For my birthday, my mother and I went out to lunch as a relaxing Italian restaurant in town. They had a buffet with 8 or so different vegetable dishes. The mushroom were especially tasty. As were the potatoes with onions, peppers, and bacon.
Category: restaurant
Rx
I was going to talk about butter (and radishes, but mostly butter), but I’m holding on to that post for a bit out of respect for Cee‘s gall bladder.
But last night my belly dancing teacher asked me about a local restaurant, and I don’t believe I have talked about it here yet… so let me pull up details from the dregs of my deeply fallible memory.
I think I’ve eaten there twice. Possibly, though, there was a third time.
One of the times was for University City Dining Days (maybe 2005-ish?). I had an absolutely heartbreakingly beautiful dish with a mound of fragrant white rice, some baby green beans/peas of some variety… and something else. Heartbreaking because I remember biting into the rice and having it almost… but not quite… cooked enough. But it was so flavorful, I ate almost all of it, anyway. And I remember the beans (maybe they were snow peas?) not having had the strings pulled… possibly because the fresh sexy presentation had left them with their tops and tails. But they were also crisp and flawless and would have been amazing otherwise.
And the other time was just this past summer for brunch. And their brunches are rather legendary – with the restaurant always spilling over with happy people. There was a pitcher of orange juice for the table, and it was delicious freshly squeezed orange juice (but pricy). I ordered the french toast – it had a nice crunch as you sunk your fork into it (battered before frying, maybe – I don’t remember). It was generously dusted with powdered sugar and had a fruit compote that was very sweet, indeed. I ended up trading it, though, with a friend who had ordered the frittata with andouille topped with hollondaise sauce – it was too spicy for her. It wasn’t too spicy for me, and I quite liked it. The hollandaise was slightly off putting, but I think that might be my lack of sophistication showing – but it was almost like pure coddled egg yolks with hardly any other flavor… but I don’t usually have dishes with hollandaise because I find it too flavorful when made other places. And I do like egg yolks, so I’m not saying it was bad. Honestly, I think the best meal was had by my friends who just ordered eggs, toast, and bacon.
So this sounds like a bad review… and it kind of is. BUT – both times, even though they were both fairly busy, I had wonderful service. And the space itself it wonderfully West Philly. It’s entirely possible that the next time I do, it will be the most amazing time ever.
Quick overview of the weekend
Saturday
Went to New York.
On the way up, was overcome with guilt and called my grandmother to tell her I’d be in the city. Ended up agreeing to spend the night with her instead of the Chelsea hostel. Called up and canceled my reservations.
Caught a train up town. Got off and walked a bit to get to pier. Went to a Chocolate Show. OMG – will write up in detail today. Really tested the limits of my abilities to eat free chocolate. I will attempt to write up up in detail. There will be a lot of interminable detail wherein I say, “And this one – it, too, tasted like chocolate.”
Took cab to grandmother’s. Socialized. She was happy. Ate dinner.
Went uptown again. Saw a Chekhov Play about emo unrequited love and emo bad actors and emo bad writers. It was kind of awesome, and also kind of overdone.
And even though I promised I’d go home by cab, I took the subway back to grandmother’s.
Sunday
Had been planning to meet up with ex from college. Lost her number when I lost my phone. Had sent her emails with my temporary number but hadn’t heard back from her, so I had breakfast with grandmother. (Got an email this morning letting me know she was in Atlanta this weekend)
Then hopped a train to the Upper East Side to visit my aunt and see the Met. Called her up to find out her schedule and ended up going with her to a preview at Sotheby’s for their upcoming Contemporary Art exhibition. People! My name. Was On a List.
It was kind of cool already. And then the stuff – it was almost as complete a look at modern art as going to MoMA. (Oddly/luckily, Modern Art is one of the few areas of art where I am vaguely passingly conversant because after I flunked out of my freshman year at college, I spent three weeks with my aunt in New York wandering museums – and it just so happened at the time that not only did I spend a lot of time at MoMA, but also the Met had an exhibition featuring Modern Art and the Guggenheim had a chronological thing on Modern Art and the Whitney had an interesting exhibition – and so I ended up being able to see the shape of it a bit. But that isn’t the fun part of this story – let me just tell you that there was a representative sample of mediocre and decent works by *everybody*)
And, yet, because it was modern art – and up for sale, instead of at a museum, you had people wandering around saying what they really thought about it. “Oh, look, you could have a wall of camouflage instead of having to bother wallpapering.” And while no one seemed to be willing to admit to being old enough to have Andy Warhol stories anymore, everyone (okay, just several people) was talking about how while there particular samples were crap, let them tell you about how they had known Basquiat and bought his stuff for a song. “Why I used to own this piece. I bought it for $4000, and then sold it for only $5000 and then, and then….”
And have a look at the website – it was crazy. Right now, I am only seeing the link for the evening sale (that was on the 10th floor), but there was a morning set on the fifth floor and an afternoon sale on the second and third floors. Ah, here they are: day (must include both morning and afternoon)
Oh, and there was a section with the diamonds collection. That part didn’t even have estimated prices listed. And people! There was a woman who called someone over and had them open the case so she could try on a ring.
Also, it was the kind of thing where there was a woman going around with a camera, but only taking pictures of the people. My aunt said that she had no idea who most of the people were, but hey. Oh, and someone took my picture in a group, too, but I’m guessing that isn’t actually going to make it as far as publication anywhere.
I did find a few things I would pay a couple hundred dollars to own… but that didn’t really look like an option. Craziness!
Got back to my aunt’s. Went to the Vosges’ store. Within the last year, they have opened a branch 2 blocks from her door, so that was convenient.
Then I rested my feet a bit before heading over to the Met for a quick breeze through the New Greek and Roman galleries (saw a vase with what looked like a man soliciting a boy for sex 52.11.4; Saw a stele commemorating a Bacchic rite with a list of participants and the offices they held, roughly a third were names of women and the ethnicities were mixed; looked at the white-ground lekythoi for pictures of pomegranates and didn’t find any)
Went through Africa and Oceania (no, really, when did that become a real place?) and saw some gorgeous textiles (and one fascinating art one made of found bits of scrap metal)
Popped briefly in Modern Art because there was a brilliant Picaso-esque (Umm… Cubist) painting of the Graces that was stunningly well done – it looked realistic from some angles and the colors were warm and delightful and I don’t remember the painter’s name at all
Said hello to some of the Rodin sculpture and Sargent’s Madame X. Saw a painting that reminded me of Augusta Longbottom’s hat and a luminously spooky dead christ – I think I like Manet a lot more in surprise small doses instead of in a large exhibition of just just his work.
Oh, and I happened into a retrospective of the last three decades of acquisitions to honor the retirement of Philippe de Montebello, director. I love having places and eras all mashed together – and apparently this guy had a thing for musical instruments because those were some of the more unexpected impressive items. But also, such a wide range of selections. I was glad to have caught this exhibition.
And then with a brief swing through Cypriot Art, I hobbled on home – too much walking around while I’m still just getting back to closed toed shoes.
Had a nap. Read a cookbook.
And then I headed out to the 92nd Street Y for Neil Gaiman. Sadly, there were assigned seats, so there wasn’t much joy in waiting in line. But I got there an hour and a half early to give it a shot anyway. Delightfully, about half an hour later there were a couple people from Brooklyn who had the same feelings on the matter, so we had a grand time making fun of ourselves. Also, there were people who could point me to a snazzy cupcake shop a block away where I could get a cup of hot chocolate.
Neil Gaiman was adorable as always. Decided not to buy a book and get an autograph no matter how fun the line looked because the only book I really wanted to buy was over $100, and… well… not right now. Nor any time particularly soon. The last questions led him to discussing what I’d always wanted to, you know, have a leisurely chat about – mainly how he came to mythologies and what he treasured about them. And he was even more delightfully wicked in his approach than I’d hoped. Also, he cut the image of a highly literate seven year old, but then maybe I don’t have a clear image of what children do when. I certainly don’t remember my own experience, that’s for sure.
Walked back. Slept.
Monday Got up at a decent hour. Took the bus downtown instead of the train so I could see a part of the city I haven’t seen yet (2nd Ave) – nifty new construction, some cute stores and intriguing restaurants, and a significant chunk of time later – got on the bus in Chinatown. For the first time on the Chinatown bus I ended up next to someone who wanted to talk to me. Ended up getting to sleep anyway. 🙂
Had breakfast at Maoz – first time I’ve eaten there. Good deal, tasty cauliflower, decent falafel, but not the best ever. Some time I need to go back to my college cafeteria to see if it’s still as good as I remember it being.
Bread and Chocolate
For breakfast this morning, I had spelt bread from Metropolitan Bakery. I had expected it to suck, but it didn’t.
Question A: If you thought it would suck, why did you buy it?
Answer Q: Because they were sold out of the one bread I know I like – pumpernickel – and that one was oddly tempting. It’s a grain Romans might have used, you see, so it’s like academic curiosity. Plus there was a cute guy behind the counter who was lobbying for me to try that one (after I flat out turned down the raisin walnut bread). And it was the only one that came nested in a cute wooden cradle probably made the the same people as my friend bought for the favors at her wedding. So irresistible, really.
Question 2: Why did you think it would suck?
Answer: Well, it just sounded a bit like lead. And possibly dry. And unbearably healthy. The kind of thing that would leave my colon scoured clean – and knowing it. And so Metropolitan Bakery isn’t reliable about providing satisfying bread. Their semolina bread (one of my favorite breads elsewhere) is a bit dense and dry and healthy tasting, and does not have the special semolina flavor that, say, Di Bruno Brothers’ does.
I should not have doubted. Because, apparently, the one thing Metropolitan Bakery does really well with their bread is make dense, healthy breads. But it was also a soft, squishy, and rich bread. It was nutty and delicious on its own, but it was even better topped with honey butter (softened butter that I thoroughly mixed with Buckwheat honey [scroll down on that page to get to the entry on Stagecoach Apiary]).
~*~
After I finished that tasty breakfast, I did laundry – and figured that since it had all fit in one load, instead of two, I’d pop over to the new coffee shop next door and check it out.
Hot Chocolate: Ghirardelli intense dark chocolate syrup, steamed milk, topped with whipped cream, and swirled with more syrup.
This guy understands fancipants hot chocolate.
And he was all sweet about me only having $2.50 instead of the $2.75 for the small (since I just had what I didn’t need to convert to quarters for laundry – I’d just been planning on looking).
Aside from several exciting coffees, they also have Cuban Tapas – which means they’ll heat you up an empanada, but they looked like very good empanadas.
And then as I was leaving, the name of the coffee shop registered – Cafe ClavĂ©.
Hey, wait a minute, back when I first moved into my apartment, this location was called Cafe ClavĂ©. It was run by the son (Gooch) of the owner of the building. So I went back and asked if it really were the same place and if he were the same guy – and it is! and he is! This’ll be awesome!
It will be especially awesome since I have missed the occasional drum circle they’d have outside the coffee house that I’d be able to hear from my apartment (Not everyone likes that kind of thing, but I thought it was wonderful and kept hoping the Green Line would attract some of the same drummers).
Mmmmm full tummy – Ajia
Suddenly realizing that it was 4:30pm and all I’d eaten so far was a cup of hot chocolate… I figured my little frozen lunch really wasn’t going to cut it. This called for All U Can Eat Sushi!
But, people, especially philly people, let me tell you an amazing thing: I had good service at Ajia!
At this place, you expect long waits, desultory service, and only sort of getting your full order. But this time? Not only did the waitress take my sheet quickly and the sushi chef made my sushi while checking my order regularly, but the service was so good that I had my water refilled frequently. I wanted for nothing. I got back to work before my student worker’s shift was over – even within the scheduled hour for lunch.
“Yes, but how was the food,” you ask. Well, it was pretty standard. Their sushi isn’t the spiffiest around, but it’s $22 for all you can eat. And aside from one dubious bite of squid, it was decent and tasty. And thanks to [redacted]’s suggestion, I had the tasty tempura sweet potato roll.
But I had service which momentously did not suck.