Archive for the ‘Restaurant Reviews’ Category
Mexicali … because a burrito needs to be more filling.
t says: Last week, also at the recommendation the Flake-loving friend, I visited Mexicali in West Philly. Mexicali has some sort of complicated history with a food truck that was or was not open for a certain amount of time – I have no idea. The story was told to me, but I wasn’t paying attention because I was too busy ingesting this:
This, my friends, is a chicken burrito. It looks like every other burrito at first glance (i.e. a mish-mash of stuff shoved in a tortilla). However, you’ll notice that towards the left-hand side of the burrito, there’s a lot of “golden brown” – it looks like extra tortilla folds or something. But it’s not. It’s french fries. That’s right:
“Just when I thought you couldn’t possibly be any more filling … you go and do something like this …”
So Mexicali shoves fries into their ?San Diego? burritos – and they’re pretty damn good fries, too – nice and crispy, not soft and soggy like at Greek Lady. The meat and veggies were tasty, but really, it’s the addition of fries that totally steal the show. I consumed the entirety of the burrito, and soon felt the after-effects as I nearly fell alseep standing up while at work. These things are dangerous. My recommendation: don’t operate heavy machinery after eating this burrito.
PS That bottle that says “Fred” is a bottle of water. I have no idea why it’s named Fred, but it’s pretty funny, right?
a.kitchen review is up!
t says: I wrote a little review on a.kitchen for Penn Appetit. I was going to put up a little teaser or something, but I didn’t want to stop you from going to read it on their website. So instead I’ve decided to put up a completely uninformative picture that won’t make ANY sense until you read it on their blog.
Happy reading!
This photo intrigues you, no?
Birthday Fun: Talula’s times 2, and Zama
t says: For my bday this year, g and I went to a variety of food-related places. We hit up Talula’s Table for some lunch (we were heading back from Total Wine in DE so we made a pit-stop). We hit up Zama with my parents for dinner on one night, and then we hit up Talula’s Garden for dinner on another. Here’s the quick-and-dirty …
Talula’s Table is still cute inside. I wish it was closer so I could go more often, but it’d probably make us go broke, so it’s better that they’re not so close. We sampled some cheeses, ate some pesto pasta (yum), and Aimee sent out an Almond Joy dessert with a candle in it – she’s very thoughtful.
Zama served us up some fantastic sushi. We did what I call the “bizarro sushi sampler” which featured 4-5 maki that had odd combinations (e.g. fig and cucumber and something else) and some other, more normal maki/nigiri/sashimi. My parents seemed content, but I don’t think anything really blew them away. I ordered the Bibou roll (featuring escargot). In retrospect, I should have taken g’s advice and ordered the Vetri roll (featuring eel), as no one except me liked the snail on the Bibou roll (just snail in general, not having anything specifically wrong with the roll). Darn. The meal was fairly pricey – I promised to go to all-you-can-eat sushi places in the future.
We returned for our fifth visit at Talula’s Garden. Don’t worry if you’re sick about reading about this place, because after this, I’ll just have to stop writing about our visits. What we can say is that we think the food is getting even better over time – the chef and crew are really hitting their stride, it seems. Our recommendations are the following dishes:
Best App: Sturgeon Rillette. This was the appetizer we ordered most recently, and, quite frankly, I think it’s the best appetizer we’ve ever had. Something about this rillette is oh-so-addictive. It’s zippy and salty and sweet and has a little accompanying mustard seed to give it some aggression. The mini-salad off to the right has some profoundly fresh lettuce (that’s weird, right? “profoundly fresh lettuce?” it’s just “lettuce” – but g did remark upon trying it, “hey – taste this lettuce” – so something about it tasted like you just pulled it out of the ground) but is dressed simply so your focus is definitely the rillette. Yes, the goat tortelloni and the braise rabbit pasta are delicious and deeply flavored (and are tied for second place – but in the colder winter months, they might overtake the rillette because they’re served warmer), but for the summer, and as a light start to your meal, the rillette wins.
For mains, this most recent visit we went for the mushroom gnocchi and the beef that we encountered at our first visit. They were even better this time and retain the title of our personal faves. The muhroom gnocchi is absolutely amazing (that raisin puree is out of this world) – just make sure you mix it up using the egg yolk. And that braised short rib is fabulous (the other cut of beef is good, too, but that short rib with the sauce is ridiculous).
The best surprise dish we ever received was this duck dish pictured below – or at least, we think it’s duck. We actually have no idea how it was prepared, and it’s not on the menu as far as I can tell (maybe they took it from the duck dish that is on the menu?) and added some sort of green vegetable and shaved pecorino. It was ridiculous – more ridiculous than the foie-based concoction we had some time ago. I hope I see it on the menu soon!
My favorite dessert has to go to the dark chocolate cremeaux we had on our first visit (the bacon was ground finer the first time so it was easier to eat – the bacon was a little more chunky last time). g prefers a cheese plate – doesn’t matter which one …
Finally, we do want to mention that they swapped out the brioche with ramp butter that I complained about last time. Now it’s some sort of multigrain or wheat bread with apricot butter that g likes to roll her eyes back and say “it’s soooooo good”.
In summary, if you haven’t gone yet, you now know our choices for an optimal first impression (if you like the kind of food we like). If you have and weren’t impressed (I’ve been informed that not everyone has been was as blown away as we were), don’t write ’em off yet – they’re getting even better.
P.S. This most recent visit we were taken into the back and shown the kitchen – we even spent a few seconds to say hi to Chef Santoro. He’s much younger than I was expecting, but seems like a nice guy. I wish him the best of luck in churning out the dishes that keep us coming back for more. Of course, he probably thought we were teenagers or something (g and I look fairly young) so I’m not sure we made the best first impression on him, but over time, maybe we’ll sway him with the many more compliments sent back to the kitchen …
Bistrot La Minette – not bad, not great
t says: Right before our recent trip (i.e. those pics from Vienna), g and I realized that we had no food in the house. Consequently, we just had to go out for dinner. We decided to go to Bistrot La Minette, as we had never been before …
June 2011, Weekday Dinner, Party of 2. g and I met the host, who showed us to our table. Right before parting, he said, “and I hope you enjoy your meal” – but he said it with such finality that g responded [to me, quietly], “I guess we’re not going to be seeing that guy again.” Lo and behold … we didn’t.
We were seated right next to the bread-cutting-table. Thankfully, we were not hit with any errant pieces of crusty bread. The bread was actually quite delicious, with a nice crispy crust, but a soft, forgiving interior. And they served it in a mini-bucket!
Bread bucket.
Easily some of the best baguette I’ve ever had in a restaurant. I was psyched!
My next course was the escargot, which was presented in individual little “pots”.
9 individual snails, waiting to be eaten.
The escargots were pretty good. Great texture and made in such a way to show off the flavors of the snails, themselves (and garlic …). Personally, I prefer Bibou’s, which impart a bit more flavor due to the surrounding jus, but that’s just me. Purists may prefer it this way. So this was tasty, but not quite a home-run.
For our mains, I believe g had rabbit and pasta. It was only “ok” for her, as the rabbit (which they serve a large portion of), while being cooked well, didn’t have a lot of flavor, which was sad (she said it was, “like chicken”). And then the sauce, itself, didn’t really do much to help the situation in that it really didn’t complement the flavors/textures of rabbit – it was more like a thick, creamy, way-too-heavy sauce that made the dish seem far heartier than it should have. I had the lamb “stew”, which was more like an entree of lamb cooked two ways (some of it was sous vide I believe) accompanied by some veggies. Once again, the sous vide lamb, itself, was a beautiful texture, but there was no flavor that blew me away. The veggies were fine (peas were a little too al dente for me – call me a pea wuss) but a bit underwhelming in flavor – but nonetheless served a purpose in that they broke the monotony of the lamb. Actually, I almost feel like there needed to be either more accompaniment or less lamb so that I wouldn’t get too “tired” with the dish.
And for dessert, g and I ventured the strawberry cafloutie which was a pretty sad dessert. The strawberry tasted weak, the dough bordered on rubbery/insipid, and the ice cream was forgettable (I actually forget what flavor it was). Bummer.
So, in the end, Bistro La Minette didn’t quite do it for us. Maybe it was because we were just coming off of a dinner at Bibou. Maybe they were having a bad night (some sort of graduation party was going on the back). Maybe it was because my primitive tastebuds can’t appreciate the subtleties in their cooking. Unfortunately, this puts Bistro La Minette in the category of restaurants that we’ll be happy to go to with friends, but not likely returning on our own accord. It’s a bummer because the chef, from what we gather, is a really nice guy. Sorry chef.
It’s a Viennese Food Picture Whirlwind!
t says: g and I visited drb and his now-fiance in Vienna. A lot of awesome sites were visited and various foods were eaten. Here’s the picture-show! While we did do some sight-seeing and cultural edification, we recognize that this is a “food and lifestyle blog”, not to be confused with a “lifestyle and food blog”. Consequently, we will consolidate the far-less-important, non-food things into a separate post later. So, without further ado …
The first thing we did was go to a restaurant and EAT. We told drb to take us someplace unmistakably "Austrian". He did - we went to some restaurant that translates into "7 Star Bar" or something like that (named after the street it was on). What awaited on the menu was this bad boy you see before you: the "pork knuckle". It was huge - it took two of us to eat it. What we appreciated was the accompaniment which is apparently an Austrian attempt at "a well-balanced diet" (i.e. some shreds of lettuce and three slices of tomato).
This is a horrible picture, but it illustrates hearty Austrian cooking: "gnocchi" covered in cheese and bacon. What more do you need than starch, cheese, and bacon?
The next day, we went to Meierei which is a "cheese bar" that is associated with Steiereck, the only two-Michelin-star restaurant in Vienna. We were in for a ridiculous cheese brunch. drb reportedly had "cheese legs" by the time he was done eating. The clinical manifestations and pathophysiology of this disease have not yet been characterized, but I'll be sure to write up a case report for NEJM.
Fresh from the oven apple strudel. I'm not a huge fan of apples, but this was damn tasty.
drb detests fruit, so he went for the "milk strudel" and vanilla cream. I suspect that this is a contributing factor in the development of "cheese legs".
We did hit up a couple of Asian restaurants in Vienna. This was from our first one. It's apparently kimchi. At the time, I wondered why it was that it appeared so anemic and suspected that maybe the Austrians couldn't handle the heat, preferring instead garlic and vinegar. Apparently this "white kimchi" is a separate style of kimchi altogether and can be found in Korea along with normal kimchi! (Thanks for the 4-1-1 mom)
The Austrians do sushi as well ... but they're rice:fish ratio is a bit off (a LOT of rice). I want to say that nothing was at all "bad" or "wrong" or anything like that, but I nevertheless still think it's hilarious that we were in Austria ... eating sushi ... Of course, we did get to hang out with one of drb's super-cool physics friends at this meal, so it was totally worth it.
The following day, we started off the Austrian way by going to a cafe … But apparently I accidentally deleted the pictures. Imagine a toasted ham and cheese sandwich topped with a fried, over-medium egg. Pretty delicious! g noted that the ham over there isn’t so “hammy” – we ate ham a few times and she didn’t cry uncle! (Normally, g can consume only a small amount of ham over a given period.)
Later in the day – we had to find us some ice cream, as it was hot as “bwawls” outside.
Zanoni and Zanoni gelato ... Frommer's says it's "the best". I'd say it was "good", but hoped there was some better gelato hiding somewhere else ...
drb cooked us a fabulous dinner. I have no pictures of his curry, but it was delicious. kp better watch out, cuz this white boy has some skills.
The "bread basket" at Cafe Westend: croissant, hard pretzels, and a piece of jerky ... totally expected, right?
Some sort of apricot pastry from Naschmarkt. The Austrians LOVE apricot, apparently. Overall, the pastry was "meh" - too much apricot!
Also from Nashmarkt: the best danish that g has ever had!! It's not like it was some sort of novel blow-your-mind, redefine-danishes-forever danish. But the strawberry filling was REAL strawberry, the dough was soft with a light crust, nothing was mushy, nothing was over-sweetened. Basically, it was a danish that lacked all of the normal danish-related flaws - "best ever danish" by default!
"Hot dogs" in Vienna are different than those here. Over there, they use REAL rolls (like Amaroso rolls). They stab these rolls with a heated metal spike, and shoved into it a sausage of your choice (e.g. kielbasa). It was approximately 87 times better than a normal hot dog.
This sucky picture was to remind me to tell the world that there is gelato in Vienna better than Zanoni and Zanoni. Wherever the crap drb took us on this day has awesome flavors (that green is green tea!) and superb texture. Very nearly as good as capo giro!
Cafe Ritter's "chocolate pancake dessert" (which I ate for breakfast). It's like crepes and nutella (and some fruit). It was so frickin delicious (although probably not that different than eating straight-up nutella).
We were told there was an awesome gelato place right next to Zanoni and Zanoni that was superior to Zanoni and Zanoni. So we set out to look for it. We couldn't find it. We were so hungry for ice cream (it was hot outside) that we no choice but to eat at ... Zanoni and Zanoni - BLAST! It wasn't bad, but let's just say that the "chicken shnitzel sandwich" is precisely the same as those chicken patties you could find in any cafeteria across the US.
This picture is to remind me to tell you of a restaurant called "Kontrapunkt". They do this thing where you sit down and courses will start coming out (which you have no say in what comes except to specify food restrictions/allergies), and then you tell them to stop at whatever course you're full. We lasted four courses (this was #1 - some sort of meat carpaccio), but it soon got really dark outside, so I'll spare you the other pictures. It was a wonderful time though! I liked the element of surprise. So if you ever go to Vienna, check out this restaurant (and don't ever eat the non-gelato food at Zanoni and Zanoni). The owner of Kontrapunkt came out and chatted with us some throughout the meal - he is a SUPER nice guy. He showed up later at the end of the meal and said "yea, so we have an unlabeled bottle of sweet wine in the cellar - it's got to be at least 30 years old ... you want some". Yes we did ... it tasted like a really caramelly Tokaji (Hungarian sweet wine). Not too shabby!
We next traveled to Budapest … more pictures to come …
Cannele fight
t says: On Saturdays in the Rittenhouse Market, there’s a guy that sells little baked thingees called canneles.
Ever had a canele?
They are these wonderfully delicious cylindrical treats that are a little crisp on the outside (kind of like burnt sugar) and egg-custardy (not like soft serve ice cream – kind of like a really really moist French Cruller) on the inside.
I’ve seen these at Garces Trading Company, too – but trust me they are not the same. The inside isn’t as eggy/moist, and the outside definitely does not have that crisped exterior.
So when I saw the guy on Rittenhouse, I told him how I felt …
me: You know, they have these at Garces Trading Company, too. But to be honest, I yours are better.
him: Yea I think so too. But Garces knows it – he’s had mine a couple of times …
Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery?
The Wedge + Fig Takeover
v says: Just wanted to talk Wedge + Fig which took over OC Cheese Shop. According to the waiter, one of the new owners used to own Flying Monkey in Reading Terminal. The new ownership has brought this location more focus. Dining is the focus now, whereas before the focus wasn’t clear. They still have a nice selection of cheese, which seems reasonably priced. Their selection doesn’t compete with DiBruno’s or Garces, but would definitely suffice in a pinch.
Overall the food was simple yet good, light yet filling. The service was still working out some of its kinks, but generally accomodating and very nice. The draw here is both the simple food and the relaxing ambience. This is by far the most relaxing dining experience I’ve had since living in Central America. The fruit plate was very good, the lox and cream cheese on an everything bagel was great!
They do have a corkage fee of 4$ for brunch, but not for dinner. This is not the place you would go with a bottle of vodka and bloody mary mix. Stick to champagne, wine, and possibly beer.
a says: I agree with v’s assessment. My omelet of the day, with mushrooms, peppers, and chicken sausage, was well executed and plated. I think the flavor could “pop” a bit more but I have faith this will come. Also, the music selection was on-point, if you enjoy mainstream classical. All-in-all, a great way to spend Sunday (or any day) brunch when the weather is on your side.
after dinner sneeze 