Category: restaurant

I read Hound of the Baskervilles when I was young, probably for school. And I promptly gave up on reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Because this is the one (and, yes, I’m about to spoil the ending for you) where you are going right along trying to figure out how these fantastic things are going to end up with perfectly rational explanations, and then Sherlock Holmes whips a dissertation on ash out of his ass. Really – no way to see that coming.

And I pretty much threw the book down right then. Because I hadn’t realized that this whole story was getting explained inside Sherlock Holmes’ head – and that I hadn’t been invited to the party! I had been reading along thinking that if I needed further data, it would be provided in the nooks and corners of the prose. But, no – a dissertation. On ash. Well why am I even reading, if I don’t get to be a party to the fun part of the figuring things out process?

So yeah.

And then years later, there came Neil Gaiman. And he’s this weird rockstar literary figure, and people make noise about him transcending genre and crossing over audiences and whatnots. But you know what his trickery really is? He makes the audience feel smug about being smart and in on the joke.

He pulls in enough far reaching references to obscure folklore than no matter what your youthful obsession, you find one of the nifty things, which you’d been nurturing close to your breast, put out there and explained as the lovely thing you think it is. And you get to accumulate other, new, nifty things and banter them about as if you’d been treasuring them all along. There’s a wink and a nod and an offer of complicity.

And after I read a few of his things, I sought out others.

So when I was little, my mother would talk about how we should some day eat a really fancy meal at Le Bec Fin, but we never did. And I was always fairly sure that it was a bit out of our price range.

But there was a sportier bistro opened up. And one day I had a friend from out of town visiting, and I figured it would be a good place near where she’d be to meet for dinner. So I called up to make a reservation for that evening. And I was told, quite plainly, that this was Brasserie Perrier, and one could not make a reservation any less than a week ahead.

Right.

So my friend had heard of another restaurant. It turned out to be right next door. And run by Stephen Starr, one of the older new chefs with too big britches. Alma de Cuba. And it turned out to be one of the more memorable dining experiences I’ve had (with tempura avocado salad!), so I had no complaints. It was expensive, but I’ve gone back a couple of times, with people, alone, and I even took my parents. They are still doing well, but Brasserie Perrier… well, it’s closed.

Stephen Starr, however, is a chef who gets a raised eyebrow from me, though, because his concepts don’t always impress me. On the other hand, let me talk about someone Georges Perrier cursed quite a bit in his interview – Jose Garces. This is the chef who championed tapas to the city. And in the article, Perrier compares the price of his prixe fixe with an incredibly expensive meal he had dining at on of these tapas restaurants. And you know what? Yes, I try not to ever go to a Garces restaurant starving. Because I can’t afford it. But I’m not committing to the starving person’s price. I only have to commit to a $9 plate. Or maybe 2 or 3 of them.

But what Garces really has going, at least at both of the initial two restaurants (not so much at the third, and I haven’t had time to get to the most recent two), is atmosphere. It’s just the right balance of dark and airy to be elegant without being overbearing. And it’s service. The first time I went to Amada (on a whim, before a movie), they were so full that there was only room for a single person at the bar. And I had the bartender come over and take the time to explain the menu and offer me a cocktail that would match what I was eating (and was this amazing pear thing with pear nectar she said she had infused herself, and I’ve never seen there since). The next time was restaurant week (a time when restaurants are crazy crowded) and I was sad that the whole week would go by without trying anything, and I’d called a couple of places to see if they had tables after I got out of work at 9pm (yeah!), and Amada not only was willing to seat me, but also had wonderful and attentive service, even late at night. And the food was every bit as tempting and delightful as the first time, even though it was the end of the night at the end of a grueling week.

I like being welcomed and encouraged to enjoy along with.

Saturday
I was late leaving for my grandmother’s because there was amazing weather this weekend. I love my back porch so much.

I spent some time cleaning out my refrigerator and pretending that counted as cleaning out my apartment. I’d pull together something out of bits and ends and then I’d eat it on the porch in the sunshine. Whee!

I finally left the house around 1pm. I got to my grandmother’s just in time for dinner. We ate. I tried to make conversation. I think her hearing it going. Then we came back to her apartment, and she sat for an hour or two nodding off before going to bed. I read a little, napped a little, watched the season 2 finale of Being Human, and then changed and went to sleep obscenely early.

Sunday
Going to sleep early meant that I was up at dawn-ish, so I grabbed a beach towel for some traction and did a wee little bit of yoga. Just enough to get circulation in my shoulders and to loosen up my lower back. Then I put the towel away and pretended to still be asleep.

My grandmother’s aide was late, but she was clean enough that I felt no guilt about just helping her select clothes and get dressed. And then we made it to breakfast a little late. You’d think the timing wouldn’t matter, but the dining room gets crowded and louder, and so conversation still didn’t so much happen. But we smiled at each other and had bonding time.

After breakfast, my grandmother fell asleep. I napped and read until noon, when I got her up to go downstairs for a cup of coffee. I tried to entice her into a quick walk around their garden area, but the sun didn’t quite reach into it and there was a breeze, so she begged off. And then, since she was going right back to sleep after coffee, I left around 2pm. But I didn’t go straight home because I’d heard rumor on Twitter about a DoctorWhoNY event involving an intimate (which just means limited to 100 people) Q&A with Russell Tovey, from Doctor Who/Torchwood and Being Human and stuff. And, hey, they scheduled for a day I’d already be in the city and it was only $20. So there.

But I had four or so hours to kill in New York City without wanting to spend too much money or acquire baggage. Eh, so I wandered a bit. I found a nice sunny ledge by Union Square and read there for an hour. And then I found a restaurant a couple blocks from the venue that didn’t seem to expensive. I walked around a little bit more to kill more time and to make sure I’d made the best restaurant choice, and then I circled around back.

Tamarind
So they don’t have their hours posted on the outside. At first I thought I’d heard that their dining room didn’t open until 4:30, but it turns out they actually said 5:30. No matter, because they have a tea room right next door. I tried a lovely, dark tea from southern India, Nilgiri, which is apparently also carried by Whole Foods (they would have told me a package of it but were out of stock). And despite appearances, their small teapots held three cups worth of tea. It came with cute little dishes with rough hewn sugar cubes (brown and white) and a small dish of honey, just wide enough that the spoon looked like it would not fit but did easily. And cream. This was a good visit for tea.

I also ordered a chaat. I was worried that it would spoil my appetite, but I forgot to account for NYC level of prices. It was just the perfect size for pre-dinner nibbling.

So 5:30 rolled over, and I bopped over to the main dining room. I think they figured I was interested in food as they seated my opposite their theater kitchen, which just serviced the tandoori ovens and a grill. I still have no idea how the different bread got made – one of them ended up rolled into a spiral… and then pressed flat? But it was nifty and pleasing to watch. I ordered a soup and dal makhani.

The cauliflower ginger soup… was a lovely idea, but off a bit. For one thing, it was an oddly large portion for the rest of the scale of the restaurant, but I guess that’s not a complaint. It was also perfectly smooth (as if the cauliflower had been pureed and then strained) with small grains of ginger (there were cumin seeds, but I think some of the chewy bits were also ginger). I think I would have rather also had some small pieces of cauliflower, too. I asked for a salt shaker, and that perked it up a little. But I think what it really needed was a sour note – possibly a lovely contrasting swirl of tamarind chutney.

Dal Makhani – So there’s a restaurant near me with amazing dishes with Makhani sauce, but there’s another with only a bland brown dal makhani. It seemed like a good way to judge the restaurant as well as being the cheapest thing on the menu. Now, I’ve had a few restaurants in London charge separately for rice and everything, but they were also noticeably cheaper pricepoints – at $12.50 for dal, I was surprised to be asked whether I also wanted to order rice. I didn’t – I went with a roti instead for more joy. And, yes, their makhani sauce was very like my favorite, rich and reddish. Very well done, and I would eat there again.

I did not order dessert because I managed to just perfectly hit the time I was aiming for.

So I walked the few blocks to Cafe 50 West. This also looked like a good place for dinner – with casserole dishes of macaroni and cheese or artichoke dip. Their soups looked delicious. I just ordered a hot tea, and that was pretty darn impressive. It was a british style tea (broken leaves, and a high ratio of tea to hot water – water added to tea bag at the right temperature), but they even thought to pre-warm the mug! \o/!

There was a cute Q&A with Russell Tovey, which was taped, wherein there managed to be lewd appreciation of his professional nudity while still respecting his craft. After all, he was the one who suggested that one of his dream roles was to play a rent boy (right after wishing to get to star in a remake of The Goonies, but nevermind that). I have a few more of his past roles I now want to find (it’s well overdue for me to watch The History Boys). There was a queue for his autograph. That went well, and I got to talk to a couple friendly people. And I was also reminded why I pick my fannish associations rather discriminatingly. Russell was friendly in line as well, and he seemed to be having a decent time.

He was mentioning that actors in the UK aspire to get to act on American shows because having the larger budgets and whole teams of writers sounds so glamorous. The audience of anglophiles was trying to dissuade him. The most cogent explanation was given by someone pointing to a specific character point for him where he was, as a protagonist, allowed to win the end of the episode’s plotline by becoming more morally ambiguous instead of less and how awesome British shows are for having the courage to do that. And the woman by me nodding her emphatic agreement was the same one who had earlier told me that she hadn’t watched the whole latest bit of Torchwood canon because she didn’t agree with what they’d done with the characters and she didn’t want her shows to be anything less than light and happy. And I’m sure she wasn’t the only one with no internal irony alert.

And after the autographs, there was a viewing of the first episode of the second season with Russell giving commentary. He said some obvious things. Mentioned that the later love interest for one of the other main characters was an ex of that actor. But in general it was pretty tame stuff, so I didn’t stay until the end of the episode.

I walked back to catch the Chinatown Bus home.

Wow – I think I gained 5 pounds this weekend. And it was thoroughly deserved. I ate so much, that I’m going to have to write it up in multiple posts.

Just in case it takes a while to get to everything, I’m going to make a note of what’s to come –

Okay, so there I was a few years ago visiting friends at Bryn Mawr College, and they suggested (even though they are many excellent food options closer) to drive 20-30 minutes toward the city to show me Sang Kee in Wynnewood. And, yes, it was absolutely worth the drive – with many small plate options that are delightful and prepared perfectly and served in an relaxing, elegant setting. Of the larger plates, my favorite is their stuffed eggplant (shrimp & pork) in black bean sauce.

And then maybe a little over a year ago, I discovered the original location in Chinatown and gave them a whirl. I ordered familiar dishes and found them right in line with the other location (the stuffed eggplant slightly better, the garlicky greens slightly too salty) and plenty fresh, but the atmosphere was no where near as nice – crowded, loud, and I ended up dining in a weird auxiliary upstairs room that was bright and better suited to a corner cheesesteak joint. So I figured I’d stick with Wynnewood occasionally.

But! But now there’s a location in west philly! I first found out about it from Fries With That Shake, but I also heard that she was a bit underwhelmed. Undaunted, I hopped on over there for lunch right away.

Okay, so lunch was disappointing. Instead of trying my favorite dishes, which were on this same menu, I was seduced by the $9 lunch box special. The salad had real greens, instead of iceberg, but it was generic dressing and too much of that. The vegetarian dumplings would have been amazing if they had been served separately, but they had toughened up a bit from being served at the same time as the rest. The eggplant and beef was good, but not exceptional. They continue to be brilliant at buttery, delicious eggplant, but the sauce was too heave and the beef might as well not have been there for all the character it added to the dish. And I was intrigued by the stir fried rice noodle option, instead of getting the rice, which would have dealt better with the abundant sauce. They were tasty, but not the right thing for this lunch. So a solid meh. Still, I wish to go back and try the proper menu.

And then last Friday, I heard that they were having a grand opening event with free food! Wheee! So I dropped everything and hopped on over even though I had two other food events that same day. And you know how I mentioned that they excel at small dishes freshly prepared at their other location? Well that’s kind of the antithesis of feeding masses of people off of steam tables. So even though they put a lot of work into the day, it ended up coming off as no better than any other passable chinese restaurant. Seriously – large batch scallion pancakes? Those are best piping hot, not room temperature. So new good news yet, but I shall be going back again.

A few weeks ago, Heather poked me that Billy Boyd‘s band, Beecake, would be playing in Philadelphia. And so I decided to fulfill my fannish duties and jumped all over that and got us tickets and dinner reservations (because that’s the only way to get reserved seats at this location).

Glee!

And I took a full vacation day from work.

Despite being hella windy, it was a lovely day.

And so once Heather came up, we walked over to the UPenn museum of Anthropology and Archaeology (with a brief stop to appreciate the architecture in the Fine Arts library built by Furness), and I got to show off all of the amazing stuff they’d plundered back when that was how things were done. We started with Egypt (where I did not manage to convince her to fondle the Sphinx just a little), popped into a room for a bit of Islamic tile joy, and then fled from a bunch of students into China. A few southeast Asian countries later, we were popped through Jerusalem to get to Rome and the Etruscans. We almost managed to miss Greece, but we did manage to remember the vases and stele (and I gave my explanation of the mutilation of the Herms in 411). Woot! Then a brief visit through Polynesia, and we were out in the lovely weather again. (I mean, we were there for hours, but it went quickly)

Popped by Penn’s library for a (tiny) display of Jane Austen rare books (apparently, completely missing a copy of Pride and Prejudice), and I also showed off their digital media lab, a display of nifty book arts, and my office.

Out back for a cupcake and drinking chocolate at Naked Chocolate… which led to another mile walk (a little less, really) to show my favorite coffee shop and it’s excellent chocolate selection.

And then we took a bus.

Oh, and I called a friend for the location of the concert venue because I hadn’t bothered to write down the exact location. ~handwave~ (thanks, Kim)

Popped on the #40 bus because that one was the next one to show up. I knew that one went all the way to old city, but I had forgotten that it was also the one that dipped south and gave you the scenic route. Heather, however, had just been mentioning that she’d been disappointed that the last time she’d been in philly, they’d gone to South Street for cheesesteaks but hadn’t then taken the time to see South Street – and look, we got to go the whole length without even having to walk. ~grin~ And then we walked north on 3rd to Chestnut.

Even moving rather slowly, we ended up at the Tin Angel a little early for our reservation, but we decided there wasn’t really anything we’d rather be doing than sitting down right then (because that was a lot of walking!). Nice waiter. Very nice waiter. He only laughed at us a little for showing up an hour early, being only the second people in the joint, decided to do all appetizers, and then picking our first round of food as the Calamari and a side of mashed potatoes. Wot!

Food
vietnamese fried calamari tossed with pepper, onion & cilantro
chilis, sweet & spicy dipping sauce – Very light and crunchy and not chewy at all. The bell peppers and onions were a nice addition, and I loved the dipping sauce. We were warned there were spicy rounds of jalapeno peppers in the mix but only found the little roasted whole peppers. I thought they were delightful, and my dining companion was able to avoid them easily.

mashed potatoes side dish – So the windy day and much walking had made me especially susceptible to pining after the mashed potatoes listed as accompanying one of the specials, and I could not resist ordering this. Fairly small bowl, but full of rich tastiness. It had a rich flavor that was not strongly buttery. Very comforting and served wonderfully hot.

potato pancakes special of the day – served with bacon and shrimp confit – Okay, so this was not latkes. Think instead of a crabcake made all of potato strings. Thinly shredded, in a patty that’s 2″ in diameter and 1″ tall — and then I think it wasn’t just topped with bacon, but also fried in bacon fat. At least partially. There was a light sauce on top, and there were baby greens underneath. With more greens, slightly wilted from the heat of the pancakes, this would have been a wonderful entree salad. No matter how odd, it was delicious. A good balance of greasy and vegetable.

warm goat cheese bruschetta strawberries, laura chenel chevre, carmelized shallot, fig balsamic, black pepper oil – this was not perfect. Instead of just having fanned strawberries on top, they had also processed strawberries in with the goat cheese. But that made it all a bit sweet instead of leaving you with contrasting sweet and tart/sour of the cheese. It really ended up being more of a dessert thing than a savory entree.

garlicky spinach side dish – was very good and tasty, but it was a little frustrating because it had a distinct asian seasoning that we couldn’t identify. It definitely wasn’t 5 spice, wasn’t ginger, and while there might have been some soy sauce that wasn’t primary. It almost tasted like sesame oil, but not quite. Still delicious.

blueberry plum crisp – served in a very shallow tart dish with an ice cream scoop of dense whipped cream on top. The whipped cream was not good, so I tumbled it to the side. The crisp, however, was delicious. The shallow dish made for a great ratio of oaty, crispy goodness to hot, sweet fruit.

As for the music? It was fun to listen to, but I was not sad to leave without an album. They like switching between ballad mood and hard rock mood in their songs, but their opening song also had a sort of swing mood thrown in the mix, too. And three totally different tempo thingies is too much. I put my foot down. Okay, so it was still fun, but still. So I questioned some of his aesthetic choices, and I questioned some of the messages in the songs. My favorite song of the lot was Rip It Up

And then we went back to my place and had tea, chocolate, and good times.