Archive for the ‘Restaurant Reviews’ Category
continuing the 13th St love …
t says: So foobooz was so kind as to update the world about these barbuzzo puddin’ pops going on at Verde – and take note: it must be pronounced “puddin'” like Bill Crosy hawking Jell-o. And the world rejoiced: yay! But then in the text, it was mentioned: available 12-2 from Fri-Sun … So basically, if you can’t make it on Friday, just assume you’re not going to get one on Sat-Sun. But I had no fear – in my profession, once a month, I’m done on Fridays by 11am … and that just happened to be on the big debut day! So I had a plan …
I first went to Barbuzzo for a lunch [by myself]. And while most might be afraid to eat alone in restaurant, I have no such fears if the food is good enough – and it was! I enjoyed a nice glass of rose of tempranillo, which had a good amount of spiciness and acidity to it, cutting through the richness of the mushroom and pesto and mozzarella pasta.
and the reward: puddin’ pop! Now, in order to secure these, I did have to go to Verde first, before lunch, so I could buy two, pay for them, and have them set aside for me. Then, after lunch, I came back and picked them up. One of them I consumed in the cab on the way home (I had to get the other one home quick – it was for g, so it needed to make it to the freezer, pronto!). Above is the picture – I’m glad the cabbie didn’t care that I had a rapidly melting ice cream pop in his back seat (don’t worry – not a molecule was wasted). How’d it taste! Pretty darn good! I have to confess that the original budino is better because it has a more optimal ratio of chocolate to budino (the puddin’ pop’s single chocolate ribbon in the middle is pitiful), but as far as ice cream pops go, it’s a winner! I think it’s because there’s a very pronounced creme fraiche flavor in there that keeps it nice and lively so you want to come back for more over and over. Oh – and that salt in one corner was absolutely wonderful on the really nice chocolate shell they had going there – I would have preferred even more salt over the entire thing (but I also like salt …). So while these pops aren’t as amazing as the original budino, they are certainly noteworthy enough to stop by on a hot summer day to snag if you are so fortunate as to find they are still in stock. I think g feels like they’re not quite worth the $5 to buy one, but I’d say it’s pretty close – especially if you consider that a capo giro gelato is ~$5. Just sayin …
jamonera redemption
t says: Some time ago, g and kp and I went to Jamonera and were quite unhappy with it. Apparently, I had criticized one of their dishes by calling it a snoozefest (much like driving a Kia Cadenza) – yikes – I totally forgot about that – it’s a good thing we have this blog to remind us! Undeterred by my “cute hyperboles”, a and v journeyed out to 13th street to sample Jamonera’s vegetarian tasting menu … and were blown away! Check out their tasting menu for $40
t says: they took no pictures, but when we crashed their dinner (literally … we knew they were at dinner, we walked over to the restaurant, and then we invited ourselves over to their table before they had finished eating … I apparently have no manners …), but their summary is “it was the best vegetables we’ve had in Philly!” When I inquired as to which dish was their favorite, they named very nearly every dish – but I suspect that the setas et juevos was their decided favorite.
t says: when we went last time, we didn’t get dessert. Wow – we missed out on the best part! We sampled some of a & v’s this time, and they were out of this world. In the foreground above were some of the best fried dough I’ve had in Philly (with some beautiful caramel + ?chocolate? dipping sauce) …
… and this cake was absolutely delicious. Thumbs WAY up. Sure, both of these desserts are filling/hearty/heart-artery-clogging as all hell (i.e. these are not frilly itsy-bitsy desserts that’ll just slide in to an already full stomach – you need some space at the end of your meal otherwise you’ll be hurtin’!) but boy were they great!
Ok … so I guess the sneeze will have to lift its internal ban on Jamonera and give it another shot … eventually … I think the biggest thing that stops us from visiting now is the wine program. Much like Barbuzzo, it’s not the wine selection that’s a [big] problem, so much as the wine service: the red wine is served at warmer-than-room-temp! We just don’t understand! And this isn’t me just being hoidy-toidy about “correct” temperatures – it’s about cheap Spanish and Italian wines tasting like burning hellfire when consumed at too warm of a temperature – especially during summer! At this point, I’d recommend they just stick all their wine in the walk-in and serve it super-cold … at least that way it’ll pass through an acceptable temperature range as it slowly warms up in the glass. Geez! *gets off his soapbox*. Ok – I feel better. Summary: Go to jamonera. Eat the vegetables. Try a meat or two. Avoid their wine.
are you [cadenza] experienced?
t says: g and I went to “The Cadenza Experience” at Sbraga. We liked it quite a bit (no surprise, given the last time we were there) – but more importantly, a and v got their own reservation to go (it was their first time at Sbraga), so this’ll be kind of a combined post …
a says: With t’s guidance we got on the Cadenza waitlist, and then with v’s sweet-talk, we got a reservation for early Monday night (t says: I wonder what she said?). Having seen g & t the night before (@ jamonera … the post is coming …), we knew we were in for a good meal. And sure enough, Sbraga delivered… for free!
t says: Roll the pictures!!
a says: the drink service was topnotch for a free event, and included mixed drinks and four wine options. We highly recommend the Broad Street and the lovely Italian red blend, with soft tannins that went well even with the salmon (menu below). Our waitress was extremely professional, helpful, and knowledgeable – kudos! t says: g and I enjoyed how when we were inside, there was no further mention of the car anywhere. No server bothered us about it. No more surveys were had. There weren’t Kia commercials playing in the background. I mean, aside from the cheesy light display and ice sculpture (for real – a Kia Ice sculpture), it was pretty much a free meal. a says: By the way, the Cadenza is a perfectly capable car that looks and feels much better than any Kia in recent memory. t says: For $35,900 base price, I’d hope it’d drive better than any other Kia … but dear Lord, that was one helluva snooze-mobile – it could have induced a cataplexy at any moment, it was such a boring/bland car … a says: smartass.
t says: the offered items were straight from the real menu! they weren’t just serving us dumbed-down dishes!
t says: this was the pork belly appetizer. it was exactly the same as the last time we went and it was fabulous. No point in discussing it more – I just liked putting up another picture because this one was prettier than the last one!
a says: I went with the tomato melon soup (which is also what g had). It was a nice riff on a typical gazpacho, which I’ve been eating a lot of lately. This one isn’t as good as Ela’s but it’s up there – acidic yet sweet and very refreshing. t says: When I tasted some of g’s, I was impressed with the smokey-spicy counterpoint that kept me coming back for more – and even the mild cashew’s flavors had a part to play! It really was a well-orchestrated soup!
a says: I went for the roast pork which is the best “deconstructed” DiNic’s pork sandwich I’ve ever had. They even remembered the long hots! t brags: I told you so! I had it again, too! I just couldn’t help myself!
t says: Other dishes that were ventured include g’s pasta dish, which was quite hearty and also delicious (but wasn’t so photogenic, so we left it out of the post) and v’s salmon … which we’re not sure what she thought about it because I kept forgetting to ask her before this post went live (the sneeze waits for no one …)
a says: We ended with the cherries jubilee which had an interesting peppery spiciness thanks to the szechuan ice cream. And the pistachio bread pudding (above) we feel strayed too far to be called “Bread pudding” but was tasty nonetheless. t says: I liked how it had that strawberry rhubarb topping – nice and zippy! I mean, maybe it could have used a bit more chocolate, but that’s just because I’m a chocolate fiend.
t says: We thank Kia for the free meal. I think the event was nicely organized and would be happy to do it again. More importantly, it’s a LOT of fun to say repeatedly say “The Cadenza Experience” in an emphatic manner – it’s going to be our running joke, for sure …
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 …
after dinner sneeze 