Archive for the ‘in Philadelphia’ Category
Marabella’s Beefy Balls and Bread Pudding
t says: I was on my home today and decided to pick up lunch. Not feeling awesome (allergies are kicking my butt right now), I decided to go for something comforting and delicious rather than just heating up whatever was in the fridge. But what to do, what to do? All of Center City in front of me – where should I go? Well, it had to be new [to me], do takeout, and be warm. And then I happened to walk in front of Marabella Meatball Co – a place I had always wanted to try! kp tried it a while ago but wasn’t impressed despite the favorable reviews it had garnered. BUT – he hadn’t tasted the classic beef meatball. Obviously, this needed to be done … for the sake of the blog!
4/2011, Take-out, Party of Me. So I rolled up in there and ordered myself some beefy balls … and some rabe … and headed home. I assembled my sandwich, reserving a meatball and some bread for g (I ordered it unassembled). Here’s what it looked like.
Meatball sandwich with rabe!
Overall, it wasn’t bad! It definitely had a home-made feel to it – made me feel warm and squishy inside. The texture was good with some nice spring in the bite without being too hard. The taste was decidedly beefy – almost too beefy in the sense that you really didn’t get any other flavors. I wished they either cut it with some pork or added some more herbs or something. I guess I really shouldn’t expect Marabella to be as complex as Barbuzzo’s or as awesome as g’s … or maybe I should! Beef meatballs can have flavors beyond just beef! I will say however that the sauce, is better than Barbuzzo’s, which comes off as tangy/sweet to me; but Marabella’s was still not as good as g’s (I’ve become a gravy snob – gasp!). The roll was soft which I appreciated immensely (nothing ruins a meatball sandwich more than crappy bread), and it’d be a true champion if they somehow got a crusty outside like Tony Luke’s rolls. As for the rabe … not bad … not too different from what we can make at home (but we like it more garlicky).
For me, the Marabella star was the bread pudding. For $1, you get a tiny bit (about the size of two shot glasses) of bread pudding that is the most wonderful dessert you can find for $1. Now I don’t know if maybe I just happened to get a “good” one or what, but that bread pudding had texture and creaminess and just the right amount of sweet and cinnamon. I might have to pick up a second dose of it next time I’m passing through to confirm that it’s as good as it was today.
Would I go back for lunch? Sure – it tasted pretty good overall and the people behind the counter were super-nice. I also kind of like the vibe in there (they have BYO seating in case you want to stay). I can see my dad and I just grabbing a sandwich and eating it there. But would I go out of my way to go back for dinner? Probably not … it’s a good lunch, but not something I’d actively seek out for dinner if I was looking for a “dinner out”. Sorry Marabella. But if you came out with a beef-pork meatball, I’d be back to give it another go!
What’d g think? Well, she came home, and I told her I couldn’t tell her about the meatball until after she ate it – I didn’t want to bias her opinion. So she heated it up, ate the sandwich, and reported …
g says: I’d like it more if there was more “stuff” in the meatball, like onions, cheese, parsley. I’d say it’s one step up from a WaWa meatball sandwich. It’s good, but I wouldn’t be able to eat a lot of just the meatball, itself.
Monsu: A Great Brunch Hiding in Sabrina’s Shadow
t says: Our friends thought of going to brunch this past Sunday. And for once, I didn’t push going to Cochon … don’t get me wrong, I still love Cochon, but I think I have gone enough times so that I feel confident that I can go a weekend without it and not feel like I was “missing” something. This also has to do with a recent menu change – they removed the awesome Elvis French Toast and replaced it with PB&J French Toast, which is good, but not quite as off-the-hook as the original. The pancakes are still delightful, but no longer come doused in fruit, rather, crushed Oreos, which are good, but is definitely a lot of sugar. And they removed the hanger steak … so g and I have decided to branch out beyond Cochon for brunch (unbelievable, right?!).
So we originally planned to join our friends n, m, and kp at Cafe Estelle (k and cm are too busy traveling in Spain to come!). As we drove there we laughed at the crowd in front of Sabrina’s – ha! Silly people! Cochon is always line-less. And there was Monsu across the street! But wait a sec – there was Monsu across the street! As soon as g said, “we gotta try that place”, n reasoned, “well, Cafe Estelle will probably have a line, too – maybe we should try it out!” And shazam! We were being spontaneous! g is a spontaneity-junky, so she was totally in. I dropped off g, n, and kp at Monsu and found a parking spot (m was meeting us there – he had very important doctor stuff to do … I suspect someone had a runny nose or something at the hospital and m wanted an excuse to wear his hospital scrubs to brunch …).
April 2011, 11:30am Sunday, Party of 5. There were a lot of savory items on the menu at Monsu – maybe a French toast and like one other dish for sweet. At first I was nonplussed (O … M … G … I hate that word – just finished reading a memoir by an author who used it no less than 3 times in 200 pages … drb uses it every now and then, but whenever he uses it, I feel like he’s making fun of it, which is acceptable – it’s such a dumb word). But then I started eyeing these awesome t-esque dishes. Gnocchi, lasangna with cocoa, scrapple, and a whole lot more. Suddenly, I was no longer nonplussed – one might say I was plussed. Here are some shots of what kp and I ordered and shared.
The scrapple's playing hide-and-seek under some veggies!
The scrapple tasted good and had a nice internal consistency – it just needed more of a crust on the outside. Other than that it’s some mighty-fine meat! And the veggies had a nice sweet taste to them. g still refused to eat much more than a bite (but I love her anyway).
No gnocchi left behind!
The gnocchi were also quite good. Their texture was how I like my gnocchi: soft but with a bit of bite so you still feel like you’re chewing something (I know gnocchi texture is a very personal thing). The sauce reminded me a lot of a vodka cream sauce. I wish there was some kind of vegetal zing in there, like a parsley or a basil or something fresh just to cut through the cream.
The split personality lasagna ... hiding under an egg.
So the lasagna I believe deserves a special mention. It walked the line between savory and sweet, as there was a bit of cocoa and cinnamon (or at least, we think it was cinnamon) that had to play nicely with the cheese/meat/pasta. The result was a success! Topped with an egg, it was the perfect breakfast lasagna. I’m not so sure I’d eat it for dinner (it’s also on the dinner menu), but for brunch this is probably the best savory-sweet balance outside of pancakes-and-bacon that there is. Superb job Monsu! Also, the egg on top reminded me a bit of Modo Mio – it was a good idea then, it is still a good idea now.
g had Eggs Basildict, which is a very peculiar name, but she liked it a lot, claiming that perhaps she “won” with the best dish. I disagree, firmly believing the lasagna was superior, but I will say that hers had a more vibrant complement of flavors – it just wasn’t as unique as a sweet-savory lasagna. Sorry – no pics to show you g’s dish – she was too far away for my crappy iPhone camera to reach.
All in all, Monsu was a success for brunch. There were no lines and plenty of open tables. It completely boggles my mind that across the street at Sabrina’s, people want to wait for a spot. Simply put, Sabrina’s food is good (don’t get me wrong – if you put their food in front of me, I’ll eat it), but not worth waiting for. And now that Monsu is right there, I definitely see no reason to wait (unless you desperately want a cup of cream cheese shoved in your French Toast like Sabrina’s likes to do). I also see a lot of potential for Monsu for dinner – I feel an FTC meeting coming!
What are the drawbacks? Well, n did have an omelette that I think she regretted – it wasn’t bad, but I think she felt it was a little dull next to some of the other items on the table. I sampled a taste of m’s mpanada, which was pretty good – I wonder how he liked the dish in its entirety? I think one of the big drawbacks was, as I had mentioned earlier, that there really weren’t a lot of sweet on their brunch menu, so if you have a sweet tooth (like me), afterwards, you might still find yourself craving something “more”. Fortunately n and m had the right idea: Isgro’s is right down the street!
GTC goes corkage (boo!) but makes a fine veggie sandwich (yay!)
t says: I wandered into GTC today to buy a sandwich. Wanting something lighter than my normal food choices, I opted for their veggie sandwich (the “jardiniere”). While I was there, I eavesdropped and found out that (and maybe it’s old news to everyone else) that Garces Trading Co. is now going to charge $10 corkage for bottles of wine after the first one. Bummer man! Sorry a!
AND, the lady behind the register told me that they are going to move the sandwich-making into the kitchen, move the bakery area to where the sandwiches are, and then put in a full bar where the current bakery is! Looks like things’ll be changing at GTC, and I’m not sure if it’s for the better (at least, for what I like GTC for … everyone else may disagree and like the change).
How was the sandwich? Awesome!! It had grilled radicchio and this thinly sliced zucchini and, most importantly, delicious bread (crusty outside, soft inside). I would venture to say that it’s the best of the sandwiches currently available (ever since they 86’d the lamb sandwich …). I would have taken a picture of it, but I had to choose between stopping eating it (for the pic) or continue making my mouth happy with grilled leaf chicory (that’s what radicchio is – I just found out) … and guess which one won!
v says: Nooooooo. Bad graces, bad!! Slap! slap!
A Cupcake Pitstop
t says: Yes, right now there is some friction about the cupcake trucks in Philly. But in the words of a great television star, “Hell, I don’t know who to believe!”. BUT – I realize that I don’t really care just so long as the cupcakes are good. And today … I finally put up the Buttercream Cupcake truck to the test – it just happened to be on my way home!
And how were the cupcakes? Well, they have more than just cupcakes …
Let’s do the cupcakes first. Overall, they weren’t that bad – but not the best either. The texture of the red velvet and chocolate cupcakes were a little crumby/crumbly, which isn’t my style of cupcake (but for some reason, a lot of Philly cupcakes are like this!). I felt the Red Velvet didn’t really have that luscious flavor you’d get from someplace like Brown Betty’s – and the cream cheese icing was a little more on the light-and-creamy side than the cream-cheese-decadent side (which I prefer). So if you like a Red Velvet cake that you could eat two of, then this one will probably do just fine (I suppose I want one that’s so rich that I couldn’t possibly eat two no matter the circumstance). As for the chocolate one, I was happy with the ganache, but couldn’t quite get past the crumbiness.
Then there was that yellow cupcake. But this was no ordinary yellow cupcake. It was actually a banana cupcake with a nutella buttercream, and I believe it was the best of the three. The cake was light and fluffy and spongey, with a hint of banana with just a dash of nutella in the icing. It was a nice-and-playful cupcake (which I realize is what I didn’t like about the Red Velvet above – but here I like it!). It was light enough so that I suspect that g might even like the banana one (when she gets home – muhuhahahaha).
But what is the other thing in the foreground? Well, that is a chocolate pie with a peanut-butter cream topping and swirls of chocolate ganache. The filling is delicious … just so long as you like straight up chocolate, peanut butter, and sugar (which I do). I only wish the crust was a little darker – it looked a little anemic. For the most part it was a run-of-the-mill crust as far as I could tell – the filling was the star of this dessert. I’d recommend it as much as the banana-nutella cupcake – which is both good and bad. On one hand, I like the pie thingee, but on the other, why can’t someone give me some cupcakes as good as kara’s?
Maybe when g gets home, she’ll blog her opinion …
One Fish, Two Fish, Tile Fish, Coffee Cake …
t says: g and I celebrated her bday with a trip to Little Fish. Why Little Fish? Well, we were looking for a place that was new to us and BYO. Technically, we had gone to Little Fish once before, BUT, we hadn’t gone since it closed and re-opened in its new digs – so it was kind of like a new restaurant!!! We also had a bottle of Illumination from Quintessa that we acquired during our visit to Napa – and what better way to make it the star of the evening than to have a bunch of fish!? Finally, when we saw the pricepoint of the menu, we knew that Little Fish is a little expensive to make it just a random-weekend-dinner – at nearly $30 per entree, there needs to be a little something special worth eating for.
As you prepare yourself for the rest of this post, you can stare at yet another poorly-taken iPhone photo of our dessert and wonder if it was good or not!
"Chocolate crunch" ice cream atop coffee cake atop a puddle of banana-esque shmutz.
2/2010, Saturday 8:30pm, Party of 2. When we arrived the place was kind of small … and empty. Only one table had guests, and another was clearly getting up to leave. I think we were the first of a second wave of diners or something because they were definitely packed by the time we were halfway through our meal. As usual, we were quite hungry (we like to make sure we don’t wuss out and get full after the appetizer when we go to restaurants) and wasted no time and got down to business. The menu was written on a board that we turned our heads to stare at. There’s got to be some way to put the menu in a more accessible place, but I guess not. In any case, as we read each item, we couldn’t quite decide what to do. Do we get two entrees and two apps? Or do we go 3 apps and 1 entree? So many things sounded good! Then we decided … we’d go three entrees for two people and skip the apps entirely. Genius. This meant we got a “three course tasting menu” of sorts (and they split each dish into two plates for us – so we wouldn’t have to dribble sauces onto the table – that was quite nice of them!). I let g choose two of the entrees, and I chose a third.
First course was “golden spot tilefish, shrimp and grits, tomato consomme, andouille”. Holy bejesus this was awesome. The tomato consomme was deep and flavorful – a beautiful harmony upon which the fish and andouille played a gorgeous melody (I think I used those terms right – maybe I got them backwards …). The way the flavors played with eachother totally reminded me of the kind of flavor adventure that we got when we first ate at Talula’s Table. I don’t know how they subdued the andouille (or amplified the tilefish), but one did not overtake the other – instead you got a beautiful fish and that savory/salty meat that worked so well together. And the shrimp and grits were perfect – a worthy challenger for kp (a shrimp and grits showdown, kp?).
Next up was “striped bass with braised romaine, bagna caude, crouton”. You know – it’s kind of weird, but for me the star of the dish was the braised romaine. Yes, the fish was delightful, and the crouton and ?sauce?/?liquid? was amazing. But that romaine … that romaine was awesome. And I have a personal vendetta against romaine … soooo … my endorsement means something. I don’t know how they got such flavor into the lettuce while having it keep some consistency, but they did, and I have thought about braising some romaine on my own … (haven’t gotten around to it yet).
The last course was the “sturgeon with pork belly, gigande beans, spinach, mustard”. I was psyched. Fish and pork belly. Bring it on. It arrived and it looked and smelled delicious. I was even more psyched. And then I tasted it. And you know what, I was a little disappointed. The dish was rather one-note, with the mustard taking over and masking everything. Don’t get me wrong – I like mustard – but I couldn’t get a whole lot more than it, which kind of bummed me out. The texture of the fish and pork belly suggested that they were both executed well – and tasting them on their revealed … surprise … fish and pork belly. But the one thing that was supposed to bring them together kind of trumped them both. It wasn’t a “bad” dish, but after the first two, it was kind of a let-down. Especially because this one was my choice – just goes to show you that my wife is a good picker (after all, she did pick me, right?).
And finally … the dessert. I let g choose the dessert (she gets a lot of power on her birthday). She asked for the coffee cake. To be honest, I wasn’t thrilled. Coffee cake? I mean, come on. On what planet is coffee cake an acceptable dessert at a restaurant … after eating fish and fine wine? Interestingly, neither g nor I even drink coffee, either! But, her birthday, her choice … She totally made me eat my thoughts. That dessert, which we showed you a crappy picture of above, was frickin’ delicious. The chocolate ice cream brought some sweat creaminess (?and I guess some crunch – but there wasn’t that much), and that coffee cake was perfect. And then there was the banana shmutz. It was like someone made some bananas foster and then blended it smooth. It was ridiculous. If they put it in a jar and charged $8 a piece a-la-Barbuzzo, I’d buy a dozen and take them home to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then I realized that this was the best dessert I’ve had at a Philly restaurant. Better than Zahav. Better than Barbuzzo. I kind of want to try it again just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke …
So, the overall picture … The food is quite good at Little Fish. However, the prices are a little on the steep side, approaching $30 per entree. While in my personal price-point, the first dish (i.e. the tile fish) was “worth” it, the second was more like a $25 dish, and the last was more of a $20 dish (in terms of flavor – I realize that as soon as you put pork belly on something, you’re allowed to charge $5 more for it). I think g and I will keep the place in mind for special (e.g. Birthdays, holidays) and semi-special (e.g. V-day) events … or just when we need to show some fish-fanatic friends of ours a good time …
Our lost visit to Smokin’ Betty’s
t says: We went to Smokin’ Betty’s some time ago, but apparently forgot that we went up until we got a comment from one of our faithful readers … Actually, g and I remembered very little of the visit, so we’ll let our dinnermate, lc, tell you the story in her words … with my edits in italics …
lc says: Didn’t you order some kind of ridiculous dessert that was really good? <sounds like me>
We went the day before Thanksgiving (… and I walked around and past the building multiple times because they have no prominent sign and dim lighting makes the windows look dark. I was embarrassed but you guys thought it was hysterical.) I think there was some kind of turkey special, but I can’t remember if anyone got it. Also, I think there was a bucket of fries in there that I took home but never ended up finishing.
Looking at the menu now… I had BBQ sliders. All three were delicious but it was weird we couldn’t identify which meat was in each after they were smothered in sauce. <oh yea! I remember that – that was weird!> You may have had the Betty Burger, which does have pork belly, fried egg, and avocado <I’m pretty sure I had that – I think the accompaniments were fantastic, but the burger itself was only “good”. Of course, adding pork belly to anything usually raises its goodness by a point, so it’s now “above-good”.>. I can’t remember what g had; maybe it was a special from the board <She can’t remember either – initially she thought maybe she got the sliders?>. There is in fact a bucket of fries on the menu. And I vowed if I got to go back I would get the Turducken Burger. Dessert may have been the triple chocolate layer cake, or it might have been a more mysterious special from the board. I think it was very chocolate, though. <Aha!! The chocolate cake. I remember it being kind of pricey for just a slice of cake – it was very chocolatey, and I think I liked the icing/filling more than the cake itself, which was kind of bleh.>
I know I had the Ace Perry cider, and it was really good. Apple and pear blended, instead of just apple, was very refreshing. I think g had some kind of yummy drink as well, but I can’t remember. Maybe she just considered one.
I seem to remember that they played some pretty interesting “old alternative” music while we were there… Funny that they dialed in to the kind of music we listened to in high school–we’re actually not THAT old! <We’re old as dirt. Nirvana was still cool back then, and Green Day had just come out.>They had a lot of door/windows that probably open up when the weather’s warm, but it was too cold that day.
And that’s all I can remember. I hope you can flesh it out with more details for your readers. <Yea – without your prompts, I had nothing. So thanks for your memory! So when we goin for that Turducken burger? Caitlin liked it – see the comment on this post.>
Farmicia also made me a liar!
t says: g and I were caught down in the Old City area one weekend and stopped by Farmicia for brunch. When we were finished with the meal, all I can say is that we kind of wished we hadn’t stopped. Because it was so “unremarkable” as g stated, we’re just going to cut straight to the chase:
2/2011, Sunday Brunch, Party of 2. I had a French Toast Scrapple sandwich. Sounds great right? Some French toast. Some pig-product. Get some syrup up in there. It’s gotta be a winner! Wrong! The scrapple was a disgrace. The outside was as mushy as the inside – a huge faux pas! And the meat (if you call it that) was quite bland! But that wasn’t the weird part – I had had bad scrapple before. The weird part was that the French toast was … ?bland?. I’m not even sure if bland is the right word to use, but it really had no taste – maybe “insipid” is better. It tasted like bread, which was weird because I clearly saw that it had been French-ified. But there were no notes of egg, cinnamon, sugar, vanilla, nothing! I doused my sandwich with strawberry jam to, one, make it taste better, and two, make it seem like it was bleeding (when my food isn’t tasty, my mind wanders …), but no amount of sweetness or humor could rescue the sad sad sandwich.
g had the crabcake sandwich. When I asked her how it was, these were her words: “it’s a crabcake sandwich.” No adjectives used at all. Perhaps this is a good thing because all of the adjectives for mine were negative.
So what’s the point of a post like this? Well, it’s not just to rant and rave – there are enough of those bloggers out there already. I want to share with you a troubling realization. It happened as we were sitting there. I had just told g how boring the food tasted – and not a microsecond after I got the words out of my mouth, I noticed out of the corner of my eye the waiter was a mere 4 steps away, coming to ask us how everything was. I literally turned my head from g, to whom a moment earlier I had been complaining about my food, and told him, “everything’s good, thanks.” I lied. I’m a liar. I kind of shocked myself. g gave me a wide-eyed look of accusation; her face said, “you are one of those people!”. She was referencing a time that good ‘ol a had pointed out that I was a liar back when we visited Baby Blues, when I told the waitress a similar comment despite having obvious reservations about the food … but never had I gone straight from saying one thing to saying another so quickly. This realization makes me feel dirty and guilty all over …
… but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with some Cochon French toast (now Cochon douses their French toast in peanut butter and jelly) …
after dinner sneeze 