90 replies to this topic

[Greg Ling]

"I work there" aka Greg Ling is having an impossible time getting the rolls, the ones from Artisian I will hopefully have by Monday.

[Holly Moore]

Maybe even cheaper than the rolls from Artisian - 53 cents each including priority mail. Pricey for a $2.00 hot dog, but not all that bad for a $26.00 lobster roll.

New England Hot Dog Rolls

[mod*betty]

Not knowing the workings of resto sourcing, I am puzzled by the inability to get the rolls of my native land. However if you want me to go to Stop & Shop and load up on 'em the next time I'm up there just say the word!

Hubby and I stopped by the OH on Wed and had a more than serviceable Sidecar and Gimlet (alas not mixed by our fave Katie) as well as some of those belly clams. Clams were probably the best I'll get 'round these parts and should be grateful for that, but were a bit more coated than I'd like, masking some of the belly goodness. Hubby liked the fact that they weren't as greasy as the ones I usually enjoy up home.

Here's a photo of what I'm pining for (in my post below)- and horrors to me, they're from RI and not Mass!

http://retroroadmap....-in-restaurant/

mmmm....clamshack roadtrip.....

[TarteTatin]

AAAHHHH!
Look at that Lobster roll!
I CANNOT WAIT!

And fried clams!

and oyster shooters...

And KATIE LOEB!

AAAGGHHHH.

Soon, calm down my heart.

[TarteTatin]

(And my favorite bakery in all of Philadelphia-Artisinal!)

[Carlson1105]

FYI-Wegman's carries the New England hot dog rolls. Their own brand, and they are pretty good.

[Holly Moore]

Another late lunch - this time just after four. The Oyster House is now serving lunch and some items continue to be available in the late afternoon.

I went for a Philadelphia classic - fried oysters and chicken salad. Five large and perfectly fried oysters. I asked about the origin of this dish - David Mink said it was on the original Kelly's menu in the 1920's and dates back to well before that time. Greg Ling recommended asking Fred, the lunch bartender. It has something to do with slavery during the revolutionary era - perhaps that slaves were limited in what the could sell and two of the items were fried oysters and chicken salad.

Also had a quasi-mason jar of Katie's Oyster House Punch. You know how a certain odor or flavor can stir something long lost in one's memory. I say this with love, Katie, but the punch brought back memories of my freshman year in college, a bar down the hill called Jims Place, a drink they served that was a combination between a whiskey sour and a Zombie (or maybe I was chasing the sours with the Zombies), and waking up the following morning in a dorm that was not the dorm where I usually woke up.

My recommendation is that the designated driver take a pass on the Oyster House Punch and everyone else enjoy and think of the punch at every fraternity party you ever attended, but mixed by a professional bartendrix and not by a social chairman whose sole goal was to get everyone drunk and let the couples fall where they may.

Fortunately, with my chicken and oysters gone and some punch still unimbibed, the clock struck five and "buck a shuck" oysters wondrously appeared. They were from Long Island. I ordered a dozen. Since I can't seem to write a post about the Oyster House without offering at least one suggestion, this one goes to Sam. Start the $1 oysters at 4PM. Lure in the office crowd that sneaks out of work early.

Edited by Holly Moore, 15 June 2009 - 03:38 PM.

[KatieLoeb]

Holly:

Waking up in the wrong dorm was usually a side effect of being young and foolish, only ever so slightly aided and abetted by the frat house punch, no?

You clearly must've been attending a finer class of frat parties than I ever did. We usually got grain alcohol and artificially colored and flavored powdered "red Kool-Aid-like" substance du jour, mixed in a trash can that was lined, if you were lucky. My hope is that the Goslings/Cognac/apricot brandy mix is sufficiently balanced with good tea, fresh lemon and spiced simple syrup to be a pleasant quaff that creates new memories for those unfamiliar with the old school Philadelphia Fish House Punch on which it's based. I'm delighted that you enjoyed it. And I'm always happy to keep whomever the designated driver is supplied with tasty non-alcoholic beverages all evening. All they have to do is ask.

Edited by KatieLoeb, 15 June 2009 - 04:11 PM.

[Greg Ling]

Holly:

Waking up in the wrong dorm was usually a side effect of being young and foolish, only ever so slightly aided and abetted by the frat house punch, no? 

You clearly must've been attending a finer class of frat parties than I ever did.  We usually got grain alcohol and artificially colored and flavored powdered "red Kool-Aid-like" substance du jour, mixed in a trash can that was lined, if you were lucky.  My hope is that the Goslings/Cognac/apricot brandy mix is sufficiently balanced with good tea, fresh lemon and spiced simple syrup to be a pleasant quaff that creates new memories for those unfamiliar with the old school Philadelphia Fish House Punch on which it's based.  I'm delighted that you enjoyed it.  And I'm always happy to keep whomever the designated driver is supplied with tasty non-alcoholic beverages all evening.  All they have to do is ask. 

So that is what's in the OH Punch, P.F. Lings here we come!

[Holly Moore]

Holly:

Waking up in the wrong dorm was usually a side effect of being young and foolish, only ever so slightly aided and abetted by the frat house punch, no? 

Did I mention that at the time the drinking age in New York was 18?

My hope is that the Goslings/Cognac/apricot brandy mix is sufficiently balanced with good tea, fresh lemon and spiced simple syrup to be a pleasant quaff that creates new memories for those unfamiliar with the old school Philadelphia Fish House Punch on which it's based. 

Yup, that was our recipe at the fraternity. Then we added the grain alcohol.

[KatieLoeb]

Yup, that was our recipe at the fraternity.  Then we added the grain alcohol.

This explains more about the wrong dorm than any theory I might have had. Anybody end up getting their stomachs pumped??

You also definitely had frat brothers with better taste/palates than the cretinous lot I was hanging with at the Pi Lam Human Barbeques...

[moosnsqrl]

On the way to a dinner party last night I realized that just a week ago we were sitting at the cocktail bar at OH, enjoying Katie's company and libations and some wonderful oysters. We both got a little misty and toyed briefly with the idea of driving instead to the airport and coming up for another round, but figured our friends who spent the day cooking would be mad. Sigh.

I thought Nick was going to eat every cracker in the joint - turns out he'd never had "real" ones before (I've neglected his education, apparently). When he saw David sitting at the bar dipping them in horseradish it was (literally) Katie bar the door. I hope I got him out of there before there was a serious shortage.

I love the 'old school' oyster house vibe, decor and service. And the family who owns it [again] were very enjoyable to visit with. It's obvious that they belong in the restaurant business - they just have that ability to make you feel welcome and special that can't be trained (or beaten into) restaurant staff.

And I just read back up-thread about your bloody marys. Damn! My favorite thing about tomato season is a great bloody mary with real tomato juice. Incomparable. It's a good thing I didn't know about them at the time, but I'll be baaack.

[Chufi]

I can´t seem to find info on opening hours..

any chance OH is open on September 7 and or September 8? I´ll be in Philadelphia on those dates and would love some oysters and a Katie-cocktail

[KatieLoeb]

Klary:

Open both days - it's a Monday and Tuesday, so no problem. I will likely be working Monday evening, but I'll know better closer to that date what my exact schedule is that week. Would be delighted to have you at the bar.

Open at 11:30AM for lunch until 2:30PM. Mid-day limited menu from 2:30-5PM. Dinner from 5PM-11PM. Oyster available all day...

[Rich Pawlak]

Finally got to slip into the place yesterday (alas, no Katie!), and was able to squeeze in a new classic Philly fishhouse lunch: fried oysters and chicken salad, with a glass of Yards Brawler.

And it was superb, the oysters juicy and judiciously breaded, the coating virtually crackled under the times of my fork. The chicken salad was nicely turned out, with really flavorful chicken. It was just a terrific combo. The Yards Brawler was the perfect beer with this dish, robust and malty with a wisp of hop character to remind you it was a Yards. And a low alcohol session beer, especially helpful for lunch, and with a 50 mile drive ahead of me.

The place was evern more handsome than pictures have previously shown; the oyster plates displayed on the whitewashed brick walls are just stunning, and the rest of the place is just open and inviting, a great re-do of the space. Lots of happy oyster eaters dined alongside me at the bar. All the oysters looked gorgeous.

More on my blog, The Omnivore, including pictures, soon.

[asb165]

Stopped in to the Oyster House for "buck-a-shuck" on Friday at 5:15 and the place was packed. I've been in a few times, once for lunch and the other times for happy hour, and I love the food and the vibe.

I'm a big fan of the Oyster House Punch, and I had a really nice Bluecoat gimlet, but I'm disappointed that the happy hour has cut out drink specials. I asked and was told that people were taking their happy hour drinks to their dinner tables. It only slows down my boozing a little bit, but every dollar counts!

To that end, I wouldn't mind seeing the Buck-a-shuck start at 4:00!

[MarketStEl]

Joining the party late:

Katie, you may recall that I stopped in with two fellow PGMC board members in tow not long after the official opening, on the fourth Wednesday in June, after we had offically given our concert season a grand sendoff that included a dunk in the pool for me and my cell phone. (That occurred the Saturday prior to when you saw me.)

Patrick Hagerty and I are a little miffed, for we returned as we said we would the following Friday to see you, only you weren't there. It's all good, though, as we had ourselves libations -- I tried the Blonde Caesar before switching to beer; it was quite tasty -- and then decided to try the oyster of the day special. I think that day's featured oyster was the Bluepoint.

We each ordered six oysters. Twelve dollars and not much more than that many seconds later, we found ourselves staring at six empty shells and saying, "Those were delicious."

"Should we have more?" I asked.

"I don't know. Maybe we should save our money for something more substantial before trivia night," said Patrick.

He paused. We looked at the plates, then at each other.

"Aw, hell, let's order more," Patrick said.

Twelve more dollars and maybe half as many minutes later, we found ourselves staring at six empty shells and saying, "These could be addictive."

We will return. We hope you will be behind the bar, Katie. I'm taking on more freelance work so I can afford to clear you all out of your oysters of the day.

[KatieLoeb]

Rich and Sandy:

Sorry to have missed you both. I've been on my annual sojourn to New Orleans in search of greater cocktail knowledge at Tales of the Cocktail. I've returned refreshed (but only after nightmarishly getting stranded in Atlanta overnight both going and coming) and with a head full of new and interesting ideas, as well as a large box of new products winging their way to my home in the hands of FedEx as I type this. There's cool stuff in the near future. I'm back to work tomorrow and ready to start playing with all my new toys/ideas.

I'm delighted you both enjoyed yourselves. The $1 oysters really are pretty easy to eat. You aren't the only one that's meant to leave and been unable to resist the siren's call of "just one more half dozen".

I'm not certain about my schedule for next week and thereafter, but you can always PM me in advance and I can let you know if I'm working a particular shift or not.

Hope to see you both again soon!

[serpentine]

Some things have changed though, and I am not totally adjusting. I will go to my grave calling the place the Samson Street Oyster House.

Ditto.

[Alchemist]

Was at The Oyster House a couple of days ago and had a wonderful time. The Pimms and Ginger was just the thing coming out of the heat. Then a Gimlet with house-made lime cordial. Half a doz. Royal Miyagi, Lobster Roll and a Lobster Hush Puppie. Seriously, about as good as an afternoon can be.

Toby

[Kent Wang]

Some photos on my Flickr.

The Royal Miyagi oysters really blew my mind. They taste like cucumber at first and then it changes to melon. The flavor lingers for a very long time.

[RonV]

I've been gone from Philly for about 18 months now, but find I still keep up better with the Center City food scene than I do New York's even though I live here now. I happened to be in Philly last Thursday for work and immediately started thinking out my eating plan for the day. There's so many ways to go, but when I walked out for a late lunch, I made a bee-line to Oyster House. Aside from the gorgeous space (I still had the Sansom St. Oyster House in my mind), it felt like Sansom as a whole had been cleaned up, less cluttered and less "alley" than a couple years ago.

I've always tended toward clams when at a rawbar, but the waiter was so good at delivering the oyster spiel I really wanted to taste these different flavors he was mentioning. I had some east coast for brine (I want to say something from Cape Cod, but I forget exactly which), some from west coast to see if it really did have a cucumber flavor, and a few from NJ since they were $1 each. Wow, I'm sold on oysters. At least good ones. I guess I've always had inferior oysters, because I've just never gotten the sense there was much to them beyond some goo floating in a pretty tasteless liquid (the most forgettable being a batch from Oceanaire). As a safety net, I also got 6 cherrystone clams, but really wished I had 6 more oysters -- hell, 12 more oysters. While the west coast oysters were interesting with such a different flavor, I actually liked the NJ version the best.

As great and eye-opening as the oysters were, I was most excited to taste my first Katie cocktail, a bourbon old fashioned. I'd seen a couple commercials for Mad Men earlier in the day and felt like an old-time cocktail would be cool. While I enjoyed sitting at the shucking bar, I'd have preferred to sit at the actual bar, and thought I had requested that when I walked in, but the hostess and I must have gotten our wires crossed. It's probably for the best, since I'd have worked my way across the cocktail list and needed to get back to work for another couple hours.

Like a truly loyal Moriarty's regular (must have eaten more after-work meals here than anywhere else in PHL combined in my 3 years in town), I ended up at the bar after work for an order of wings and way too many beers.

Like I needed any more reasons to miss the city, with all the great (yet oh-so-friendly) places to eat, add The Oyster House to the list. The good news is, the project I'm working on should mean several more trips in the coming weeks and months!

[MarketStEl]

RonV: You wouldn't happen to be the former editor of the Philly edition of Metro, would you?

If so, it's a bit of a shame the parent company is editing the local papers by remote control from New York. However, kudos are due you for your Newspaper of the Year Award this year. I've been impressed at how the paper zigs where the established duo zag (and loved your local primary election headline: "If you don't care, why should we?") and at how the paper has figured out a way to go deep on subjects while remaining true to its short-attention-span story length standards by doing multiple pieces on a subject.

Back to food: You already saw my comments about the oysters. I invite you to go over to Philadelphia Speaks and check out the topic in Food and Drink about our July happy hour at the Oyster House. Seems everyone ate all the lobster rolls before I arrived - I had to settle for lobster hush puppies that tasted too much of fritter and not enough of lobster for my liking - and everyone absolutely loved them.

However, once again, no Katie, just her cocktails. They taste good still, but it's not the same without her. (I had a house punch for starters, then switched to Dock Street Summer Session, the best summer brew I've ever had - like drinking malt lemonade, and I don't mean Mike's.)

[KatieLoeb]

And I've missed you yet again. Seems to defy statistical probability. I worked lunch today and was out at about 5:15PM. Sorry!

I know the punch was good because I taste tested the big batch this morning before stocking up the bar with it. I hope you enjoyed it. And thanks for missing me. It's nice to know my presence makes it all taste better...

[RonV]

RonV: You wouldn't happen to be the former editor of the Philly edition of Metro, would you?

If so, it's a bit of a shame the parent company is editing the local papers by remote control from New York.  However, kudos are due you for your Newspaper of the Year Award this year.  I've been impressed at how the paper zigs where the established duo zag (and loved your local primary election headline: "If you don't care, why should we?") and at how the paper has figured out a way to go deep on subjects while remaining true to its short-attention-span story length standards by doing multiple pieces on a subject.

That's me. I appreciate your thoughts and it's certainly nice to hear feedback from people who read the paper regularly, especially when you're pointing out the sorts of things we're constantly trying to do. I think my staff's sick of hearing me say things like "zig while everyone else zags" and I was especially happy that the Philly guys came up with the "If you don't care, why should we" concept (I showed your post to someone in the office and he asked if I wrote it myself). While I know why you'd have concerns about moving some of the newsroom functions out of the city, you can be assured that most of the decision making remains right there on South 15th Street. Most of the duties that shifted were logistical, but we maintain reporters and editors in each of our cities. Plus, looking around the Metro US newsroom (located in NY), more than half the staff has worked in Philadelphia at one time or another. Sorry to have this conversation on a food forum, but I'd love to hear more of your thoughts, so don't hesitate to shoot me a PM or email.

As for Oyster House, even though it's been a couple weeks, I can't stop thinking of that raw bar. Can't wait to get back.

[lfabio2007]

Look what I found:
http://foobooz.com/2...ve-is-a-winner/
Good job Katie! We really must make it over!

[KatieLoeb]

Thanks Luigi! I hope to add the cocktail to the menu shortly. Meanwhile I'm amazed at how quickly news travels. Apparently, the results were Twittered shortly after the contest last night and I had a mountain of congratulatory emails and phone messages by the time I got home. Awesome!

Edited by KatieLoeb, 29 July 2009 - 12:24 PM.

[mattohara]

Congrats Katie! Can't wait to try it.

[KatieLoeb]

YAY! We got a really nice review from Trey Popp today in the City Paper.

Mink Dynasty

Even the Oyster House Punch got a mention. Awesome...

[MarketStEl]

YAY!  We got a really nice review from Trey Popp today in the City Paper.

Mink Dynasty

Even the Oyster House Punch got a mention.  Awesome...

Nice writeup there!