Lightning Round 3: C19, Salento, Gardenia
t says: We visited a few places recently – one before our SF trip and one afterwards. There were some highs and lows:
Gardenia:
We visited for brunch one morning on a whim. It’s hidden in the Art Alliance building off of Rittenhouse Square. Props: The food was quite tasty and the selection of jams were great. Best of all was the picturesque setting of sitting in a quiet little garden patio – this place would be great for a chill outdoor event. It’s just SO peaceful! Slops: Unfortunately, there were a few undercooked areas in my lemon-blueberry-ricotta pancakes. They were so close to being exemplary lemon-blueberry-ricotta pancakes, too! Verdict: If I had to stay in Rittenhouse for brunch, I’d take this place over Parc’s overwhelmingly energetic/frenetic atmosphere anytime.
EDIT: Parc’s brunch is still energentic/frenetic, but we’ve since learned to block out the people around us …
Salento:
There’s this small BYO near that wannabe Apple store on Walnut (Springboard Media). A newspaper clipping in their window boasts “gnocchi on heaven’s door”. We were bored and hungry so we gave it a whirl. Props: There’s never more than one table occupied. My orechiette and braised duck wasn’t half bad. Slops: There’s never more than one table occupied. My orechiette and braised duck wasn’t half good. g had the pasta and shrimp in tomato sauce and is pretty sure she could replicate the dish at home, if not make it better (Italians and their tomato gravies …). Verdict: Sorry Salento – I’ll now never know if the gnocchi was delicious because La Viola gives a similar quantity at a similar price-point for better quality (and neither will usurp Melograno for our local Italian eatery) .
Cicheterria 19:
This new place just off of Rittenhouse has a pretty small sign to look for. Boasting Venetian small plates, everything on the menu online sounds so good. So, the moment we saw gift certificates on sale at restaurant.com, we bought a $50 gift certificate for $4 (or was it $2?). Props: The space is very nice. The table-tops are cool, the stools are contoured, and the lighting is soothing. The server had a very authentic accent. The wine list has some lesser-known Italian varietals (i.e. not just a bunch of chianti sangiovese and other mainstream grapes – but it does have those, too, if you’d like). The Italian meatball was quite good (even g admitted to liking it … and, as mentioned above, she’s Italian), kp enjoyed the tiramisu, which had a nice contrast in texture between the lady fingers and decadent mascarpone, and the panna cotta, even though a bit sloppily presented, was creamy and the perfect consistency (*wink wink*). Slops: Seasoning was all over the place: the salt baked branzino was too salty while the potato-leek soup and french fries didn’t have enough. Scallops were inconsistent (over-cooked in some places, perfect in others), squid ink polenta was kind of bland (even for polenta!), and the arugula-egg-bacon-fig-gorgonzola salad didn’t quite sing harmony (it was a disjointed muddle of weak flavors … which was surprising). And we never got our baccala small plate despite ordering it and bringing it to their attention … Verdict: I’d go again for wine, meatballs, and dessert. It’s a shame that you need to order an entree for a restaurant.com gift certificate to work.
EDIT: Philadelphia Weekly went to C19 and had a similar experience!
Napa/SF Recap: Day 2 (part 1)
t says: We wanted to start off day 2 in Napa with a bang. Because we were lodging in Yountville, the only thing that made sense for us to do for breakfast was to go to Bouchon bakery. We passed by the cafe next to our railway car/hotel room, crossed the street, walked 50 yards and bam! there we were. I got just a few things: chocolate bouchon, chocolate croissant, and something else that likely had chocolate in it. The bouchon was tasty – it was more cakey than Garces Trading Company’s, which are more fudgy – I can’t really say which I prefer. The chocolate croissant made me cry a little on the inside, as it had the chocolate concentrated in a rod in the croissant. I hate it when they do that. But then g brought up a good point – when was the last time I had the mythical chocolate croissant that had chocolate throughout? The last time was over a decade ago. They were sold by this little coffee cart inside the Johns Hopkins undergrad library circa July 1998. At the time, I was still in high school staying at JHU for the summer, but when I matriculated at Hopkins in 2000, they no longer served those croissants anymore. I think Au Bon Pain used to do it the good way, too. But now that Keller doesn’t do it that way, I’m beginning to wonder if it ever could have been done, period! Did my mind make it up? After all, if anyone would go through the extra effort to evenly distribute chocolate, it’d be TK, right? After all, he is the guy that suggested that you sift your chocolate chips before using them in cookies to get ride of those tiny pieces that might make the cookie look less appealing (?dirty?).
We next visited Quintessa winery. This was going to be our token “real deal” winery for the trip; we were visiting other wineries more for the experience of going to beautiful vineyards with a variety of “shticks”. Artesa’s “shtick” was that they were the first bottle of wine we purchased (and we’ll never purchase again). Specializing in bordeaux blends bearing its namesake (although we have come to find that they are involved in the production of a very small run of white named Illumination), Quintessa’s “shtick” is that they make great wine (although the winery is indeed beautiful, too!). We’ll reveal future shticks as we go on. a hooked us up with one of his friends who hooked us up with a 10am visit at Quintessa. We owe them both, big time, because as far as wine goes, these were the best we tasted on the entire trip!
From the road, Quintessa doesn’t look like much. It looks like a giant stone wall set into a small mountain – it’s hard to imagine in the pic because you only see such a small part of it. It’s amazing how much of the facility is hiding behind this wall and/or underground! This is apparently a great architectural accomplishment; I believe it!
This is the view from on top of the wall looking out onto the “front yard” as I would call it. They probably have a better name for it.
This is the “back yard” (my term). It was amazing to see all of the different vineyard blocks situated on hills, valleys, and flat lands, with the rows oriented in different directions. I guess I had just assumed that the geography for any winery would be relatively constant (e.g. it’s all on one side of a mountain), but here you see that it’s quite varied – and this is for a winery as small as Quintessa. Interestingly (although not surprisingly), each patch (block) may be considered a distinct microclimate and have different soil conditions, thus may produce identical grapes (e.g. Cabernet Sauvignon) of varying flavors. Therefore, the grapes from each is kept separate and blended together later to make one final wine.
Is there a better way to start off the morning than with a 10am glass of Illumination? I can’t think of many.
Some grapes up close.
We were also taken inside the winery and while we didn’t take any pictures of the vats or anything, we did take an obligatory picture of the barrels. Everytime I see views like this, I’m always overcome with peace. I think it’s because it’s dimly lit, quiet, and the barrels are all neatly arranged; it’s a sense of calm.
Of course, we also did a tasting. We tasted the 2005, 2006, and 2007 Quintessa wines, which were drastically different from one another. Between the different growing conditions for each year and the different final blends used in the wine, that was not surprising. g was partial to the ’05 which had a nice balance of fruit and not-fruit (highly technical terms here). The ’07 was tight still, with some bitter tannins up front, but I felt like there was a more powerful wine hiding underneath it than the ’05. The ’06 in our opinion had the lightest body of the 3, showing more fruit up front, but the flavors and mouthfeel dissipated very quickly. We bought a bottle or two of the wines we liked and are having them shipped to NJ in November. Because shipping to PA is either a no-no or extremely expensive (we did visit one winery that would do it, but it cost $100 for 3 bottles), I hope sr and ha don’t mind …
What next? Lunch. Angela, our guide at Quintessa (who was absolutely awesome) gave us a suggestion: Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen.
There’s a main street in St. Helena. Running parallel to that main street is a much smaller street. This eatery is off that much smaller street. (Do you like these directions? If you actually want to know where it is, google it like we did.) A little path led you to a small patio area with chairs, tables, a fig tree (with lights), and dogs. That’s right. Dogs. Apparently it is encouraged to bring your dog with you should you dine outdoors. Fortunately, they still took us even though we had no dogs. The food was fantastic. I had an arugula pesto gnocchi. The texture of the gnocchi was like a perfect potato gnocchi – a bit firmer than at Osteria. The arugula pesto had some of the peppery arugula taste to it, but I think I would have liked more! g had an “adult” grilled cheese with fig, tomato, and some kind of cheese we can’t pronounce. For dessert, we had the parfait which featured chocolate and coconut sorbets that were out of this world (for sorbets …). The food was great, reasonably priced, and g spotted Cindy Pawlcyn. She didn’t stop and say hi to Cindy, as it seemed like Cindy was in a serious conversation with a chef about the menu, but at least g’s chef-dar is up-to-snuff.
We next visited Clos Pegase a Michael Graves-designed winery built as a “temple to wine and art”. We took no pictures. We took no pictures because the place sucked. Actually, our Quintessa guide informed us that Clos Pegase was a bit “dated”, and she hit the nail right on the head. On top of that, the people manning the visitor’s center did not even recognize our presence when we walked through the door … which is surprising because no one else was in there. They just held conversation with each other and pretended we weren’t there. I hope that someone buys the winery, fires those people, bulldozes the winery, and starts fresh …
We went to Sterling vineyards because we heard that you can take a lift up a mountain. But then we found that they charged you up front at the bottom of the mountain for their tour and tasting. I wasn’t interested in tasting their wine as I was DD. Sorry Sterling – I’m not paying $40 or $50 up front if all I really want to do is ride the lift …
So g and I set out on a spontaneous adventure. At our rehearsal dinner, we shared with our guests a magnum of ’99 Dominus … that was the year we met! It was a delicious wine – one that held significant sentimental value … We were determined to find the winery. We googled it, stuck the address into Mustang Sally’s GPS and off we went. It turned out that it was in Yountville – the town where our hotel was! This is what we saw:
We saw the front gate … and that’s it. You see, Dominus is not open to the public. I’m 100% positive that if we had an “in”, we could have visited. Later on, we found that you can indeed arrange a tour if you’re a smooth talker or have an industry connection – but that even still they’d be reluctant to give you a full-on tasting (I guess unless you’re a really smooth talker). On our next trip, for sure, g and I will pull every string we possibly can to breach this impenetrable fortress …
Well, I’ll finish off the day at my next sitting. Sorry to leave you hanging on Day 2 – but work needs to be done!
Napa/SF Recap: Day 1
t says:
As hinted, we took a recent trip to Napa/SF. Here are the events from Day 1 of our adventure! WITH PICTURES!
We started off the day with a healthy breakfast:
There’s nothing like an airport terminal McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. g was impressed with the meltiness of the cheese. If you haven’t had one of these in a while, go and have one. It really brings you back to a better time …
We were a little disgusted to find pickles in the vending machine at the airport …
No, we didn’t try them …
The flight was ok. I sat next to a rather chatty, older woman with a pleasant Southern accent. She started off a conversation with a:
“Where are you from? Ooooo – Let me guess! … China?”
“No.”
“Okinawa?”
“No.”
“Japan?”
“N-”
“Oh, Okinawa is in Japan. I meant that other one …”
“I’m from New Jersey.”
“No, but your heritage. Where are your parents from?”
I eventually gave in and told the lady I was half-Korean. g chuckled the whole time. She thinks it’s funny when this happens. I guess there are worse conversations to be had …
The flight was long, but we finally arrived at SFO. Meet our rental car! Mustang Sally! Equipped with GPS, she was ready to show us California. Yes … we were stereotypical tourists. I asked for a red one, but the customer just before me got the last one – darn!
After g was sad that we did NOT drive through Sausalito to get to Napa (we took the more efficient, albeit, less pretty route), Sally led us to Oxbow Public Market … where a surprise awaited g (you can see it in the photo …).
This is not the surprise. This was lunch. It was from one of the indoor vendors named “C Casa Taqueria”. There are two soft tacos (one was spiced lamb with mint and goat cheese – we can’t pronounce the name of the other one) and some delicious nachos. I don’t know if we were hungry or what, but these were better than Distrito!
This was the surprise! Kara’s Cupcakes! There is a short-list of things that put g in a better mood … no matter what. They include glasses of sparkling wine, jelly doughnuts, convertibles (with the caveat of good weather), and … cupcakes. But these were more than just cupcakes. These were “the bomb”. The one on the right was a chocolate cake with blackberry filling and cream; g enjoyed it very much. The one on the left was the “fleur de sel” cupcake, featuring chocolate cake, caramel filling, dark chocolate whipped cream (almost like a ganache) and sprinkled coarse salt. I will go on the record right now and say that the fleur de sel cupcake was the single best cupcake I have ever had. Period. The cake was as soft as a cupcake’s cake could possibly be. The caramel filling was perfect. The topping was perfect. But it was the sea salt that made it unbelievable. Brown Betty is lucky that there’s no Kara’s Cupcake here. It was so good that I made sure to stop at another Kara’s Cupcake vendor in SF later on our trip. I ate four of them throughout our stay in California, each one as good as the first. I am now reminded that I should go to the gym, pronto …
Then we visited our first winery. This is what we saw:
This is Artesa winery. We were psyched to visit because the first bottle of wine we ever bought was an Artesa. As you can see, the view is beautiful from their estate. The grounds are spectacular with nice/modern/faux-infinity-pool fountains and a very modern-looking facility. But the people … suck. First off, the bar was mobbed. I guess I can’t fault Artesa for that – it must be because the wine’s really good, right? We reasoned that this was surely because they had improved a lot since that first cab we had some years ago (our recollection was that it was … not so hot). But when I wiggled in to the bar, the bartender completely ignored me. I reasoned that maybe it was because I was at the very edge of the bar without room for a proper tasting. So g and I walked around, looked at the pretentious art, relaxed on the outdoor patio, and took in the view. Gorgeous. Then we returned to the bar. This time, the bartender acknowledged we were there but was completely unwilling to do anything more than absolutely necessary. No history of Artesa. No description of the wine. Not even a “welcome to Artesa!” (although he did make sure to correct my pronunciation of Artesa – it’s Artesa, not Arteesa). I even gave him opportunities to talk to us by asking open-ended questions … but no – he wasn’t having any of it. Furthermore, only “club members” are given a splash of their higher-end wines, which I am totally fine with – but the delivery was more of a “neener neener” attitude than a “I’m sorry, I wish I could give you a splash, but I can’t” attitude. By the way, none of their offerings are at all that expensive/exclusive versus whatever else can be found in Napa, so they can keep their single-vineyard wines. Conclusion: we had come full circle to Artesa after 7 years … and now we’ll never again consider buying another bottle of their crappy attitude. Also – I’ve seen sippy-cups with thinner walls than their champagne flutes … just sayin’ …
We checked into Napa Valley Railway Inn. This place, despite the awful website, is awesome! Lots of room. Very clean bathrooms and bedding. Close proximity to everything in Yountville (i.e. Keller-ville). Free parking. The only downside was that the water temperature was a little temperamental; it kept you on your toes! Also, the railway cars are kind of “cute”. I’ve decided that when we do re-visit Napa, even if we do have more money, we’ll always return to Napa Valley Railway Inn …
For dinner, we dined at Bistro Jeanty in Yountville. It was wonderful for multiple reasons. The first was that we could walk to it. The second was how not-fussy the decor and environment were. Finally, they do rustic French food very well (and it wasn’t ridiculously priced!). The coq au vin was delicious with tender chicken and a powerful braising liquid (my braised chicken never comes out with that depth of flavor), and g had salmon dumplings and ratatouille, which were also fabulous. I think it’s either here or the cupcake where g started off her new “word of the trip”: “yummy”.
While the entrees were very good indeed, let me introduce you to the star of the meal:
What you see before you is a creme brulee … with a twist. The bottom layer is traditional creme brulee custard, which was creamy and delicious, as the inside of a creme brulee should be. This layer was topped with chocolate mousse, which was then sprinkled with sugar and bruleed. This was awesome. I mean, seriously, there is absolutely NO reason that ordinary creme brulee should ever be offered. However, because not all restaurants are reading this blog and therefore will be unaware that they should make the appropriate change to their menus, I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with never ordering another creme brulee again unless it comes with a layer of chocolate as Bistro Jeanty has done. In any case, this dinner in its entirety was a superb start to the lineup of amazing dinners that awaited us.
Something wicked this way comes …
t says: g and I have been in Napa and SF for the past week. And we have pictures …
Lacroix Made Me a Loser
t says: Center City restaurant week is here! Apparently there’s also some kind of South-of-South restaurant week going on as well. But, because we were only going to be in town for half of restaurant week (leaving for SF tomorrow – we’ll report!), we could only pick out a single restaurant to visit. What was our choice? Lacroix. We considered Le Bec, but they have their $40 deal going on, so we went for the “other” classic Philly great. Who could say no to a four-bell restaurant, right? Well, we were hesitant at first, as we know that chefs despise restaurant week, but we wouldn’t be able to afford to Lacroix otherwise, and that’s quite the point of restaurant week, isn’t it? To visit places you can’t afford! Duh! We asked a what he thought of Lacroix; he said it was worth it, as they have tremendous service and great food. Done deal. We booked a table for four for a Friday night and now we just needed to figure out who to go with … but we forgot about it for a while …
Then just last week, our friend w and her boyfriend asked us to join them at Zahav for restaurant week. I suggested that they abandon their plans and come to Lacroix instead, as it would be more of a “deal” over Zahav, as Zahav’s non-restaurant-week tasting menu is $36. I was so confident in the superiority of Lacroix that I wagered that if their food was not up-to-snuff, then I’d buy everyone their choice of frozen dessert (Yogorino or Capogiro). w’s boyfriend responded via email:
“hi [t and g],
we will begrudgingly accept your hostile takeover of our restaurant week plans and dine with you guys at lacroix. however, we would like to point out that the lacroix menu is also available daily from sunday to friday.
either way, we look forward to our classy engagement.”
I had not known of the cheap-o menu at Lacroix that was available during the week, and this almost changed my mind … But, given our last experience at Zahav, I took advantage of w’s and w’s boyfriend’s kindness (i.e. their ability to tolerate my … insistence), and planned for our first Lacroix outing.
Friday, 8:30pm, Party of 4. g and I met up with our dinner-mates at Lacroix. We didn’t quite know what to expect. Was it going to be fancy-shmancy? Big open air dining room with massive chandelier? Professionally-dressed waitstaff with super-straight postures and frequent usage of words like “monsieur” and “mademoiselle”? Not exactly …
The hostess was very nice. She greeted us and seemed friendly. She told us that we would be shown to our table in a moment, which we were. We did cause some nuisance when we first got there as we tried to coordinate seats, but that’s just because we’re anal about that kind of stuff. What became apparent as we sorted out who was sitting where was that the place was much smaller than I had envisioned. There was one main walkway separating two rows of tables. The walkway can only accommodate one person walking down it at a time. One row of tables was against windows that have fantastic views of the square, and the other row separated the main seating area from the bar. Also bizarre were the cobblestones. Well – not “cobblestones”, but there was an area that led to a fountain when you first walk in where the ground was covered in small, uneven rocks. It was like they tried to bring the outside inside. Maybe if the fountain was more impressive, I would have been impressed (yes, the repetition is intentional), but it’s not like it was a 40-foot wall of water or anything.
We were then greeted by our server. Little did we know that our server was going to be the source of much conversation throughout the evening … in a bad way. We were not ready to order drinks so we asked for more time, so he left. We discussed getting a bottle of white wine and decided that that would be appropriate. We also looked over the menu and debated what we wanted to eat. While I was mid-sentence, our waiter came over with paper and pen in hand and said, “ok, what would you like?”. He was looking at g. g was looking at him. g was confused. She asked if he wanted our drink order or our dinner order. He apparently wanted our dinner order. What – he didn’t want to ask us for our drinks anymore? Did he just assume we weren’t going to get any? So we went around the table and ordered. w’s boyfriend ordered up the wine for our table. Now what was weird is that he took our orders without affect. No obligatory “thank you” or “splendid” or anything. He didn’t have to be over-the-top, but he had to at least put in some filler words to make it seem like his top priority was great service. But no – he didn’t try to shmooze us at all. He didn’t care what we were ordering. We might as well have been ordering into a microphone at a fast-food drive-thru … well … no … the person who takes your order at the drive-thru has more enthusiasm than this guy – and I bet you they’re getting paid a LOT less! The funny thing was that it felt to me that his attitude could have stemmed from a “you’re just here for restaurant week” thought. Yea! That’s right! We were just there for restaurant week. If you can’t handle it, then don’t participate in restaurant week.
And you know what. Not only could he not master the art of “talking to people” – he also couldn’t master the art of “taking our order”. At first, I thought it was weird that he was actually writing down our order instead of memorizing it. Aren’t servers at high-class places like this supposed to memorize stuff like that? It’s not even like there’s a huge array of possibilities – there are three apps, three mains, and two desserts! But I looked on the bright side: if he writes down what we ordered then he has a 100% likelihood of getting the order right. But no. He screwed up. w’s boyfriend was not given the appropriate entree. So the three of us got our food, his had to go back, and we waited. We actually waited for a while – I’d say somewhere between 7-10 minutes. That was less than desirable, as it’s not like fish takes 7 minutes to cook (or at least, it shouldn’t) and I would bet that our order would have been bumped in priority. But you know what was worse? The waiter didn’t apologize. I could not believe it. He didn’t say a word! The expediter did apologize profusely when he came back with the food, but our waiter did not say a single word when the problem first arose – and he was standing at the table when it happened. That was shocking. He should have said something. Even if he believed that he was right and that we didn’t order correctly (which we did – he was the one to blame), he should have still apologized. The customer is not always right, but this time, we were.
Last weird thing about our server. After we gave him our credit cards, he gave us our receipts to sign as well as another table’s receipts. What was wrong with this guy? He couldn’t show emotion in any interaction that he had with us, he couldn’t master the very difficult science of writing down what we wanted to eat, and he missed the boat on trying to ensure that we would be able to pay him the correct amount. So, there’s only one thing left to do … I have no choice but to re-use my dad’s new favorite sports chant which he learned when he went to j’s college’s football game … “Hey Waiter … You SUCK!” (Yes, my dad does have a big bright red t-shirt that says “Hey” on the front and “You Suck” on the back … He’s a big guy. When “You Suck” is written in letters that big, you just might believe him …)
On to the food …
I had the heirloom tomato appetizer. The tomatoes were pretty good. They weren’t Talula’s good, as the tomatoes just didn’t have as much flavor as I was expecting (maybe under-seasoned? or maybe mediocre tomatoes?), but there were some successful unexpected components involved: toasted coconut and corn ice cream! The sweetness of the coconut and “corniness” of the ice cream were fantastic. Seriously, that corn ice cream is something I’d actually want to make at home and have it as an appetizer by itself. And all the flavors did something interesting in my mouth with the tomatoes – but I couldn’t quite describe it. If you give the tomatoes a little more tomato oomph, this would have really knocked my socks off. As it stands, it only untied my shoelaces, but it definitely could have gone all the way. Given the novelty, I was fully expecting a Talula’s-esque meal. I was excited.
For the entree I had the short rib pastrami. It was interesting. I had never had short rib pastrami-fied before. But the problem is that it really didn’t offer me a product better than other methods of preparing short rib. It was only “good”. The overall texture was a little tougher than a braised short rib and the fat was more like pork belly fat rather than braised short rib fat, which I’m not sure is an improvement – just different. On the positive side, there was a bit more flavor than just “beef”, so that was nice. The greens were a little tough to deal with, as the stems were still quite resilient and resisted cutting (but had nice flavor). And the mash was successful. But nothing on the plate, either separately or together, screamed “I am delicious”. I ate it all and was satisfied, but I wasn’t beaming.
The dessert was also “interesting” … but not necessarily in a good way. I had the “creamsicle”. There was a foam that tasted rather bitter in lieu of citrus-y. There appeared to be pieces of peach that were actually something else – kind of like a small square of a peach flavored flan with one face colored red, so it looked like a square of peach. I don’t know. I ate it, but nothing really struck me as being “fantastic”. Even g’s dessert failed to make an impression on me as I really can’t remember anything about it except “chocolate” and “raspberry”. And this was sad. Because I love dessert. w loves dessert. We were made a bit happier, however, when they presented us with chocolate truffle and “classy sour patch kids” to end the meal.
Overall impression … the food was “good”. It started better than good, ended less than good, with just “good” in the middle. Portions were a little on the small side, as w’s boyfriend reported still feeling “peckish” at the end of the meal while we walked home. As I searched for a restaurant that I would prefer to Lacroix at a restaurant week price-point, one came to mind. Meritage. Meritage could offer similar sized portions for a buck or so cheaper, involve a seemingly comparable amount of novelty, and edge out Lacroix when it comes to taste (and that’s on a normal night – not on KFC or Korean Taco night – as that’d be unfair). So, maybe my expectations were too high going in. Had I been expecting something more Meritage-esque, I might have come close to being satisfied. But you know what … that’s bullcrap. In my opinion, it was Lacroix’s mission during restaurant week to give us something so enticing that should we ever have a special event where we could spend substantially more money, we would go! Thus, I feel that this was the ultimate failure on Lacroix’s part, as I assure you that a place like Vetri could destroy Lacroix in every aspect of the dining experience – even if you fixed our soul-less waiter. I don’t know if it’s the recent chef change or maybe the flavors/cookery were so advanced that my feeble mind could not comprehend the greatness I was encountering … but Lacroix will have to do more if they want to hear g sneeze in its dining room ever again …
… and now I owe some friends some ice cream!
Pissed Off at Starr …
t says: So I was watching the finale for Top Chef DC on Hulu. I was really getting into the zone – watching all the knives chopping things, pots boiling things, chefs tasting things. It was pretty cool because now everything was on the line, and we were going to find out if Angelo, Kevin, or Ed was going to be the new Top Chef. Then … with one last commercial break before they reveal the winner … and I get an email from the Starr Empire … AND THEY SPOILED THE ENDING!! RIGHT THERE IN THE EMAIL TITLE! WHAT?!? Who DOES that!? Stephen Starr does. I can’t tell you what they were emailing about because that would ruin the surprise of who wins, but COME ON! I was almost disgusted enough to close down the browser window and just not watching the ending. SO stupid.
PS By the way – two notes:
1) I feel like last season was far more fun to watch than this one – I don’t know why …
2) Hung was pretty good on the finale even though he wasn’t competing. He has some good knife skills, too. Here’s a sampling, but trust me, he was better on the show …
Peace Out, Pearl!
t says: Just a weekend or so ago, I was passing Pearl with some friends and commented that I was glad that it closed. The ridiculous pretentiousness it possessed might have been fitting of Old City (maybe – I’m not even sure it’d work there, either), but definitely NOT across the street from bars like Noche (I have no beef with Noche – but go there and stand at the corner and glance back and forth between Noche and Pearl and you’ll see what I mean). It was almost like someone from NYC had some cash to blow and a dream of becoming a club-owning king of Philadelphia and voila – Pearl was born! (Whether or not this is true is another story – I have no clue what actually motivated someone to open Pearl). Why am I bringing this up now? Today I saw that a tequila-and-tapas place is opening in its place. That sounds better. I kind of hope they keep the ridiculous lighting, velvet ropes, and super-huge bouncers in black T’s out front – it’d be hilarious.
after dinner sneeze 