a month has passed us by!
t says: Geez, it’s been a long time. Our poor blog has been neglected! If this blog were a Tamagochi, it would be covered in cyber-poop-piles and likely dead (I always felt that those cyber pets were a little too graphic). Let’s see what I can do to bring us all up to date here …
After tasting much of Tria Fiter Square’s new medium plates menu, a and I have decided that the above is their best dish. Yes, this puddle-of-brown was quite amazing: black pepper tagliattelle with mushrooms. It sounded so simple, but it was like Mercato-good, or Melograno-good, or Barbuzzo-good. We were presently shocked by the heartiness of the sauce and to this day swear that they stuck some beef broth in there or something … So order it, don’t look at it (it ain’t gonna win any awards for being pretty), and just eat it.
Of course, we visited Night Market on South street and dined at the best-gosh-darn food truck of the market, helmed by a childhood friend. If you see this truck, try it out, it’s totally worth it (but be fast! he sells out!). Maybe go there first, Weckerly’s second (trust us – best ice cream in all of night market, and located in a tiny-ass easily-overlooked cart), and then spend the rest of the time chuckling at those waiting in line for things like “pizza”.
Did you know about the Han Dynsaty in NJ? g and I have been there several times, but without ever posting about it – we just assumed everyone knew! Turns out, no! So perform this weekend routine: Cross the Ben Franklin Bridge, enter Cherry Hill, drive all the way to Wineworks (stock up on wine of any price point and ask for internet pricing), and then on your way back, hit up H-mart (for kimchi and veggies), Han Dynasty, and your choice of Wegman’s or Whole Foods. And there you go – a delightful lunch and a fridge full of groceries and wine. Consider your weekly shopping conquered.
Denver is a weird place. I just got done visiting for the first time, and I was told “yea – the convention center has a blue bear looking in the window – you can’t miss it”. I thought, “gee, that’s an odd descriptor – what if I miss it?”. Yea. Can’t miss a five-story-tall HUGE blue bear ACTUALLY looking in the glass facade. SO weird!
I put up this photo because this way I’ll have documentation of the hotel I stayed in for one of my nights in Denver. While it didn’t have the biggest rooms, it had the BEST food:
… like a perfectly executed burger, from the soft bun, to the perfectly seasoned and cooked meat, to the perfect condiments and the optional lovely bitter salad …
… to an octopus salad that was 90% perfectly poached octopus (seriously – it was so much octopus that I couldn’t finish it for lunch!) …
… down to a choose-your-own cheese board with excellent selections that made it a notch below Talula’s Garden (and charcuterie that I didn’t venture – I was trying to be “healthy”) …
… and a “serious” wine list of bottles including Scholium Project, Bedrock, Kivelstadt, Matthiasson (none of which I could afford, but it was nice to know they had). So the food and wine was so good that i actually walked back to this hotel on days I was staying in another hotel just for the food!!
and finally – I’ll end on a Philly picture. This is a Rival Bros “breakfast”. With our apartment just down the street, I’ve been visiting here WAY too much. And this is why: toast. Yes, it’s yuppie-as-hell, the idea of paying $5 for a piece of bread and some jam, and not a second goes by between swiping my credit card and waiting for the order to come up that I don’t hate myself for spending so much money on something so banal … but if you could just tastes this potato bread, in all of its golden-crusted, salt-sprinkled glory, you would immediately understand that this is no mere “toast” – this is the bread incarnate of pure bliss … sitting next to what I truly believe is Philly’s best cortado (sorry – they call it a “Deringer” – whatever). I hate the cost, I hate the lines of yoga-pant-wearing and beard-donning locals, and I hate the limited seating … but I love the bread, the coffee, and the free wifi. Oh … and did I mention they have Weckerly’s ice cream sandwiches? They do … Mind blown. Gray matter splattered all over the wall behind me …
a true aspirational story
t says: I don’t think there will every come a time when I will “own” a vineyard, “farm” the land, or “make” the wine. But it is a pretty cool story:
welcome springtime!
t says: It’s been two weeks since last time, and while my phone seems to have only one additional photo:
chocolate-chocolate-chocolate!
And then I remembered: we went to the Poconos! And no, not to the place that has the weird tall pink champagne glass jacuzzi (i.e. on the billboard on 76 headed east), but to someplace I got a rando-deal on secretescapes.com for the French Manor Inn. Overall, the place was fine – we enjoyed its secluded location and nearby park. The food left a LOT to be desired (except the above chocolate dessert – which was awesome), but we got to bring our own wine, read our own books, and rest in the silence that is nature. The Poconos: Highly Recommended for Doing Nothing.
I guess this means that g and I will just have to eat out more to make sure we have stuff to blog about!
It Has Arrived
t says: After 4 years on a waitlist, coordinating a three-party cross-country split (partly enabled by kp), and cashing in an “it’ll be my birthday present to myself” rationalization, mine finally arrived yesterday. Sleep well, young lad. I’ll see you on your 18th birthday …
[Finally] getting to Abe Fisher
t says: g and I went to Abe Fisher not too long ago – far after the buzz had begun to subside. Now, we have to say, we’re coming at this from the points of view of two people who have little-to-no emotional attachment to “cuisine of the Jewish diaspora” that Abe Fisher boasts. In our little part of SoJo, it just wasn’t something we encountered. So we basically had no idea what to expect in terms of themes, flavors, or anything …
March 2015, Sunday Diner, Party of 2. So we started off with
the brussels sprouts caesar was precisely what we imagined – very nice done, and yet another bit of proof that sprouts need not be roasted or fried to shine. the grapes made it a bit on the sweeter-than-expected side, but overall an ok start.
ever wonder how to do a sweet potato in a manner other than just with marshmallow? go there and have this. this was a thoughtfully constructed dish flirting with perfection (for a sweet potato). pickled long hots and the mild sweet potato were crazy-good with the boursin. this hit all the right notes.
pastrami hash knish also killed it – from the sesame exterior to the poached egg and of course, the meat, it was beautiful.
broccoli 2 ways was probaly the weakest dish. i have long since forgotten the details, but i do recall thinking to myself, “gee – i kinda wish this was just a plate of roasted broccoli, instead”
i ventured the pseudo-“gefilte fish” thinking it’d be really unique – and here’s an example where I think that knowing what the original dish was would have made me appreciate this one better. but for me, it didn’t offer me much more than carrot-on-carrot-on-nondescript-fish. sorry guys. I mean sure, it tasted fine, but it’s not going to win any records for making me contemplating the true meaning of food (i.e. what I typically like to contemplate when eating dinner out).
g’s sweet-n-sour meatballs were pretty tasty – a nice take that we ultimately ate all of. But come on – will this honestly dethrone the meatballs of Barbuzzo? No …
i’m a sucker for a properly-jiggly panna cotta (it shouldn’t jiggle like jello – it should jiggle like … something else …) … but as good as my dessert was, with its creaminess and bright fruit punches …
… g’s dessert made me forget about that broccoli thing and that fish thing and that meatball thing – it immediately obliterated any-and-all thoughts, as I was instantly transported to the year 1990. Boom. Life was simple again. Forget adulthood and being fettered to worries of work, bills, taxes, and responsibility. No. Not 10-year-old me, sitting in the car (where I ate most of my dinners, between after-school activities), with McDonald’s baked apple pie half-hanging out of my mouth and a stupid grin on my face. My thoughts were simple: Did I get a 100 on my spelling test? Did I practice the piano enough this week? Was there any way I could watch X-men on Saturday morning instead of going to karate class? When was Super Mario Bros 3 coming out – and would I be able to find the hidden warp whistles? As I slowly came back to the reality that I was 32 sitting in Abe Fisher, and not 10 eating McDonald’s, I admitted it: g won dessert. Screw panna cotta …
So it wasn’t a meal without a few hiccups – perhaps it should have stopped at course 2 with that knish. g and I hadn’t ventured the Hungarian duck or the Montreal short ribs – so it’s not like we did everything. But we did like the majority of what we had – and for the fixed price of $39, the damage wasn’t that bad. We’d definitely go back when they change the menu to see what else comes out of the kitchen … except they better not change that f-ing apple strudel …
Shabu Shabu
t says: I have a confession to make. g and I don’t spend enough time in China town. Like WAY-little. We rarely do dim sum. We [regretfully] miss out on hand-drawn noodles. And certainly we haven’t shabu-shabu’d it (or “hotpot” as it’s referred to by our friends). Fortunately, one very persuasive friend of ours made an excellent case to go: she had been, she knew what to do, and she was going … So off g and I went – an adventure to Chinatown’s Hippot Shabu Shabu (most recently mentioned here). What was it like? It was insanity. I don’t have many pictures of the pot, as my battery managed to very-nearly die.
g’s side of the table went for a vegetable free-for-all. personally, i felt that this method lacked the precision of perfectly cooking individual items, but i guess that’s just how they roll …
on the meat side, we went for their “bone broth” (which i neglected to photograph. we also went for thin slices of lamb and beef, as well as a variety of dumplings and balls.
In all, the meal was quite delicious. For a bunch of neophytes like us, it was quite also quite the experience: dip, boil, slather, eat, and repeat! Thanks to our shabu-master for organizing the outing because we would have been completely lost (there was a lot of speaking in tongues with which I was not familiar). g and I also loved the social experience of gathering around a pot of food – much like a fondu … just with more exotic flavors. Oh – and the “sauce bar” was good fun – I’m pretty sure I re-created General Tso’s sauce. BUT, I have to let me Korean-ness shine through for a moment: I confess that I like Korean BBQ a bit more. There’s something about the sizzle that I miss in hotpot. And when you put that almost-burnt-outside-but-still-soft-inside cow in your mouth with a crisp leaf of fresh lettuce and a slice of cold kimchi – now that is heaven (so much so that g and I made some ssam at home tonight before I wrote this piece). True, shabu gets major points with variety – I mean they had a whole page of balls for crying out loud! But I’d never bring those balls to a kalbi fight …
After shabu-ing it for dinner, we hit up a place I have heard so much about but hadn’t had the chance yet to visit (because, you know, we never go to Chinatown …): Audubon Bakeshop. So when you walk in, you think “oh, macarons … i like macarons – i’ve had them before” (and for a snob like me, add on: “i ate at a new macaron vendor every single day of our trip in Paris … if there’s only one thing i know, it’s eating macarons”). So I sashayed my way up to the counter …
I began to notice that these were not macarons of a single flavor, rather, combinations. What gives? Is it simply that the exterior is a different flavor than the filling? …
Nope! It’s because there are two fillings! Interesting! While I have no idea how unique this is, I was intrigued. It was time to taste some … so naturally, I bought 1 of each … you know, “to share” …
And of course, I pretty much ate them all by myself. They were as addictive a potato chips. As soon as i ate one, I knew I had to eat another – I just had to know what it tasted like, because the flavor combos were so much fun! It reminded me of wanting to try ALL the donuts at FedNuts … except that I hated myself far less afterwards (6 donuts vs. 6 macarons …) In the end I’m not sure which was my favorite, but what I can say is that I’m definitely putting down this place on the short list of “desserts to bring from Philly” when we attend parties in the south Jersey suburbs. These small bites packed a slightly more profound punch of flavor than a typical macaron – I can’t wait until they make new flavors!
So a successful Chinatown outing. I’m sorry we neglected you. We’ll be back.
rice vs. calories
t says: Check it out – people think that adding coconut oil will make rice a bit healthier via chemistry. Pretty cool – but will it still have the same texture and taste?
after dinner sneeze 