Posts Tagged ‘Philadelphia’
Korean hoagie face-off
t says: There was a week in time where I found it convenient to eat at a lot of Philly food trucks. Perhaps I am not as well-trucked as a, but I nevertheless found some pretty interesting handheld foods that are worth mentioning.
As I was walking by Koja’s truck (it’s got some pretty bright colors), I was distracted by their advertisement of a “America’s Top 10 New Sandwich”. Check it:
KoJa promoting its bulgogi sandwich
I couldn’t let the opportunity pass, so I ordered one and consumed it as I walked:
Koja bugogi steak sandwich = steak + onions + peppers + cheese + bread
This sandwich was interesting because it’s kind of like they made an ordinary cheesesteak except that you replace the standard meat with sweet, succulent bulgogi meat. Sounds like a good idea, right? I must say that the bread was wonderful on this sandwich – super soft. The meat was surprisingly tender (bulgogi is commonly overcooked). What was interesting, though, is that there was still cheese on the sandwich; the Korean flavor + cheese combination took some getting used to. In the end, I feel that it was a solid sandwich, and a great deal! (Something like $5, or maybe less than that?) I’d give it another go if I needed to.
The next thing I needed to do was to find another Korean-inspired hoagie. I knew just where to go: Tyson Bees. But there was one problem. Actually, there were two. The first was that they discontinued the steamed pork buns – a favorite of mine, even if the quality of the product had gone down substantially since the truck changed owners (it was never as flavorful as it used to be, but still pretty good for $3). They did, however, have a Korean bulgogi burrito. I’ve had it before, but this time I asked them to put the filling onto a hoagie roll. They did, no problem:
Tyson Bee's bulgogi burrito on a hoagie roll = steak + rice + special sauce + kimchi + other stuff + cilantro
As you can see, this is definitely not like KoJa’s. While KoJa’s paid homage to the classic cheesesteak, this is very different. There’s meat and some kind of “special sauce”, kimchi, and a mix of veggies and herbs. Unfortunately, Tyson Bee’s meat was fairly tough – it didn’t have the give that KoJa’s had. Bummer. The bread was also not as soft on the inside or as crackly on the outside. However, the redeeming qualities were the kimchi and cilantro which added a nice zing to the sandwich. The rice was superfluous, but of course, this was meant to be a burrito, so I can’t ding them for that. I can ding them for expense, though, as I think it costs more – something like $7-$8.
Conclusion: When push comes to shove, I’m actually going to give KoJa the nod for the bulgogi burrito – I just couldn’t wrap my head around Tyson Bee’s inferior beef. That said, maybe I should suggest that KoJa should just toss some kimchi in their sandwiches – maybe at the last second. Or maybe allow patrons to choose kimchi vs. cheese? I mean, they’ve got to have kimchi because they’re a Korean food truck, right?
supper’s brunch disappoints [despite a big dog]
t says: adsz likes Supper’s brunch, having recommended it in the past as a great place to go for Saturday brunch, as our perennial brunch favorite (i.e. Cochon) is closed on Saturdays. Having a hankering for some red velvet waffles, we went again. Here’s how it went down.
November 2011, Sunday Brunch, Party of 2. g and I strolled in and confirmed our opentable reservation (another 100 pts! yes!). We were seated within 60 seconds and had our heads in menus in another 5. Exxxxxcellent. The menu had some new sweet breakfast items that I had to choose between: Pumpkin Pie French Toast and Gingerbread Pancakes. Feeling in the mood for some pumpkin pie in breakfast form, I opted for the French Toast:
pumpkin pie french toast = pie crust + spiced sour cream + chunks-o-pumpkin
The dish came out and I was ecstatic. It looks awesome, right? Sure did! Unfortunately, something about it just didn’t deliver. The spiced cream was very subtle – mostly because my brain kept wanting it to taste like pumpkin, but it didn’t (that’s probably my brain’s fault). The pumpkin, itself, didn’t really have much oomph to it, either, adding more of a textural element than any real “pumpkin”. And the pie crust was just that: pie crust. Actually, the crust crumbles were a little on the anemic side – more like the pie crust on the bottom of a piece of Pumpkin pie and not that fluted edges that get brown and tasty. So basically, I was left with the French toast as the main harbinger of flavor (with maple syrup, of course). Normally, that’d be ok, as I’m a sucker for egg-dipped bread. In this situation, however, the bread, while browned to perfection, suffered from the same fate that Distrito’s French toast had in the past: too heavy/oily/fatty. It’s the kind of thing that you bite into and immediately react, “whoa, that’s rich” … which is surprising because it’s not a piece of PORK BELLY or chocolate cake – it’s French toast! It’s most certainly a side effect of the cooking process and likely intentional – some will love it and some will hate it. After the first bite, I kind of hated it. To illustrate just how overwhelming this sensation was, I only finished one of the slabs, and the other one I opted to not take home (and I normally take everything home). Yea, that’s some serious aversion. So in the end, what I had was some exceedingly unctuous French toast but not a a single thing to take the edge off of the richness (n.b. the toast, itself, didn’t really bring much to the table – it was more like a vehicle for fried-ness). Damn.
g went for the chilaquiles navidad, fondly remembering the chilaquiles from San Francisco’s Ferry Building Market. Supper’s rendition was a bit more, shall we say, “refined”.
chilaquiles navidad = eggs + tortilla + red salsa + green salsa + chorizo
I want to say first and foremost that these were not bad, as g did get around to eating the entirety of her plate. That said, these did not quite live up to her memories and were certainly not worth the $14. The problem list is long. The chorizo was cold (i.e. cooler than room temperature), which is a big error. Neither of the salsas were as cooked down or as deep as she was expecting – but they weren’t fresh and zingy, either. g takes the mic: It’s like they put together some Mexican ingredients, but it didn’t really have that punchy flavor that they had in San Francisco. t yanks the cord to steal the mic back: My question – why serve the cilantro with stems? I mean, maybe I’m just a sissy, but I don’t like trying to chew stems. That’s the second time they’ve done this, so maybe it’s their style: no sissies allowed.
g and I also shared that Supper Dog. We loved their Supper Burger, so we figured the Supper Dog would be a smashing success as well.
supper dog = PORK SHOULDER dog + BACON + bbq onions + sauerkraut + bun + fried pickles
I have to confess that this dish looks a little ridiculous. It’s clear that it’s composition is for wow-factor moreso than practicality. Seeing no way that I’d be able to distribute the bread to the unclad parts of dog, I was forced to attack this thing with a fork and knife. As far as taste goes, g was particularly surprised with how “hot doggy” the hot dog tasted, and I guess I was as well. It’s like you’d imagine it would taste like straight-up PORK, but there’s no mistaking that the inspiration was indeed “hot dog”. sr would have been proud. But that’s where the similarities end, because no hot dog tastes this good (it had a meatier, sweeter taste to it). Couple the dog with those bbq onions and I was in heaven. The sauerkraut and BACON, on the other hand, were a bit superfluous, as I would have easily traded in either/both for more of those onions for my dog. I’m normally not one to turn down BACON, but, as usual when bacon wraps things, the side touching the bacon (i.e. not exposed to heat) wasn’t texturally pleasing, coming across very chewy/slimy/unappetizing. The sour and delicately fried pickles were a great way to reset the palate, while the aioli really didn’t do anything for me, so I skipped it. The bread, let’s face it, was unnecessarily fussy; give me a softer bun that actually promotes the use of my hands instead of a fork and knife and I would have written a title of, “Supper’s Super Dog Saves Brunch!”. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that the dish was a little “too much”; “over-accessorized” is what g would say – but there’s something here for sure.
In conclusion, I’m a little disappointed in this brunch, overall. Actually, maybe I’m more than a “little disappointed” – I am going to have to remove Supper as our Saturday choice for brunch. Sorry guys. On one hand, I feel bad about it because the proprietors seem like such nice, hard-working people. Then again, I’ve also heard that they claim to have “started” the farm-to-table concept in Philly. While I’m not Philly-food-historian, I think that may be a bit untrue. While I don’t know exactly who “started it”, I’m pretty sure that White Dog Cafe has at least been doing it longer, having had its roots from even before Fork opened its doors. Be that as it may, we’ll be back around to Supper eventually to give its brunch another go. In the meantime, stay tuned for the brunch spot that will take Supper’s spot on our “gold standards” list.
Indian Royal Rumble: Ekta vs. Tiffin
t says: A long time ago, kp told us of an awesome Indian delivery place called Tiffin. g and I were fans of Indian food from our Hopkins days, so we couldn’t resist the idea of it being delivered to our door – especially if the delivery guy was wearing formal attire (white button-down shirt, dark dress pants, tie – VERY classy!). Well, times have changed. First off, Tiffin no longer has the prim-and-proper delivery dudes. Second, there’s Ekta, a second Indian delivery place which is clearly Tiffin’s rival. There’s actually quite a bit of history between the two – a “spat” as it’s called. Very dramatic, I assure you.
g and I had compared the two in the past, but neglected to write down the results. Our gist was: “yea, Ekta’s a buck or two cheaper, and it’s Butter Chicken was unstoppable.”. However, due to errors in tip calculation, I got into a “spat” of my own with an Ekta delivery guy (to be fair, both of us were to blame: I couldn’t calculate, he was a jackass, I was spiteful). The result: g and I banned ourselves from Ekta to avoid the addition of saliva to our food.
Flash-forward a year or so. a and v wanted to revisit the Ekta and Tiffin throwdown. They were veteran Tiffinites. We suggested that Ekta might be able to deliver food of greater deliciousness. They were intrigued. Obviously, the only logical next step is to get some foods from each and see who came out on top, right?
November 2011, Fri Night Delivery, Party of 4. The evening started with a wine-tasting at Ristorante Panorama. They were doing a Portugal-themed evening, with a producer from that area providing 2 whites, 2 reds, and 3 ports. It was quite an experience, as the wine was very good – especially when considering that you were permitted as much as you liked of any of the wines for a 2-hour span (6-8pm) for $25. I thought of it as a happy hour that I actually wanted to be at! Yea, the free food was kinda bad (the cheese insipid, the bruschetta soggy … but the calamari wasn’t bad!), but we’re confident that the real food (i.e. not free) served at the restaurant had to be better. After all – they put a lot of focus into their wine (they have the Guiness-Book-certified world’s largest number of wines on tap: 120), so they have to at least deliver “ok” food, right? I hope so.
But I digress – back to the Indian food. We returned to a and v’s apartment at 8:30 and placed our orders. g and I chose Ekta dishes. a and v chose Tiffin dishes.
Ekta: Butter Chicken, Masaladar Chola (“the chickpea dish”), Saag Paneer, Peshwari Naan, Samosas
Tiffin: Lamb Rogan Josh, Saag Paneer, Samosas, Plain Naan
Tiffin arrived first, taking approximately 40 minutes. I was VERY impressed, as Indian takes at least 1 hour (on a good day) to arrive at our humble abode near Rittenhouse – I guess Old City’s just closer! Ekta, on the other hand, went MIA. So we feasted on Tiffin as we waited. An hour-twenty passed. At this point, we were hungry – and perhaps a little impatient (I think the wine consumed was disinhibiting our behavior a bit). So we called near 10pm and were informed, “all the orders are out on delivery”. Cool. At 10pm, we brought in our “fixer”: v. She was able to ascertain that the driver had failed a delivery attempt – apparently “no one was home”. That was false – we were home. AND, the delivery guy didn’t call us! We were told he’d attempt to re-deliver. v somehow got the Ekta delivery guy’s cell phone number. That was weird that Ekta just gave out the number. She then proceeded to call the delivery guy to ensure proper delivery of food (see? she fixes things!). And voila – we had the food in the apartment in about 10 minutes time (turns out the delivery guy rang the non-functional doorbell, but didn’t bother calling us to see if anyone was home).
Ok – here’s the scoresheet:
Here's the summary sheet - complete with butter chicken stains.
Of course, the problem with the sheet is that it’s a little incoherent. I believe that the problem is that we got distracted a lot by what was said (we’re all soooo funny) to really do a full-on dish-by-dish evaluation. Allow me to summarize here:
Delivery speed: Ekta loses, obviously.
Delivery guy tact/competence: When we told the Tiffin delivery guy that it was a competition and that he delivered first, he asked, “so does that mean I get a good tip?” While we’re sure he was just being playful, it could be construed as kind of tactless. Meanwhile the Ekta guy was very humble/apologetic, which we appreciated – but does that make up for not even attempting to call us. We’ll leave it a draw or give Tiffin the edge (I favor competence over tact).
Saag Paneer Faceoff: At one point, a decided that “green poo” was a good descriptor of Saag Paneer. Kinda gross. But true. In the end, Ekta had the superior poo – it had more oomph than Tiffin’s. Personally, I preferred Tiffin’s texture, but it really did lack spice and spinach that Ekta brought.
Samosa Faceoff: Ekta’s was superior for having a nicer consistency filling, a crispier crust (that’s right – it was crispier and who knows how long it stayed in that styrofoam container for while the guy was delivering it?). Also, “the green stuff” (i.e. there’s some kind of sauce they put in a tiny round container that’s green – mint chutney?) from Ekta beat out Tiffin’s due to its thicker consistency and bolder flavor.
Dish of the night: Ekta’s Butter Chicken. Seriously. If you order nothing else from Ekta, you have to order the Butter Chicken.
Honorable mention: Masaladar Chola. g commented: “They taste have bacon in them – not just veg.” And it’s true. These are some kickin’ chickpeas. I think dz would like them a lot. They are spicy, though.
Food Winner: Ekta (just so long as you can wait for it). Damn – tough night to be Tiffin. Tiffin had a distinct advantage going into the challenge, as we were hungrier when they arrived. Despite that, Ekta really brought some thunder … albeit nearly an hour later.
As you can see, there were also a few desserts for the evening. I made a cranberry upside-down cake (with chocolate chips!) as well as a twist on Paula Deen’s pumpkin-gingerbread-trifle (I replaced the pumpkin with chocolate – duh!). At one point, when contemplating the categories that should be used to compare the two, after “Taste”, I decided “Chocolate” was a pertinent category. g felt that was silly: “That doesn’t make sense. You made them both – so you know if there’s chocolate in it – how is that a category?” My response: “It’s simple – does it have chocolate or not? They both have it. That means they both win!” a deemed this to be the new “funniest thing I’ve ever said”. I’m not sure if that means that it was particularly funny or if the implication is that may baseline funniness is low. Oh well. a felt the choco-gingerbread-concoction was superior to the cake. I disagreed. We’ll call it a draw.
Han’s Dynasty Continues
t says: Han Dynasty is one of our favorite places to eat, especially because it’s far more forgiving on the wallet than the restaurants we typically visit. On one hand, it’s just Chinese food … but on the other, it’s no ordinary General Tso’s chicken. At the suggestion of smn, I threw together a Sunday night dinner with some peeps. In the end, it turned out that all of the attendees were adsz cast members: smn, dz, k, cm, n, g and me. a and v also dropped by a little later on (they picked up some food for takeout) – so it was quite an adsz extravaganza!
November 2011, Sunday Dinner, Party of 7. After taking our seats (no waiting! yay!), we were faced with our first decision of the evening: EtOH or no? In the good ‘ol days, this would be a stupid question, as Han Dynasty was BYO. But long gone is the era of carefree wine consumption as Han has started enforcing a $10 wine corkage fee ($1 per beer, $2 per large format beer). Boooo! Although $10 is incredibly reasonable, I guess the thought of a few extra dollars dissuaded us. Fortunately, cm, k, g, and I had a glass of wine before dinner, so we were content, and I think that the majority were anticipating a spicy meal which would be dangerous if wine was the primary liquid used to attempt to cleanse the palate. n gets a special shout-out for thinking of bringing a bottle of white to share – but she got to take it home to save for next time!
The next big challenge was figuring out what to eat. We initially contemplated the $20 “tasting” that we had done in the past. Basically, you pay a certain amount per head, and food just keeps coming out of the kitchen until you cry uncle. It’s a superb deal. That said, we had a vegetarian and a pescapoultritarian at the table, and the last time we did the tasting, very few veggie-friendly dishes came out despite our request. cm then decided to put himself in my hands, trusting that as the token Asian person at the table (or at least – “the Asian closest to China”), I’d be able to pick out the “good dishes”. That was a lot of pressure – so I called in a consult – our actually-Chinese friend who has had many-a-Han dinners in the past. Armed with his recommendations, I placed our order and let the food fly.
Beginners: Dan Dan Noodles, Cold Sesame Noodles, Spicy Crispy Cucumber, Dumplings in Chili Oil
Meats: Black Bean Sauce Fish, Double Cooked Chicken, Cumin Lamb, Tofu in Garlic Sauce (no, not really a “meat” – but close!)
Veggies: Eggplant in Garlic Sauce, Bok Choy and Mushrooms
Here are the highs and the lows:
Victory!: Dan Dan Noodles (of PW fame), Cold Sesame Noodles (smn said they were “the best sesame noodles she’s ever had”), the Eggplant in Garlic Sauce (k, who doesn’t even like eggplant that much still liked these!), and the Black Bean Style Fish (my pick for the best protein of the evening!). Special recognition should be given to the Spicy Crispy Cucumber appetizer – it tasted exactly like spicy, crispy, cucumbers (surprised?). k, who normally doesn’t do spice, found that she “couldn’t help herself with the spicy cucumbers – they were too spicy for her, but so good she wanted to eat more and more”.
Defeat!: Cumin Lamb (WAY too many chiles, and the lamb was sparse and overcooked and really tasted like nothing more than cumin).
Alrightie-then. So there was a lot of delicious food and really only one regret. And even though now there’s a corkage fee, I think we’re still happy to have Han Dynasty be the adsz pick for best cheap eats; our dinner was $20pp INCLUDING tax and tip! And if you want some wine, just bring in some magnums or something (it’s just one bottle, right?) – problem solved!
Commonwealth Proper on RueLaLa
t says: I’m a big fan of Commonwealth Proper for my sartorial needs (follow-up photos pending)! They’re running a deal on RueLaLa in the Philadelphia section: 2 custom shirts for $150. That’s a darn good deal. Check it out!
Insomnia Cookies might keep me up at night.
t says: The other day I was feeling blue. There’s only one thing to do when you’re feeling blue … eat chocolate! I happened to spot an Insomnia Cookie Truck. Boom. Done deal. I swung by asked, “what’s the best ‘deluxe’ cookie you have?”. The dude replied, “the s’mores one.” I got one of those and one traditional chocolate chip (or chocolate chunk or whatever it is they call it).
Two giant cookies ... sitting in a tree ... k-i-s-s-i-n-g.
Someone took a bite out of my cookie! (It was me)
I dove into the s’mores cookie. Gotta say that it looked awesome. It felt awesome, too (nice and warm). But the taste was only … “ok”. Only ok?! That’s impossible! It’s chocolate and marshmallow and graham! I think it’s because the cookie, itself, was a little dry. And even though it was brown, the cookie didn’t taste super-chocolatey – I kept longing to encounter a chocolate chunk – that’s where the money was. I liked the deep, almost-dark chocolate flavor of the melty morsels. The graham cracker, although good in theory, really didn’t do much for me; the large pieces burst apart into chalky, dry crumbs (maybe they would have been better in the background of a moist-er cookie?). The marshmallow had a fun-to-chew stickiness about it – but some chunks were so large that I found myself chewing long after the rest of the cookie had disintegrated. It cost over $2 – I felt a little cheated.
I saved the other cookie for g. She came home and offered me a piece. Now THAT was a mighty fine cookie. The cookie was sweet (but not too sweet), moist, and studded with plenty of those chocolate morsels that I looked forward to in the cookie above. Mmmmm. Conclusion – when I see that truck again, I’ll be picking up some more plain ones – no question.
FriSatSun – so close but so far!
t says: Friday night rolled around and g and I lacked plans. It was time for date-night! But where to go – where to go? It was cold outside and we didn’t want to be bothered with a cab … so we instituted “dz Dining Requirements” – I’m coining the phrase right here, right now. As we scanned the list of neighborhood restaurants, we found one that fulfilled criteria numbers 1 through 4: FridaySaturdaySunday. And even though it was right around the block, we had never gone! And why not? I think it’s because every time we go online to check the menu, we get turned off by the silly pic and slogan on the website. We decided that tonight was the night to put that behind us.
10/2011, Friday Dinner, Party of 2. We walked in to a very very bizarre atmosphere. It had these mirrors all over the place, a chalkboard illuminated by blacklight, and weird murals (and I’m sure there were some other weird things there that escape my memory). We didn’t know if it was intentionally bizarre or if someone thought it was “cool”. Be that as it may, we took our seat, pulled out our bottle of wine (that’s right – NO corkage at FriSatSun – even though they sell alcohol! Buzinga! … and we’ve had it twice before – we like it a LOT), and got ready to eat. Bring on the food:
"Poached" asparagus
g ordered the aspargus appetizer. g liked it a lot, but I felt that the asparagus could have used a few more seconds poaching. I preferred the tomato-caper vinigarette which had a sourt-sweet-salt which was quite nice. I found myself eating it on the table bread (which, by the way, is delicious – crusty outside, soft inside). Overall, though, I felt like the dish was too much summer, and not really fall … which was the next dish:
butternut squash ravioli
A sucker for pasta, I of course picked out the ravioli. It smelled like a wonderful mix of hearty fall flavors – seeds, nuts, squash. Unfortunately, I found the dish to be quite mediocre. The ravioli’s dough was a bit dry/sticky and there wasn’t a whole lot of filling (but the little that was there was pretty good – a creamy butternut flavor) and the sauce was a little bland (I actually can’t remember what it was supposed to taste like … so I guess that makes it very bland). On the flip side, nothing tasted bad – it was just … too “subtle” for my taste. For example, when I think of butternut squash and pasta – I think of a mouthful of flavor more along the line of this risotto that we make.
salmon with rice and swiss chard
The grilled salmon and lemon creme fraiche was similarly mediocre. I take that back. The fish was cooked superbly – a beautiful texture. So … they mastered the hardest part of the dish (the fish cookery) … but missed out in other areas. The fish could have used more seasoning (salt, pepper, and maybe an herb or two), and the creme fraiche was on the weak side. The rice … straight-up bland. It boggled my mind – why would someone let this dish out of the kitchen? Then I got the answer: the Swiss chard. Mmmmmm. It made everything better. It brought in a salmon-worthy accompaniment and sang with our wine (the rice, on the other hand, was beyond repair). Was the resultant flavor worth a full 20-something-dollars? No. But, it was a sizable piece of fish that was cooked well – so I’d go as high as $19 (it is fish, after all …).
g's crabcake
I don’t have much to say about g’s crabcake because I only had one taste. From what I gather, the cake, itself, was a nice consistency and rich (g couldn’t imagine having to eat the two-cake “large” plate), but lacked oomph (noticing a pattern here?). BUT – the jicama slaw and mustardy sauce swooped in to the rescue. Tada! All better! g liked the dish just fine – and I liked the flavor combos more than those in my salmon. I think I’d like my crabcake a little more “crabby” (i.e. more obviously composed of crab – less filling), but, given the richness and accompanying flavors (and the size), I’d pay $19 for this dish, too … and that’s exactly how much it was! Woohoo!
After such sizable plates of food, g and I were both kind of full. As we stared at our wine, we realized that we still had a glass or two left. We obviously had to stick around for dessert, right? Having the larger sweet tooth, I was the one that had to decide our dessert fate. Molten chocolate cake was on the eerily-glowing blackboard (the blacklight, remember?). I figured why not? Plus, if we really finished the bottle of wine, then the dessert’s taste wouldn’t matter so much …
molten chocolate cake ... with whipped cream
This dessert was awesome. I’ll say my one quibble with it up front so I can go on gushing about it afterwards: yea, it could have been served warmer. There. Done. Now let’s talk about how delicious it was. The crusty outside gave way to moist cake and a thick, sweet, chocolate that you could eat with a fork (I hate it when it’s too liquid-y). I was about to say, “you know, this might be too sweet” but just put a forkful covered in some of the whipped cream … shazam! That was it! The whipped cream [to me] tasted unsweetened and it added a perfect balance and beautiful additional texture to the cake. Was it a simple “molten chocolate cake and whipped cream”? Sure. But it was a delicious, delicious guilty pleasure.
In summary, I’d say that FridaySaturdaySunday did a “good” job. Sure, nothing was particularly novel,but at least now I know that every bite should have a mix all of the components of the plate. Add on the reasonable portion size and that the excellence of the dessert and bread. Add on the fact that they’re BYO and have a bar. Add on the dzDD compliance. Voila. You have a restaurant that I’d be ok with going back to again in the future (maybe with dz?). Of course, I’d order something different (except the dessert … that’s staying the same) – but at least I’d come back!
after dinner sneeze 