I bet that people who kinda-sorta-secretly-enjoy the scent of a gas station will like this wine (seriously!). Also – if this is your kind of wine, then you’re our kind of people: let’s eat and drink together. If not, then, well, we can get you some Woodbridge Chardonnay or Cavit Pinot Grigio (burned! … j/k!).
Kris is bananas for brunch
t says: g and I met up with some friends at Kris for brunch the other weekend. Our brunchmates were Kris-obsessed, so when they heard that g and I had never gone, their hearts broke (I exaggerate for effect …). It has been a while since we’ve gone, so my memory has faded about what everyone else had. <Checks his iPhone> Actually. That’s a lie. I can’t remember what anyone else had because I was too busy focused on this:
bananas
I apologize for the quality of that photo, but I was trying to be nonchalant with my photo-taking (I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of our friends … and I didn’t want to embarrass our friends in front of the restaurant staff, either). And boy am I glad I did … because I totally housed this dish in a matter of 5 minutes. These pecan-crusted brioche french toast slices are topped with caramelized banana. It reminded me of a more elegant form of this monster (that I still love/miss/cherish to this very day). Say what you will about how “boring” some nuts, French toast, and bananas are, but this was damn delicious. All the textures were dead-on. Give me a scoop of bacon ice cream up in there and I could have gone into a food coma a happy man … as it was, I ended the meal pleasantly full, not grossly full … until, of course, we split an order of the nutella crepes which were amazing (although I have to confess that the dish is really kinda-sortuva pretty obvious excuse to just eat nutella for breakfast).
g had some kind of egg dish. If she was still awake at the time I was writing this, I would ask her about its details. I do remember her being happy, though – happy enough to want to try it again – both for brunch AND dinner!
It’s still early in the game to make a call on Kris, but I have to say that so far, it seems like they’re going to make a strong case for us to journey south-of-South more often!
have a capogiro affogato … even if it’s not on the menu
t says: A colleague and I hit up Capogiro for a post-lunch pick-me-up. Anticipating a somewhat-boring afternoon, we wanted some caffeine, but also wanted an excuse to have gelato as well. Problem solved:
affogato!
This concoction of coffee/espresso and gelato wasn’t on the menu, but the gelato-dude (?gelateer? gelatorista?) was happy to concoct one for the each of us. I went with marshmallow gelato, and the end result, while not quite in the proportions I was expecting (it was quite a good bit of gelato for a small amount of liquid … but I guess I could then reason that I was getting my mone’s worth!), was delicious. It reminded me of a hot chocolate with marshmallow … except with coffee … leading me wonder: why don’t people routinely add marshmallow to their coffee as they do hot chocolate? I think I might have to start! Also, while I had never had their marshmallow before, it might just be my new second-favorite flavor! (You can’t beat the dark chocolate.) So check out an affogato the next time you’re there – you can get your sugar-high and caffeine-rush on all at once!
sadface dinners …
t says: g and I have hit up two dinner recently that left us a little … wanting … I’m going to consolidate their stories here so we can minimize the number of negative posts …
Brick American Eatery. It’s no wonder there seems to be a “deal” like a Groupon going on here every time we turn around … the food is a miss! I don’t want to harp on every dish we got (actually, dz’s dinner, the Asian noodles and the Fish-n-Chips, looked pretty darned tasty! … nevermind they were the least “American” items on the menu), so I’ll pick the worst of the ones we had (i.e. out of 4 appetizers and 3 mains). It was mine. Check it:
the food was so bad that the picture didn’t even warrant a proper Snapdish quick-fix.
The sprouts: pale, no char, no texture. The steak: pale, minimal Maillard, no flavor. The jus: insipid, no salt, no pepper. People! It’s a steak! It’s a steak and Brussels sprouts! It was popular in 2009! If the $25 all-you-can-eat steak is better than yours, you should just take steak off the menu so you can stop breaking the hearts of customers. No matter how good dz’s entrees looked, nothing can save a restaurant from a bad steak … the mediocre salmon and stale duck nachos didn’t help either. Consequently, I have no choice but to withhold adsz’s stamp of approval (actually … it makes me wish we had a stamp of dismissal … can I do that?). Fortunately, the company was good, and the glass of wine was deep …
Jamonera. So, going in, I imagined that Jamonera would have been like Amada with the feel of Barbuzzo … Man-o-man was I disappointed. And it wasn’t just me! It was g and kp, too! (And kp is perhaps the second-nicest-guy-in-the-world!) The dish the best encapsulates our frustration:
Papa Frita Snoozefest!
So … the papa frita … It’s normally a deliciously fried seasoned potato. And the one thing jamonera did superbly was frying it – I have never had so wonderfully-a-crisped potato. But they were missing one very important aspect of the dish … flavor. What was that weak aioli they had going on? Where’s the seasoning? Where’s the oomph? I wanted it to hit my mouth and make me go “wow”, and then follow it up with a warm, soothing hug of fried-potato-comfort … and this did neither (I don’t find that quantity of aioli comforting … clog-inducing, yes, comforting, no). The other items we sampled that night were similarly lacking in flavor. Their albondigas made me wish I was at Barbuzzo. Their charcuterie made me wish I was at Amada or GTC. The were definitely not winning any adsz awards that night! Oh well – I guess even the mighty Val and Marcie can disappoint once in a while! I suspect that Jamongera may go the way of the Bindi. It’s ok – there’s always Lolita and Barbuzzo …
Bibou … we love you
t says: a, v, g, and I went to Bibou recently. We did invite several others to join, but no one could quite make it. This was very problematic for a and me. You see, when there’s only four people, we’re only going to go through 3-4 bottles of wine. When there’s eight people, we can open 8 – which means we can taste more interesting wine! And isn’t that the point – to taste!? Well, undeterred by the limited number of people, we still showed up with 6 bottles … you know … just so we could make some game-time decisions (and in case the servers wanted to get in on the action).
Now once again, Bibou already gets SO much love on this blog that it’s absolutely pointless to re-hash awesome dishes like the escargots and pig’s feet. I think v put it best earlier in the day when she said, “if I get there tonight, and there’s no pig’s foot, I am going to cry in the restaurant.” And I believe her. Fortunately, no one cried that night …
g says: We only get to Bibou once or twice a year, so when we are lucky enough to score a reservation, we take our meal very seriously (hence v’s fear of the kitchen running out of pig’s feet). Generally, we each stick to familiar classics — escargot and pig’s feet for t, crudo and beouf for moi — because it is so hard to justify ordering something new when we are guaranteed a sensational dining experience with our old standbys. These are the dishes that we dream about as we anxiously await the day of our reservation, after all.
We threw caution to the wind this time around, and some new items hit the table with thrilling results. My picks for the winners of this meal both fall into this new category of “interesting” rather than classic dishes that remain on Bibou’s menu at all times. v’s squash consomme (that’s right, a clear broth soup made from squash of all things) was, in my opinion, the best first course. none of us had ever even heard of such a thing <t interrupts: for the record – i’ve heard of consommes, but just never had one>, but the deep flavors just blew us away. I also believe that my main course was the winner of that round, an arctic char with bulgar wheat in a buerre rouge sauce. That’s right, fish in a red wine sauce. Intriguing, right? It was AMAZING. Pierre told us that it was a special item on the menu for that week only; I would say that “special” is right on the money for describing that dish.
Apparently, branching out beyond our “usuals” at Bibou really pays off. I chuckle to myself when I think of how apprehensive I felt when looking at the menu that night (i.e. the minor flash of panic that came over me when I toyed with the idea of ordering something other than the boeuf that I love so much). Did I really think that I would receive a sub-par meal from arguably the best restaurant in the city? Probably not. But now I have confirmed that trying something new could provide an exciting experience without feeling sorry that I didn’t order my old favorite. And now I have a new flavor of the month for adsz!
it’s not a “proper” adsz-style dinner unless the glass:diner ratio is at least 4:1 (not including water glasses).
This mysterious, very dark brown puddle was a squash consomme. It’s a clear broth. Like, if you were in the hospital and required to be “on a clear diet”, this would still qualify. However – it was so jam-packed full of flavor (it tasted like fall) that it knocked our socks off.
Arctic char in beurre rouge sauce (butter, red wine, shallots) over bulgar wheat (tasted like Thanksgiving stuffing!) with a fricasse of persimmon and anaheim pepper. g declared it the winner of our main courses. v agreed with that assessment in terms of creativity, but for taste, she had to vote still for her favorite pig’s feet and lentils.
another table abandoned their remaining Sauterne … so our server allowed us to share it (there was more than a glass per person leftover!) … result: he gets a little bigger tip, and we get a little happier …
t says: Bibou still brings down the house in terms of food. The four of us just can’t get enough. And talking to Pierre is always such a delight. Now I know there are some Bibou-haters out there … and that’s fine … we just can’t be friends … ha.
We did have some delightful wines that night, including a bottle we got from Napa: 2009 Blackbird Arise. This is a serious California Merlot-based wine. If you’ve never had some Blackbird before, it’s excusable to lie/cheat/steal so you can try it – it’ll change your opinion on Cali-Merlot. (I’m not saying it’s a Right Bank Bordeaux doppleganger, but it’s something better than the “F-in’ Merlot” mentioned in Sideways).
Thanks Pierre. And, we missed you, Charlotte.
after dinner sneeze 