Buckethead

Even when Horizons was still located in Hatboro or wherever it was, I preferred Blue Sage, and I am a meat-eater. I think it's a better restaurant all-around than Horizons. Not that Horizons is bad, of course, but I do think that the Blue Sage's concentration on what vegetarian food does best (vegetables!!) leads to a better dining experience than Horizons, which tries to approximate meat without meat. They're pretty good at it, but if I want a steak, the most delicious seitan in the world isn't going to fill the kitty. It's definitely worth making an effort to eat at the Blue Sage if you're going to be in the area.

I recently had the best tacos of my life at El Jarrocho, 13th and Ellsworth. They also are a bit slow to bring the check, but as long as they keep me in tacos, I don't care. My wife thought I was exaggerating when I told her how great the tacos were until she had one, after which she said 'There is no reason to go back to La Lupe. Ever.' If I remember correctly, $5 gets you three tacos, your choice of carnitas, chicken, or chorizo. The rest of the menu is hit or miss, though. On a subsequent visit I had some kind of pepper steak type dish with queso fresco on top, the queso had become solid, I had to cut it up with a steak knife in order to get some in each bite. Nothing I've had there since can hold a candle to those tacos, at any rate. We have also heard that they make excellent breakfast, though I haven't verified that yet.

I just had a very good plate (actually more of a round) of fries at nineteen, aka XIX, the bar/restaurant on the top floor of the Bellevue hotel. They have a really pretty bar area up there, too. A little stuffy for my tastes, but the fries were very good. If you can wrangle a seat in one of the areas with a window, you'll have a nice view of the city as well. I think you need to be having dinner at the restaurant part of the place to sit there, though. While the fries were not quite up to the standard of the Black Door, they were at least as good as Rouge.

As much as most of the food at Dave and Buster's sucks, they are onto something with how they serve their nachos. Rather than a pile of chips with the toppings on top, they come as a plate of individual chips, each with their own perfect portion of toppings. No chips are left over without toppings, and no toppings are wasted. When I first got them I thought it was silly, since you couldn't control how much of what was on your chip. Now I think it's much more enjoyable to eat nachos with friends when you aren't also competing with them to get the best stuff on your chip, or trying to make sure they get enough of what they like on theirs.

Uh, I like milkshakes and all, but I think I'd steer clear of one potent and rich enough to stop my heart. Nifty Fifty's makes a pretty good shake, definitely not the best I've ever had but better than the majority of places that serve them. I've had particularly bad shakes at Johnny Rocket's, Franklin Fountain (haven't been there yet this summer, though), and Five Brothers.

Try the Black Door, 2nd and Bainbridge. They make the best fries I've ever had in the city, other than that belgian fry place on South St. that went out of business years ago. Rembrandt's used to make a great fry plate called Tuscan Fries, with romano cheese, balsamic vinegar, and a few other things on it, those were fantastic but they don't serve them anymore (at least not like they used to). I've had fries at the Tap, Rouge, and Monk's to name a few, none of them are as good as the Black Door. Rouge comes closest, but they don't cut them thick enough.

I think you may have better luck separating the space from the food. Most places in South Philly can't accommodate that many people (or won't, because it would preclude them from turning over the tables for the rest of the night), let alone a DJ. Quite a few could certainly cater it for you at a banquet hall or something, though. Of course, I've never arranged for a party that big, so I may be overlooking something.

As this thread seems to be teeming with seafood junkies and aficionados, I was wondering if anyone can offer their opinions on Ippolito's, seafood vendor on Dickinson St. a block east of Broad? I just moved into that area, the place is about a 2 minute walk from my front door. I got a chunk of halibut there a couple weeks ago and cooked it on the grill, it tasted fine to me but I'm new to liking seafood. How do they stack up against other vendors in the city?

Where/what is Yasuda? Well, salmon farmers do add a dye to their fish feed to give them a color more like wild salmon, preventing the casual shopper from making a distinction between the two. But of all the crap they feed to a farm-raised salmon, the dye is probably the least of your worries.

My mistake, I wasn't aware of the rules pertaining to shameless pitching. Usually a smiley face or emoticon of some kind helps the reader know when the poster is saying things in jest. I suppose I should also have put one at the end of my post, so that no one would actually think that Sabrina's has closed. OK then: I went there a few months ago looking for good biscuits, something most breakfast places don't even serve for whatever reason. I suppose it's because toast is a lot easier and most diners don't hold biscuits in as high regard as I do. The place is definitely really cute inside, I love being surrounded by dark wood. We took a table by the windows, which looked like they open upwards to make the place an open-air restaurant in the warmer months. Coffee was good, served in big giant IKEA mugs. I mention the mug because though it was very big, I was still able to empty it and wait around a good 7-8 minutes for a refill. The place wasn't more than half-full, I presume from reading other posts in this thread that they were understaffed. I ordered my eggs over-easy, and like at a lot of places in the city, they came out with watery, undercooked whites. I know from experience that getting an egg perfectly over-easy is not easy, but it's not impossible either. I sent them back and they came back quickly, with just a little of the yolk cooked. As for the biscuits, by my definition they weren't biscuits at all, but fluffy bread in the shape of biscuit. They didn't have the flaky texture you get from cutting butter into the dough. They weren't bad, but not what I was looking to dip in my egg yolks. The potato latke may not have been a traditional latke, I have no idea. It was really tasty though. I only wish I would have started in on it sooner, so that maybe I would have had a chance to finish it. It was huge. Anyway, if I lived in the neighborhood, I would definitely be eating breakfast there on a semi-regular basis. But I don't, and based on my first visit I probably won't bother making a special trip to go there, though I'd go back if I were in the area. The potato latke may be better than Famous 4th Street's potato pancake (no small feat), but as for the rest of the breakfast, it falls short of the Pink Rose (best biscuits!), Sabrina's, and (to a lesser extent) Morning Glory.

Whoa whoa whoa, no one told me that Sabrina's closed!!!

The best gnocchi I've had in the city were at La Viola, on 16th street near Locust, right across the street from Monk's Cafe.

And here I was thinking that everyone made iced coffee that way. That's certainly what I do. The only thing you have to remember is to sweeten it after it's brewed and still hot. Sugar won't dissolve much in cold coffee, especially if you use a big grain sugar like turbinado. You could cook up some simple syrup and keep it handy if you drink iced coffee every day. A little chocolate syrup makes it good, too.

I really, really don't like it when a restaurant appropriates the sidewalk in front of their door for 'outdoor seating'. It is incredible annoying to pedestrians, who have to navigate diners, servers, and other peds. If you're going to have outdoor seating, do it right: a seating area separated from the sidewalk by a little fence or something. Beau Monde has a pretty good area like this, Southwark has a great one: they've converted the building's back yard to outdoor seating, it's open to the sidewalk but it doesn't interfere with the sidewalk in any way. I understand that Gayle also has a patio in the back that should be open now for outdoor dining. Also nice are places that have open facades, with doors across the restaurant's front that open fully to let the outside in, like Paradiso and La Lupe. I think Amada has them too, though I haven't been by there since it's been warm out.

Hi Victor: So would it be safe to say that if a place is not on this list, they didn't have any 'critical violations' during 2005?

I really like the Italian Market Reserve from Anthony's, just south of 9th and Christian. We buy a pound of beans there every week or two. La Colombe is pretty good too, but most restaurants that serve it don't brew it strongly enough for my taste.

There are at least two Primo Hoagies locations in CC: one on 11th a block or two south of Market, one on Chestnut near 21st St. They make some of the best hoagies in the city.

hi Matt: Are you guys less busy now on Mondays and Tuesdays? Last time I walked by one of those nights, it was packed. Has the new restaurant smell worn off? Speaking for my wife and I, we would go there more often if you guys had a BYO night. The wine prices keep Gayle a special occasion place only, at least for us.

Well, it's certainly the most overrated breakfast in the city. I used to think it was great when I lived in the burbs and only came to the city for breakfast rarely, but now that I live here I realize that it's not even the best place in the area, let alone the city. Maybe the place has just changed in that time. The eggs are usually underdone: I like mine over easy, which is supposed to mean that all of the white is cooked, but none of the yolk is. At Morning Glory you have to ask for them over medium, otherwise you get watery whites. Their biscuits are okay, but they're more like unsweetened coffee cakes than biscuits. On those occasions when I tried the fancy french toast or pancakes, I was disappointed as well. One time in particular I got french toast with mango and a few other things on top, the mangoes weren't ripe yet. Ugh. And besides all this, the service is usually slow and hipper-than-thou. If you love eggs and biscuits, go to the Pink Rose, they make the best biscuits I've ever had outside my own kitchen. You won't find a lot of exotic stuff on the menu, but the service is very friendly and attentive. If you want more inventive dishes, go to Sabrina's.

Maybe Tacconelli's should apply the reservation policy gimmick to their toppings, too. The one and only time I went there we were perfectly able to get an extra pizza that we didn't 'reserve', but I had to do without the basil I wanted on top of it. They ran out. Lame.

The new owners should have to suck it up and be reviewed as if it was a different restaurant, because it is. The change in ownership also entailed a change in the executive chef and his wife, the two people who had far more impact than anyone else on the quality of the place. You can't buy a restaurant, keep the name, change the menu and the exec. chef, and expect to keep the 4 bells. And I still don't see how you can say it isn't true when you haven't been back there since the place changed hands, and LaBan has been there (probably) twice.

It's perfectly fair if it's true. I've walked by the place during weekend dinner hours a few times over the past couple of months, and there have been a lot more empty tables than I used to see during Brian and Aimee's tenure. It's obvious from the review that LaBan has been back there once or twice since the place changed hands. I haven't seen anyone in this thread who can say the same (I can't), so I'll have to take his word for it for now <edit: or not, Peter Johnson's post just appeared..> I don't think he thinks he's anonymous these days: didn't he complain loudly to the manager at Barclay Prime (or somewhere) that his wine was overpriced and get a reduction on the bill, then write that up in the review? That's not the behavior of someone who prefers anonymity. I know that some servers who have been in the biz for a while know his face.

The number is correct. I used it and got Ansill. They will not be taking reservations. For last weekend, they were only open Friday and Saturday nights. They eventually plan to be open from 11:00am, seven days a week. I don't know when that will start however. ← I was there again last night and I asked about this, they said they intend to start opening at 11 am in the summer. Right now they open at 5:30. I believe they said they would start opening on Sundays sooner than that though, maybe in the next couple of months? The phone number Dish gave works. In fact, I wasn't able to find the phone number anywhere on the net apart from this thread.

the Continental Midtown is a great place to hang out, they have round tables that would accomodate a group of six very nicely. Tria is also near there, it's a little smaller but if they take reservations they do have a couple of tables big enough for six. Their food is excellent, it's mostly small plates with some sandwiches and salads. Their thing is the trio of products created by fermentation: wine, beer, and cheese. They get their cheese from Murray's in NYC, it's all great. El Vez is decent, but not nearly as good as Lolita, which is practically next door. Lolita is also quite a bit cheaper, and you can bring your own beer, wine or tequila (they sell pitchers of margarita mix). The only problem with Lolita is that they don't take reservations on Saturday nights, and it's not all that big of a place, 5 people may have trouble sitting down. What I usually do in that situation is put my name in at Lolita and head across the street to El Vez for drinks while we wait. Last time I was there the hostess from Lolita offered to call my cell when our table was ready. All four of these places are within 5 blocks of each other. I wouldn't say any of them are vegetarian places, but all of them have something on the menu that would be vegetarian friendly, especially Tria.

No reservations. I just got back, it was one of the best meals I've had in a while. I'd say the menu qualifies as mainly tapas, with some larger plates (none of which I had), most of which are meatatarian. There are lots of small plates broken down by main ingredients: cured meats, veggies, cheese, crostinis, etc. We went at 7:30 this evening (Friday), there was hardly anyone there when we arrived but it was almost full when we left, and believe me that word will get around very quickly. If you want to try it out, go early in the evening this weekend. I anticipate the same thing will happen here as happened at Gayle when they opened: you could go without much trouble the first few days they were open, then they're full for months. Some highlights from the menu: Foie gras and eggs (some bird other than a chicken I think, they were small) with truffle: served in a round dish looking a lot like breakfast, with toasty bread for assembling a little sandwich. Fingerling potatoes with bacon and fried onions: Wowee. You can't go wrong with bacon, but I was still surprised at how good this was. Duck prosciutto: Not duck breast wrapped in prosciutto as I thought, but actually duck meat cured and sliced like prosciutto. Unfortunately there wasn't much of it on the plate, but it was only 3 bucks. If you like it, get another. The beers were a little overpriced, but the selection is good: Corsendonk and Saison Dupont were on tap, among others, with another dozen or so available by the bottle. The wines were more reasonable, and I was particularly impressed with the house red, a Shiraz that only runs $15 for a 12 oz. carafe. Anyway, go. I've been to Pif a couple of times, and I think Ansill is better. Our server told us that they intend (at some indeterminate future date) to be open from 11 am to 11 pm, with the same menu for the entire time, so if you're not able to get there for dinner, you may want to try lunch instead. I don't know when they plan to start that schedule, though.