Posts Tagged ‘Philadelphia’
Pierre Calmels is such a pimp.
t says: I’d like to know what you were thinking as you read the title of this post. Maybe you don’t know of Pierre Calmels, in which case, you might suspect that I’m talking about a character onsome sort of Jersey-Shore-meets-France crossover. It’s not. Sorry. (Actually … I’m not sorry.) For those of you who know that Pierre Calmels is one-half of the dynamic duo responsible for Bibou, a perennial favorite of adsz, maybe you’ve stumbled across this post thinking that I’m going to reveal some sort of sordid indiscretion he committed. It’s not. (And shame on you for thinking that Pierre could do something like that!?) So what is this post about? Quite simply, this post is here to further illustrate Pierre’s uncanny ability to make grown men cry and women swoon … through food.
March 2012, Friday Dinner, Party of 6. g and I were dining with a, v, and a’s parents. That’s right, it was time for us to “meet the folks” (g had already met them, but I had not). And, because a and his dad are real big into wine, I was super-excited about what kinds of wines were going to show up. They didn’t disappoint (more on that later).
Now, with so many adsz posts already dedicated to Bibou, we don’t want to go into such great detail about ever dish again. Yes, the pig’s feet rendered v speechless. Yes, g got the steak again and had no regrets. The escargots were still ridiculous. a and v’s parents had the fish entrees – maybe they’ll have a word or two to say in the comments!
But let’s talk about me – after all, that’s what I do best. After tackling my first ever plate of frog’s legs with g (that’s right – g went for frog’s legs … and liked it!!), I wondered if I was going to regret going for the “special” instead of the steak or the pig’s foot, both of which are my faves. They’re just both so consistently delicious! Had I made a mistake?! … And just when I thought Bibou couldn’t possibly be more delicious …
Pierre goes and does something like this …
... and totally crushes it.
What you see in the above pic is a duo of pork. I eschewed the pig’s foot and the beef in favor of this “special” which included [essentially] a T-bone of pork and a slab of pork belly. Yes, there were greens and a root puree. But I need to draw focus to the pork belly. Now, my favorite pork belly has long been Lee Styer’s at Fond. This one is nothing like Lee’s. There’s no dense crust. The portion is fairly petite. But the flavor! O! M! G! (Don’t you love it when I do that?) The flavor! The rich fat disintegrates in your mouth instantaneously, letting out a deeply piggy flavor framed in such a wonderful sweetness, but not in a cloying way. And it just keeps going. I was brought to silence, and, had I had enough wine, perhaps a single tear could have escaped from my eye. It was so beautiful. It was like seeing a baby being born (except that I don’t proceed to eat the baby). And in that instant, Pierre stole the crown from Lee. It. Was. Epic.
The best part was that when I told the server about how delicious the belly was, he said, “that’s great! you should also go to Fond and try theirs”. I told him that I did and that Pierre’s was superior. He was impressed. And then Pierre himself came around. He did his usual super-humble-Pierre routine, where he thanks you, tilts his head, and flashes his bashful smile, as if he just “doesn’t know how it happened”. He said something like, “the secret’s in the pig … we get it from <insert source here – I couldn’t hear him>” Sorry Pierre. That’s bull$h!t. And you know it. Unless you have some sort of genetically engineered pig that eats chocolate and craps cinnamon buns, I can only conclude one of the three possible explanations:
1) You are in possession of some kind of magic wand and aren’t afraid to use it.
2) You are straight-up lacing your food with some kind of French cocaine
3) You are a brilliant chef.
Regardless, it’s more than just the pig. And so, for refusing to rest on your laurels and continuing to produce entrees that repeatedly blow us away, we salute you.
(And yes, we salute Charlotte and the rest of the Bibou staff as well … they are top-notch, too!)
a says: Pork belly was AAAAAAAamazing. The pig’s foot and steak was great, as always. Fish dishes were good but didn’t have enough to remember major themes.
nom nom accomplished …
t says: What a glorious Friday! And look! This post is going up on the same glorious Friday! That’s right – I’m going to post about a meal on the actual day I ate it! (I tend to collect our posts and evenly distribute them.)
So … while walking back from swimming (i.e. attempting to recapture my former glory days), my mind raced with possible lunches that I could now eat because I had net negative calories for the day. What would I spend them on? More Rotisseur? Nah – I go there often enough. Tsuki Sushi? They do a decent job, but I’ve already eaten raw fish once this week (I like to limit it to once a week to keep my mercury levels down). I needed something new. Something sexy. Something that would fill me up, not cost a lot of ca$h, and give my mouth a festival of flavors. Not one place came to mind. I hate it when that happens. Actually, I lied – one place did come to mind (burger.org), but I knew I just couldn’t go there with dz, so that was tabled for another day. I survived the treacherous journey home, opened up my laptop, and began my daily ritual of perusing foobooz, eater, and uwun, looking for inspiration. And there it was. Nom Nom Ramen was open for lunch. I hadn’t had decent ramen since my November 2011 adventure to Ippudo in NYC (the glory of the blog: allowing me to remember stuff). I showered off the chlorine stench (or at least I tried – it never really goes away), threw on the trusty uniform (black tee and denim), and hurried to make it before any lines could form …
gee, I think I made it in time ...
The place was clean and empty, minus the two guys you see in the photo above. I guess no one is really craving ramen at 11:30am? More for me! The decor is minimal, with the exception of the kinda hokey upside-down parasols and obligatory Asian paper balls. I kind of wish they weren’t there, but what do I know about creating “atmosphere”?
I ordered up the shoyu ramen in the regular size but added a poached egg and an extra helping of pork belly. Basically – if I was going to blow some calories, I figured I should go big or go home.
After a few minutes of me people-watching out the window, the bowl arrived:
nom nom shoyu ramen + egg + more pork belly
I was pumped. Unable to decide if I wanted to sample the broth or a noodle first, I ultimately went for noodle. Thicker than what I was expecting (it was like a thick spaghetti), it was perfectly al dente and had a bit of that alkaline musk on the back end. Personally, I’d prefer even more of that flavor in my noodle, but can see where others would prefer less (kind of like how yogurt-zingy do you like your Greek yogurt? I like it more like in Fage, and some like it light like in Chobani). So the noodles were pretty good in terms of taste and texture. Unfortunately, that’s where “pretty good” was replaced with mountains and mountains of “meh”. The broth, which I feel is a super-critical component of ramen, as it’s the background for every bite you’re going to encounter, was kind of wussy. It was thinner than Ippudo’s, and, similar to what Mr. Etchells had to say, it was a little lacking in oomph. Sure, there was salt, so I was quite happy with that, but it was missing the heart, the soul, the rustic meat flavor that Ippudo delivered. And, unlike Mr Etchells’s experience, it never quite went anywhere or did anything, no matter how long I waited. Darn. Instead, I found that the more Nom Nom I ate, the more I wished I was at Ippudo (and from what I hear, Ippudo is nowhere near the best ramen in NYC). The pork belly was very chewy and refused to be rent asunder no matter how much I tug-of-warred it between my chopsticks and my teeth. The other ingredients didn’t really have that “freshness” that I’d normally expect them to bring to the party. And finally, there’s the egg … the “poached egg” … which apparently means “soft-boiled egg”. I guess in the end, both preparations would accomplish similar tasks, but I have to admit that it was weird to be promised one but delivered another. That’s ok – maybe it was just an oversight on the menu.
As you can probably tell, I was a little let down. But I think it was my fault. My initial hopes were likely too high. Damn you Ippudo! Of course, it was half the price of NYC ramen, so maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on it. And after all, it’s not like it was in the least bit “bad” – I finished every noodle and add-on:
all gone ... and I like the reflection of the naruto fish cake from the sign outside
BUT, I think that this photo depicts my point: the broth just didn’t provide me with a compelling enough reason to finish it off. Bummer. I hope someone in this city makes some actually blow-your-socks-off-good ramenbefore the craze dies down, because I’d be sad if this was supposed to be a shining example of the best ramen the city has to offer. Actually – you know what – get Pierre Calmels of Bibou in there to make some ramen. Sure, he’d be completely out of his element in the beginning, but I’d bet a dollar that the end result, which would be in no way traditional (“?rustic French ramen?”), would be so profoundly flavorful that not a single person would care. Where the crap did that random-ass thought come from, you ask? Well, let’s just say that more on Pierre (and Charlotte) is coming soon …
pie for supper at Supper’s pi day!
t says: I just got back from dinner at Supper. It was pi day!! Get it? “Pi” day, as in 3.14, as in 3/14, as in March 14. Pretty cool, right? Yea it is.
So Supper brought out some awesome pies, savory and sweet:
Ritz-and-crab pie
Veal tongue pie
Rabbit pot pie
Pork pie
PB pie
Mississippi mud pie
Pecan pie
Apple pie
Now, it should be noted that these weren’t just “pies”. Supper actually had far fancier names for these, so it’s probably not fair for me to call them all “pies”. But whatever …
Another awesome little coinkidink was that pi day happened to fall on a Wednesday … which means that it’s BYO night at supper!! So not only was there a two-pies-for-$20 deal, but we could bring our own wine! Boo-yah! I immediately signed up the usual crew to go and notified them via email. There was some attrition, so only a, v, and I were able to go. That’s cool – more wine for us!
We didn’t take any pictures and we didn’t get all super-critical, but had a blast. I went with the veal tongue pie which was prepared more like a chili poured on top of a layer of frito’s. It was quite tasty – like the best meat-based tortilla chip dip ever! The one drawback was that cilantro was still served with the stems on – I hate that.
a’s rabbit pot pie was homey and delicious. v’s crab pie was more like a crab cake, but at least a very well done one.
And all of the dessert pies we sampled were quite delicious: the peanut butter one was a densely whipped PB cream with a peanut crust, the Mississippi mud pie was like a moist brownie with a pie crust, and the pecan pie was exactly that – a well-done pecan pie.
In all, aside from the cilantro stems, we really had no complaints with Supper’s pies. For $20 a head, we were full, and our mouths were happy. It was quite a deal! The server was a little weird/awkward, but maybe it’s because customers aren’t spending much moo-lah on pi day. Whatever. He warmed up some by the end of the meal. By the way, can you imagine what’ll happen on 3/14/15? That’s gonna be SUPER-[nerdily-]awesome
OH … and the wine!
I brought two bottles of pinot noir not from what I feel are traditional pinot noir countries: Italy and Argentina. a picked out the Argentinian one. I was excited because the reviewers had nice things to say about it:
“Dark ruby red in color, it reveals a charming bouquet of smoke, spice box, raspberry, and cherry. Silky, sweet and savory on the palate, this elegant, concentrated effort displays impeccable balance and length. It is an excellent value in quality Pinot Noir.” -WA 91 pts
“Quite good and honest, with full raspberry, cherry and tea aromas along with a hint of grassiness. The palate is dark and full-bodied, with toasty cherry and herbal tea flavors. Finishes long, full and several steps ahead of most of the competition. Drink now.” -WE 88 pts
So we poured the wine into Supper’s nice a big glasses, gave it some swirl-action, and then got to it …
2008 Alma Negra Pinot Noir (Mendoza, Argentina, $21.98 at wineworksonline.com). The nose was interesting in the beginning – smelling a lot like earth and chocolate and tart red berries. As it opened up, the nose developed into more like a cranberry apple pie. On the palate, it had some tart cranberries and sour cherry and this hint of something … different. In retrospect, I honestly think that it was indeed that “herbal tea” flavor – you know – it’s what you get when you order tea, but instead someone gives you a cup of some sort of fake Rooibos crap. It wasn’t something I was ready for and it caught me offguard. Overall, it tasted kind of weird but it wasn’t like a restrained, elegantly balanced French pinot, and it wasn’t fresh-and-fruity like new world pinots. It just didn’t quite taste like a pinot. v called it a “heavy beaujolais”. Quite right! And, while it improved with food for sure, ultimately, I don’t think I’ll be venturing any more Argentinian pinots in the near future. Darn.
I wonder what the Italian one will taste like?
another reason to hate the PLCB
t says: There are many reasons why people dislike or even detest the PLCB. Today, I will share my latest grievance with them. Having been on the email list for The Wine School, I received their March newsletter containing reviews of some bottles that can be found in PA Wine and Spirits Shoppes. One particular wine stood out (I hope they don’t mind that I reproduce it here):
2009 Falesco Tellus (Umbria, Italy, $13.99 at PLCB). per The Wine School: “Luxurious, like a velvet cushion of dark sweet fruit. The only fault is its perfection –round, sexy, slick perfection– which takes away some of the pleasure of drinking a Umbrian wine.”
And trust me – these guys at The Wine School have no incentive to promote PA wine sales – they just really like wine! Furthermore, the Wine Advocate had a glowing review as well (check the PLCB link above). So I logged onto the PLCB website, searched for the bottle, and found that a some-what local store in center city. So I walked on down to 12th and Chestnut, skipping along, ever-so-excited by my impending purchase. I mean, come on: “round, sexy, slick perfection” – who could resist?.
I arrived and couldn’t find the bottle on my own. No big deal – they only had 2 bottles left, so it was going to be hard. I approached a person stocking shelves and asked them for help. They had no idea what I was talking about, which was to be expected, so they looked it up on the slower-than-molasses computer. “We’re supposed to have 2 of these.” I was not surprised. “You couldn’t find ’em?” No – of course I found ’em – I was just testing him because I have nothing better to do on a Wednesday. Duh! But I was nice and politely responded, “nah – I’ll check the Italian section again.” He then went back into the storeroom to “ask the wine guy”. A few minutes passed. He came out and said, “we don’t got ’em”. None? “Nope.” And then he walked away. The mysterious “wine guy” didn’t come out and say anything. No “oops”. No “let me help you find something else”. Nothing.
Thanks PLCB. I love you, too.
NOT.
PS I just went to the PLCB on 5th street and they had 7 or so bottles – from which I selected two. I hope they’re not compromised! (The corks seem to be riding a little high.) If so, it’d be anotherreason I’d hate the PLCB …
vetri. wow.
t says: g and I went to Vetri this past Friday. Holy. Crap.
This was our second time going to Vetri, but the first time with their required fixed price tasting menu. I’ll lead off and say that sure, the price is steep ($135pp), but the food is absolutely phenomenal.
So when you first get there, they show you a menu of dishes that they are preparing for the evening, and you tell them things that you really would like to see or really really would not like to see. Check out the copy they let you take home:
the menu from far away
top half close-up
bottom half close-up
As you can see, there is a major problem with the menu. Well – maybe two problems with the menu … Problem number 1 is that of the things we recongized, there are so many that we want to try! The second problem is that there were also so many things where we had no basis on which to judge whether or not we would like them (i.e. ingredients we didn’t recognize) … So we made it as simple as possible when talking to the server and put our fate in chef’s hands: no brain for me, and no brain and no organ meats for g. Done deal.
There were a total of 6 courses for the each of us: 2 appetizers, 2 pastas, 1 meat, and 1 dessert. Every course was different for g and me except for the meat (we both had beef). There was also some freebie courses, like cured meats and veggies in the beginning and a cookie platter towards the end.
There were also wine-pairing options ranging from $90 to $135 for the “Grand” tasting. The problem is that that is a lot of EtOH for two little people like g and me. I wish they would offer mini-sized pairings, because I was looking around at others who ordered the tasting, and I swear they were getting 3/4 a glass with each course!! g and I would have been hammered by the third course had we done the wine pairing. Additionally, the pairing is a bit too spendy for us – affording the meal was a stretch by itself. In the end, we each ordered a glass of white and a glass of red to be served throughout the meal (and we get a complimentary glass of prosecco to start as we perused the menu).
We didn’t take pictures of every course because we wanted to dine unfettered. I did sneak a pic of the dining room, though:
the perfect mix of upscale and intimate/cozy
Rather than give you a blow-by-blow (which would be pointless because I assure you that everything is delicious), let’s talk about the highlights …
The dish that sounded and looked plain … but was awesome [and not on the menu]:
Persimmon and pecorino salad. Yea, it was just sliced cheese and persimmon with some olive oil and [I think] black pepper. But there’s gotta be something else because it was delicious! g and I are going to try it at home. It sounds and looks easy, but we’ll just have to see about that … Maybe it was the olive oil? We might have to sweet-talk v out of a drop or two of her fancy olive oil
t’s best dish: Pappardelle and braised heart. So good. Perfectly tender pasta, just enough sauce, and wonderfully textured bits of meat. The menu says duck, but I swear the server said “venison”. I guess I’ll have to go with the menu because it’d be weird for Vetri to have a last-minute change of heart, right? (buzinga!) And to be honest – I don’t think I could distinguish one heart from another. The more I thought about it, I think that the pappardelle-heart dish was kind of like something you might be able to get from Melograno on their absolute best day. But the difference, however, is that Vetri then backs this up their ethereal spinach gnocchi, and [apparently] famous almond tortellini. I don’t know how pasta can be this good with every pasta dish that comes out of the kitchen.
g’s history lesson: Testarolo with pistachio pesto. This was the oldest form of Italian pasta which is kind of like a crepe made in a cast iron pan then cut into strips. g enjoyed it! (I liked it, too – but not as much as the above three).
the biggest surprise of the evening: So yes, the appetizers were delicious, the pastas were delicious, the steak entree was incredible … but that’s to be expected – this is Vetri after all … But lo and behold, they unleashed dessert. First, there was my dessert: “pistachio flan”. They lied. This was no “flan”. This was like a molten lava cake … of pistachio. Holy. Shnitzel. And the cake was swirled with some chocolate and served with white chocolate gelato. Wwhhyy haven’t I seen this before? It was easily the best dessert I’ve ever had. It houses all of the following: any Zahav dessert, any Talula’s Garden dessert (even the dark chocolate cremeaux with bacon, graham, and marshmallow), and even my precious Godiva molten lava cake of the 90’s at Morton’s. I repeat: Holy. Shnitzel. And then the cheese plate: g was in heaven. Just when we thought that no one could hold a candle to Talula Garden’s cheeses – yikes – Vetri was on fire. We even sought out the pecorino truffle cheese from the plate at DiBruno’s the next day because it was so good (but you know what – it was better at Vetri – maybe they had just the right accompaniments?).
I know we’re light on the details here, but I think the takehome is that Vetri does fine dining like very little can (and surely better than anyone in Philly – although we haven’t tried the Fountain or that restaurant in the Union League). It has this odd mix of being fancy, but not stuffy. There’s this mix of novelty with the familiarity of something so comfortable as “pasta”.
I think the big question is: Vetri vs. Talula’s Table … who would win? I. Don’t. Know. The two experiences are very different, so perhaps that’s not a fair comparison. Different atmosphere. Different feels of their services. One is BYO, the other isn’t. But what if it came down to just the food? Well – to be honest – I still don’t know because g and I haven’t gone back since the chef change. I guess we’ll just have to sneak our way into the kitchen table and try it out!
n.b. There was one disappointment with Vetri. It was the “icebox cookies” they sent us home with: they were pretty boring. I mean, I guess they couldn’t send me home with more pistachio flan, but I’m sure they’ve got to have some other Italian cookies to send us home with … (g likes pignoli cookies … just saying … in case you’re reading, Marc … ).
a & v supper at supper
v says: At one point a and I wanted to have a section of afterdinnersneeze entitled “a to z + v”. [t clarifies: They wanted to see if they’ve gone to a Philly restaurant for every letter in the alphabet.] We worked on it for quite some time, but never got around to completing it. We were missing two letters when we starting writing the list, S and Q (which we eventually decided could be Cuba Libre because of its pronuncation). One day we ran by Supper and I yelled, “That’s our S”. a was confused by my enthusiasm, as he had no idea what I was talking about until I explained. He immediately shared in my enthusiasm and made reservations for a Sunday night.
It wasn’t the 1000 point table or that Supper is BYO on Sundays that made this meal special, it was the food. I always says that you can judge a restaurant by its vegetarian dishes. If I’m right, then Supper is the best restaurant in Philadelphia. I ordered the Daily Harvest, but substituted the pretzels for the first course. The pretzels were fresh and the mustard potent. While the combination was tasty, the ratio was off – too much mustard, too few pretzels. The Blue Elephant Farm Salad was one of the tastiest, albeit healthiest salads I have ever had at a restaurant. The vegetable quartet was comprised of four unique, palate challenging dishes. I ended my meal with the banana bread pudding, which rivals the bread pudding at Barbuzzo; ‘nuff said.
a says: I think this is one of the best meals he’s had in the city. the squid appetizer was inventive and full of flavor, yet light. The duck and waffle is interesting entree and does many things well. Best duck in the city… It’s definitely on the short-list. v says it was the best duck she’s had since Django… that’s right… she said Django…
after dinner sneeze 