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Category: Review

Tinto

I swanned into my old college library, flamboyantly (and possibly unnecessarily) saved the day, and then I absconded with [redacted]. We went back to my place and talked about sundries and nothings.

But the reason we were getting together was for Center City Restaurant Week and our reservations at Tinto – OMG! We ended up not talking too much at the restaurant because we were having way too much fun eating. And since we shared everything, including the cocktail but not the desserts, I’ll just list everything we had (it’s a Basque tapas restaurant).

Cocktail

Mairritze: Leblon Cachaca, muddled mint, lime, blood orange

First Course

Le Moulis: served with thinly sliced tart green apple, a square of quince jelly, a dab of artisanal honey, and a small spot of powdered hot red pepper.

Jamon Serrano: Just prosciutto. Well, okay, not just – we had thin flatbreads and baguette slices, and it came with a delicious egg salad. But it was really an excuse to indulge in prosciutto. Also, it was good with the apples that came with the cheese.

Montaditos de Panceta: pork belly, honey laquer, shaved apples. It was pork. It was fat. It was salty and sweet and greasy and I was so glad it was on a thin slice of baguette because otherwise its sexy juices would have been lost, and I’d have had to lick the plate. We thought this was going to be the best thing all night.

Montaditos de Pato: duck confit, black cherry, bleu de basque spread – Guh! We were wrong – the food just keeps getting better. Crispy skin, sexy duck meat – and the cherry! Okay, so I went first, and since the cherry was out to the side, I ate that off first – and it was shockingly juicy and tart. My dining companion, however, smooshed her duck a bit and then split the cherry so that she could spread it over the duck… the flavors were delightfully complimentary. But really – the duck! I love duck! I have eaten more than my fair share of the duck of the world (and shall continue to do so), and this was right up there.

Brochetas de Pollo: chicken, garbanzo puree, truffle jus, thyme marinade. They don’t mention the grapes, and they really should. Each little skewer alternated chicken, grape, chicken grape – and they were all seasoned and grilled together. Grilled grapes (when seasoned and all juicy from the chicken) are amazing. The garbanzo puree (thinner than your average hummus, so I’ll forgive them their fancipants) gave it a smoother, more filling, mouth feel and the truffle jus… well, this was the first time I have been impressed by anything truffle. It was like the essence of outdoor grilling, but there in a pool on the plate.

Second Course

Moules Basquaise: mussels & chorizo in sauce basquaise. This little bit of mussel stew had us sending for two more mini dishes of bread so that we could properly appreciate the tomato-based sauce. Lovely, tender (naked) mussels, but I would expect nothing less. It nurtured all of my fond childhood memories of mussels and it made my mouth all tingly with just a nice warmth of spicy hot.

Pulpo: spanish octopus, confit potato, piquillo pepper paint, lemon powder. I totally nabbed the slightly burny tentacle on top. I have gotten so used to fancy restaurants doing elaborate presentations to undo the chewiness of octopus that I was surprised to find this one still a bit chewy… and yet also surprisingly, that didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment at all. The pepper paint really was just a schmear across the plate as if it had been spread with a paintbrush, but MMmmm tasty. And the lemon powder straight was a bit like a pixie stick, and you wouldn’t think it would work, but it really perked up the dish and complimented the squishy seafood nicely. Also, mollusk pride!

Brochetas de Gambas: shrimp, chorizo, grape tomato, espelette chile. Whole shrimps – seasoned, on a skewer so that they wrapped around and has a tomato and tiny pieve of chorizo nestled between the head and tail on the skewer. I couldn’t figure out how to eat it together at all, though, so I had a tomato/chorizo skewer and then a gnawed into the shrimp separately. And I got my dining companion’s shrimp head as well. It had very tasty brains. I did my best to eat the exoskeleton in yummy, crunchy bites right along with the rest of the shrimp – it make me happy, so I figure it was the right thing to do. This was the dish that finally ended up with me having a greasy spot on my shirt… but I had been doing really well up until then.

Merluza en Salsa Verde: sea bass, cockles, salsa verde. So this was the only sad note of the evening. Since we had a 10:30pm reservation (since I didn’t know I’d be sneaking out sick, and because I only made the reservation one or two days ahead on restaurant week), they brought out all of our second course at once (whereas the first course had trickled in as prepared)… or it was because it was all seafood and took about the same amount of time to prepare. Either way, by the time we got to this plate, it was no longer piping hot. Only the cockles really suffered, but while I had popped one in at the beginning and it was a buttery little morsel I had to dig out with my tongue will all appropriate sexual metaphors, but the time we really devoted our attention to it, they were just little chilled seafood bits. The sea bass, however, did not suffer. It was tasty and flaky and had a lovely brown seasoned crust on top. We used up the last of our flatbreads on this.

Dessert

Gateaux Basque: traditional basque cake, pastry cream, black cherries. This was my dining companion’s dessert. She seemed to like it. And even though the cherries looked like exactly the same ones as were on the duck, she said they tasted completely different (not tart, but very sweet), so I guess they had two separate marinades.

Bananas y Azafran: chocolate cake, caramelized bananas, saffron crema. It was more like chocolate fudge. Smooth, silky, and devastatingly dense. And they didn’t spare the saffron in making the crema, you could clearly tasty the iodine, and that helped clear the palate a bit. And the bananas… my only complaint was that there were only three slices, but it all blended together and added the sweetness, which the cake alone hadn’t needed.

my weekend

My weekend was a little busy…

Friday
I went to play D&D with friends. Some canceled.

Instead, we went out to dinner. We passed by the Jazz in the Park, which we could have listened to if we had sat outside, but opted for the immediate seating available inside, instead. Food was a bit dubious – I had shrimp that had the texture of steak. Later, I ate my back up salad because it was the blueberry salad I’d been planning for a few days.

And then we watched Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, which I had never seen. I caught a whole bunch of references that had been tossed around at nerd camp.

I did not go to Salsa dancing, but I think I shall try to get there on the 22nd, if anyone would like to join me.

Saturday
Got up and made the one reliable thing I have that’s good for a pot luck where I’ll have a few hours without refrigeration before serving: asian pickle (as taught to me by Meghan – thinly sliced onion, carrots, and cucumber, tossed together with some rice vinegar and sugar).

Went to exercise. I missed yoga but caught pilates.

Picked up [redacted], headed up to GeeksDoItBetter, and had an awesome papermaking workshop. I kept trying to make thinner paper, but it wasn’t as well behaved as the thicker ones. Others were disappointed, however, by how much thickness they lost as they drained the water from the pulp on the screen. Despite how new we were, our paper turned out as well as most amateur paper I have seen.

Sunday
Dragged my ass out of bed at 9am and went to my parents’. Had sticky rice, mango, melon, and blackberried for breakfast.

I sewed a couple pamphlets my mother wants to attach to the (now) framed maps they accompany.

Took home some peaches and some tomatoes & hot peppers from my parents’ garden.

Came home. Unloaded.

Met up with [redacted] for Indian buffet (I ordered off the menu).

There was amazing weather. We were getting torrential rain, but in bands with beautiful sunny skies in between. Oddly, it was dry everytime I needed to walk somewhere (but the drive home from my parents’ was a bit treacherous).

While we were at dinner, we got a call telling us to look outside at the double rainbow. By the time we left, however, it was gone. But the sky was just amazing – clear and sunny with late evening’s dying rays lighting up the threatening green half of the sky in iridescent shades of gold. [redacted] rightly said that the tall buildings in the skyline all looked like mica.

Then we went to World Cafe Live to see Bitter:Sweet with and because they had raved about this group. And rightly so. I bought a CD. Go have a look – they have good music *and* awesome stylish performances. They’ll be in Boston tonight (sorry – short notice!) and DC tomorrow, but other than that most of you will probably miss this tour. They were talking about trying for another tour in April. Their soups are always good, so I had that. [redacted] had the eggplant fries, now that the knows that anything (even eggplant) is good if it is sliced thinly and fried – but, really, these are lovely – the eggplant is all mellow, like butter, inside a thick, crispy batter.

And it was so lovely by the time we left (clear and cool – for once in August), that I decided to walk home. A third of the way there, I was distracted by and sucked into a random dance party in the street. So I went in and danced until a little after midnight.

Monday
This morning was pretty amazing, too. I had quit the dancing early because I was worried that my thighs would be sore in the morning and that my knee would get swollen – but no ill effects at all.

We worked extra hard in pilates this morning, and I managed to do an exercise I hadn’t been able to do before (on of the ones where you roll your self up from a completely flat starting position).

And then I sat out on my porch enjoying the unusual cool weather and eating fruit. The property was getting its lawn mowed, too, so I ended up drinking water and attempting to chat with the guy mowing it while he took a break. We were doing really well with the smiling and nodding pleasantries, but he ended up saying he wished I spoke Spanish instead. But I did get him to talk a little bit about Guatemala and could understand his pidgin pretty well – just not so much with producing my own.

And then I went to work, and the world reverted to Monday.

Kanella

An adventure in center city led to a lovely lunch. Let me tell you about it!

Kanella! It’s a Greek Cypriot kitchen.

And there was cuttlefish on the menu! Prepared some way other than “in its own ink.”

Sadly, I was in a rush, so I did not order the cuttlefish, but the (very cute) server told me that it is often an appetizer, so when I make reservations I should ask to make sure they would have it.

Instead, I had the Spanikopita. There was more feta than spinach and it had a lemony tang… and while neither of those are my first choice in how to prepare the dish, I was still delighted by the flavors and textures. If I say it was creamy goodness (with a little bit of tart) exploding in my mouth – you guys will take that as a good thing, right? I think even the phyllo dough had flavor! Slightly nuttier than the average phyllo.

It came with a delicious salad, which would have made me quite happy on its own, and a mound of greek yogurt – sexy, tasty, creamy greek yogurt.

Because I was eating at 2pm, there were only 4 other tables filled, so I got to talk a little with the server and owners/chefs. They have only been open three months. The owners/chefs are from West Philadelphia. And they already fill up with reservations most nights for dinner.

In addition to loving the fresh foods, I also loved how it was decorated – it’s a bit like Lourdas, in Bryn Mawr, with the white washed walls and blue trim (possibly required for 78% of Greek restaurants in a geographical area), but it goes even further with rough-hewn wood tables and benches. Over the doorway is a massive bundle of the eponymous cinnamon, and the windows are lined with potted plants – some floral and some herbal (and looking like they might actually be used in the cooking). There’s even a lemon tree. It was strange to have the restaurant be air conditioned because it felt as though it was an open air taverna… a fairly fancy one.

So I’d love to go back there. I’d love to share this restaurant with you guys. I’ll warn you now that the dinner entrees went up to $26 & market price, but there weren’t any appetizers over $10 so I’d propose a dinner of appetizers and salads (at least for my part). And I can’t tell you what they’ll have because the menu seems to change daily – they had just printed up today’s dinner menu and brought it out when I got to see it.

Nan (restaurant review)

After an hectic and itchy week, I called a few friends to see if they wanted to have a fancy brunch. One of them, not only said yes, but then said, “And I’m still at work right near you, so we could meet up for dinner.”

Restaurant review: Nan is a pricey restaurant that claims to have, “the finest Thai-French cuisine,” but looks like a hole in the wall and is right near a delightful Indian restaurant, a delicious Thai place, a pretty decent Thai place, and several other restaurants as well – all much more reasonably priced. I have never found the place even remotely tempting. But it was pushing 10pm, and everywhere else we tried was closed, and Nan still had its Open sign out.

And I was wrong. Totally and completely wrong. Not only was the food excellent, but the server and the chef were both incredibly kind and generous with their time and made us very comfortable even as they were closing up the restaurant and cleaning the kitchen. They even made sure our rolls were piping hot (including the second round, when I asked for more because they were very tasty dinner rolls). The squid salad was tender, lightly grilled, and tangy (and we sopped up the last of the dressing with the rolls, we were that happy.

He had the Pad Thai (his standard yardstick for the quality of Thai places) and was delighted. Each flavor was distinct and almost subtle, so it ended up being a lighter and more exciting dish than it is at most places. I ordered the salmon crusted in red curry – and it was perfect. Rich and perfectly cooked – the first bite was too hot, but it melted like butter. The whole way through, I was deeply apologetic (in my head) for all of the previous aspersions I had cast on the place. And we finished up with ginger ice cream which was just crammed full of candied ginger in chunks. All creamy and settling and a perfect way to end the meal.

tea and a movie

GeeksDoItBetter and I watched The Hard Word with Guy Pierce. It was a heist movie I picked up randomly because VHS is cheap as can be these days. But we both like heist movies, and this was the video we picked.

But, ummm… guys… you’re doing it wrong.

When you meet the characters in prison, you kind of think one of them might have a dark secret… well, the closest you get is confessed to the shrink to get into her pants and doesn’t affect the action at all. You’d think that the merry band of thieves might not trust each other 100%, but no, they’re brothers and they’re sticking together through it all. You’d think the obvious bad guy might be a misdirection from the sneaky bad guy, but no. You’d think that when one of the brothers gets sick before the big heist, it would be part of some clever plan and create opportunities for deception; but no, he just whinges a bit and gets on with things without it really affecting his job performance. When they lose the money, you’d think that it might be someone double crossing them to steal it all for his/herself; but not so much a double cross as the main guy being stupid enough to tell the Bad Guy where he stashed the money. Really. So you’d think that when the Bad Guy comes back to the six months later with another heist proposal they’d find some way to double cross him and steal all the money, but no, they just shoot him. *blink*

Not the movie I was looking for.

Also, it would have helped if the female lead could act… or even move her mouth when she talks.

And I tried a new tea over at [redacted]’s: Republic of Tea’s Yerba Mate Latte

tasting notes: deep, chocolaty brew. An exotic blend of cocoa and Brazilian mate, featuring small amount of natural caffeine. Rooibos, cactus flowers and almonds add depth to this deep rich brew. Add steamed milk for a creamy herbal latte.

It was every bit as rich and tasty as promised, but it was right on the line as to whether it should have dairy in it. On the one hand, it’s rich and desserty; but on the other hand, it’s green and red teas and not too bitter or dark. I ended up putting milk in it, and was pleased.

I have ordered a canister for myself. ETA: …or I thought I had.