philadining

We hit the Royal the other night because it was about 100 degrees below zero, and we heard they had hot rum apple cider. Indeed they did, and it saved our lives. But I couldn't help thinking of the above-quoted post, it was a random sunday night, but the board was full of specials. Someone in our party wanted the meatloaf sandwich. I grabbed a bite, and I gotta say, I can't see the spam comment... It was a very tasty sandwich, and not at all spammy in taste or texture. Most of us were there just to grab a warming drink, so we didn't eat much else, but the fries that came with the sandwich were awesome, as they usually are. And the "Thai Meatballs" were pretty good too, a little spicy, in a coconut milk curry sauce. The chocolate layer cake was really delicious, somewhat shocking to me because, despite its seeming buttercreaminess, it was vegan. So while I'll accept that cinghiale could have had a bad experience, I wouldn't give up on the food yet...

It's always interesting, as Capaneus says, strokes and folks... not to mention that there's unavoidable small variation in the raw materials, in the exact timing of cooking and delivery, and most influential, one's expectations. I actually understand what Buckethead wrote, to some degree I too was expecting fireworks on every plate, and I didn't quite get that. But I did enjoy all the food quite a lot. As for value, let's remember that it was $150 ALL-IN, for 7 courses including 7 glasses of wine, tax and tip. If you break it down, that's not especially expensive for serious food. And the varying reactions are fascinating. I loved the "bad chestnut" (or as Vetri explained to us: "naughty chestnut") cake. It was unlike anything I've ever tasted. Jael, thanks for reminding me about the ricotta foam, it and the honey made the whole package pretty close to mind-blowing. Unless you hated it. And I suspect the range of reviews on the sweetbreads reflects personal preference as much as any variation in execution. Personally, I got them exactly like I like them: a little crusty, but still this side of crispy. Others are disappointed if they don't crunch. My veal cheek was very well-seasoned. And I'll agree with the wine-match plaudits. I'm with Capaneus: the Friulano and the Negroamaro were especially good. I liked the beer with the pasta, although I didn't find the two together to be especially transformative. The Pinot Noir was perfectly fine with the eel, and an interesting wine in and of itself, but the two together weren't a huge thrill. But I actually did find all the other pairings to be pretty exciting, and enjoyed the wines on their own merits. As I said before, I quite liked the food itself, but add-in the wines and the informative commentary from Mr. Benjamin, and for me at least, the dinner was an excellent value.

Thanks Percy, but no, I haven't gotten quite obsessive enough to carry around my own lighting. Well, not everywhere... A while ago I was coincidentally seated next to a little alcove near the bar, and I noticed that it had a shelf and some back-lit glass, that while still a little dim, did act a bit like a light box, providing diffuse light from a pleasing angle. I'll admit, it's a little neurotic, but I've gotten in the habit of dragging my plates into that alcove and shooting them. The light in the dining room is just not all that good for photos, and it's just a lucky coincidence that there's a convenient alternative. Jonathan Makar is used to me now, but I suspect Vetri and Benjamin think I'm a little weird. I was hoping the pictures would spur someone else to post about the meal, I'm getting self-conscious about making every third post in this topic! The short version is that I thought the food was really delicious, and different enough from the usual Vetri style that this specific event was especially interesting. The snackbar-isms that crept in really worked well: the pepper jelly spheres in the pasta were surprising in a good way, the foam on the arancini was just right, the celery in the porchetta dish benefitted from some cold sous-vide vacuum treatment, at least I think that's what made it so intriguing. I liked all the wines (and one beer) and for the most part the matches were very good. Big thanks to Jeff Benjamin for digging up some interesting selections. His descriptions of the wines with each course added a lot. There's a little more play-by-play on my blog (although the photos are acting weird over there... ) Thanks yet again to both Jonathans at snackbar for making it happen, and to Marc Vetri and Jeff Benjamin for devoting the time to it, I'm sure they're pretty busy with other stuff!

snackbar. february 4 2008. guest chef: marc vetri crispy rice ball. frothy parmesan emulsion. porchetta. charred treviso. arugula. celery in forms. squid ink spaghettini. calamari. hot tomato jelly. braised eel. chanterelle ragu. winter greens. pomelo campari sorbetto veal cheeks/sweetbreads. bone marrow gremolata. saffron artichokes. 'castagnaccio'. chestnut cake. ricotta foam. honeycomb. chocolate-olive oil macaroons. orange cynar marshmallows.

Yes!

Did you have the pork chop on rice?

That smoked fish is actually a little hard to describe, because as I list details, it sounds worse than it is! It's pretty dry. It's boney. Several of the chunks were pieces of fish head. It has an assertively fishy flavor, along with the smoke. So it's kind of a fish jerky. Although that doesn't sound all that attractive, and it was not a favorite at the table, a few of our party did really like it, and I liked it much more than I thought I would. There's a slight sweet-salty overtone to it that melds with the smoke in an attractive way. It makes me think it would be a good snack with beer. So, no, it ain't lox!

The magazine's website here>> has some explanation of the process in the intro before the list, including a podcast where April White and Ashley Primis discuss some of the criteria, and challenges. The website doesn't currently include full write-ups for each restaurant that are in the print version, ya gotta buy the magazine for that!

Brunch is good. By way of proof, I will offer this: Really excellent homemade biscuits, creamy gravy studded with sausage, perfectly-poached eggs. The sausage is Italian, which seems odd, but it works... more pics>> Also, Lari Robling reviews the place in the Daily News. I don't think I follow her main argument, that the food has "too much going on," but she offers descriptions of a few dishes that sound pretty good.

Saw an ad for the Dosa Hut and Chat House in a flier, and couldn't resist checking it out. It's at 2864 Ridge Pike, which, depending on where you look, might be considered Collegeville, Trooper or Norristown. It's just a stone's throw from the corner of Park Ave and Ridge pike, which strikes me as Trooper, but their own menu says Collegeville. Then again, their menu lists www.dosahutandchathouse.com as their website, and it's not there, at least not yet! But none of that matters, what does is that the dosas are really good. Or at least the one I had was. This is a Mysore Masala Dosa, which was actually not super-spicy, but had a bit of a kick, and great flavor and texture. They have a good selection of dosas, as well as a good choice of Chat, a few standard curries, and Indo-Chines dishes like Chilli Chicken or Chicken Manchurian (and vegetarian versions as well.) People were super-nice. The place is tiny, with not too many seats, but there are a few tables, and counters looking out over the street. As you can see, it's pretty casual, with styrofoam plates and cups, and cafeteria trays. Hey, it's a dosa hut... I liked it, and want to check out the chat.

We tried one of the special New-Year's dishes: Sichuan Sausage. The chef makes it in-house, and will only have it for a few more weeks, perhaps until late February It was quite delicious, and different from most sausages we've had, a little less-sweet than the Taiwanese sausage they serve as an appetizer. Not that we had that too, that would be crazy. Nope, no Taiwanese sausage with garlic for us... We also had Cold noodles with sesame sauce We ordered Wontons in Chile Oil but I think we got the non-spicy wontons in broth. Given what was coming, this might have been a better idea anyway... Lamb in Dry Pot This is one of my favorite things here, with tender lamb, mushrooms, onions, bamboo shoots, dried peppers and a TON of sichuan peppercorns. There's not really a sauce, but it sizzles pleasingly at the table, over a small burner. Deep Fried Shredded Beef The beef had a good chewy texture, and a slight sweetness, underneath a serious pepper burn. Strangely addictive, I kept grabbing another piece of this long after I was full. Han told us that this was good cold, as a snack with beer. I took some home, so I'll let you know... Whole fish in spicy hot pot Somehow I managed to get several pieces of fish with very few, or no bones, but everyone else at the table seemed to get pieces that were full of them. Once one picked around the bones, the fish had good flavor, and despite the red color, the sauce was not punishingly hot, it just had a background tingle. Bok Choy with black mushrooms Tiny little cabbages in a mild sauce offered a respite from the spice, and a refreshing crunch. The mushrooms were very tasty too. Great stuff as usual. Especially now around New Year's, be sure to ask for recommendations, there may be some great specials that aren't written-down anywhere! I'm getting back there for some more homemade sausage before it goes away!

The contact address is in Conklin, NY, just down the road from Binghamton (and Endicott) so they should at least know how it's done. Now, whether they can execute it away from the source remains to be seen. It might be like making a cheesesteak out of state: not impossible, but tricky!

The odd influx of Upstate NY regional specialties continues, with the imminent opening of The Spiedie Bistro in Phoenixville. They'll be serving the Binghamton, NY delicacy (basically a shish kebab on a bun) along with some more health-food-ish stuff. So at last, we can all stop those frequent drives up to Binghamton for a spiedie fix.

We dropped by late on a saturday, so we sadly missed all the specials, which had sold-out earlier in the evening. (There was choucroute!) So we ended up eating the same things as always, and I have NO complaints. The food was fantastic: noticeably better than on our previous visits, and we'd liked it then! It was way too dark where we were for pictures, and everything looked pretty much the same as above anyway. The escargots were perfect. They finally had the intense, concentrated sauce we'd been hoping for, the tender snails and mushrooms soaking it up. Is it sacrilegious to say they were as good as Pif's? Mussels were very good, not electrifying, but totally satisfying. A very enjoyable spinach salad featured an intense vinaigrette and some sweet fruits. The lamb shank was even more massive than usual, and every bit as delicious. The lentils and a few of the brussels sprouts that accompanied the pork shoulder were a touch underdone, but we forgot all about that because the meat was even more flavorful than other times we had it, with enticing crunchy crusty bits. The duck was really nice, with a nice crisp skin, a whisper of barely-there fat beneath, a side of beans studded with leg meat. The revelation of the night was something we didn't even order. They ran out of the pork chop, so plan B was the steak frites, which we hadn't been that thrilled with on a previous visit. But this one might have been the favorite dish on the table. The medium-rare meat had a serious char, a huge beefy flavor, and sat right at the ideal intersection of tenderness and satisfying chew. Fries were thin, but crisp. Too full for desserts, and pickings are still slim there. We were commenting that the food seems to have improved from an already pretty high plateau. And these dishes are great in the cold weather, so I'm heading back there soon. And hoping for choucroute...

Was there a discount if you were wearing a knit watchcap?

Wow, I really thought I had posted about my visit in this thread, but I guess it was just over here. The short version is that aside from a few quibbles, we generally liked it. The Beef on Wick (BTW, that's what my relatives around Buffalo always called it, not "weck") was very good, with a really nice roll. One of the bartenders confirmed our suspicion that they're made in-house. And ours had salt on it, I think you can see it... Buckethead, how present was horseradish? And damn, we didn't get any biscuits... that sounds good.

We dropped by on New Year's Day, and had overall really good food. The burger was excellent, as were the grilled chicken wings. Hummus was at an appropriate temp. Fries were really good. I tried a couple bites of a pork tenderloin special that was outstanding. Admittedly, we were sitting with one of the owners, but I'm confident we weren't getting better food than anybody else, just looking at other plates going by, and because there were a few minor quirks that made it clear that our ticket didn't have VIP!!! written on it in red marker. I ended up getting the one clunker of the night, one of the weirdest things I've ever eaten: chipped beef, picked eggs, cole slaw and sharp cheese on a bun, with a French-Dip-style jus on the side. The server warned me...but I couldn't resist. It was...odd. So I'm not going to claim that the kitchen is infallible, but the other food was overall pretty darn good. Sorry to hear that cinghiale had a disappointing meal, but I'd just suggest that it might have just been an off-night, rather than a trend of decline. The board was full of specials the day we were in, and I was having a hard time narrowing down what I wanted. I spun the wheel and landed on a loser, but hey, them's the breaks... I managed to steal bites of everyone else's dishes and really liked them all. Of course one always hopes that everything on a menu is excellent every time, but I've never actually found that anywhere. Now that you mention the place, I'm craving the Royal burger. And fries.

Thanks, I could believe that. We've previously accidentally ordered in such a way that we've ended up with polenta under almost everything, even dessert, so I think we just assume it's always polenta. It didn't taste like corn, but it didn't taste like a tuber either, it was just light and creamy and buttery.

I'm willing to entertain the suggestion that that super-creamy stuff was not polenta... but if that's the case, any guesses about what it actually was? Farina? Although we compared it to mashed potatoes, it didn't quite seem like a root vegetable. Whatever it was, it was awesome.

The bigger question is whether to use the Mandarin pronunciation, or the Shanghainese. I know next to nothing about this, but I think it's closer to "Sho Lon Bo" in Shanghainese.

I missed this interchange at our sunday excursion, but there's some linguistic subtlety that could lead to some confusion: apparently the folks at Dim Sum Garden don't call them "Soup Dumplings" so ask for Xiao Long Bao, or just the first thing on the menu: the Shanghai Steamed Buns. What gets confusing is that the Shanghai Steamed Vegetable Buns are the big fluffy ones, not soupy... But the Shanghai Steamed buns with pork, or pork and crab, are Xiao Long Bao. There very well may be some other thing that they would call "Soup Dumplings" that they don't serve. There is indeed a culinary distinction between "dumplings" and "buns" even though "buns" might be made with leavened dough, or not, and the ones made with unleavened dough can look dumpling-like. Anyway, don't ask for soup dumplings.

The food being served at Talula's Table is indeed very good, and worthy of some contortions to experience it. Is it worth waiting a year for, waking up at dawn every day and speed-dialing to try to get a reservation? That's impossible to say, there's no way to quantify that. It's the intimacy of the single table, the same thing that's creating the shortage of supply, that's the real attraction, so the demand is always going to outstrip the supply. There's something especially cool about sharing a good meal with friends, passing wine around, being the sole focus of the kitchen and servers. I liked the food at my Talula's Table dinner more than I had liked Django dinners, and I think that's as it should be! Of course, time has passed, one would hope Bryan's only getting better. And this context of a tasting menu format at a single private table is meant to be a more refined, heightened, intense experience than the average night out at a restaurant, even at Django. But all the buzz and out-of-proportion demand distorts what it is, as happened at Django. It's very good food, worthy of respect, but it's not going to change your life. If someone offers a seat, I'd encourage anyone to go. But I wouldn't get all wound-up about not being able to get a reservation, there's plenty of good food to be had... it's not SO transcendent that you should go to crazy extremes trying to book a table. There seems to be something in human nature that kind of likes this scenario though, people pay insane prices for Hannah Montana tickets, camp out at 4am to buy a Wii, whatever... On one level, the oversized demand might work well for them, creating a mystique that's hard to match with any other kind of marketing. It works for Per Se and The French Laundry and El Bulli. But that has a downside too, of people developing unreasonable expectations for what the meal will be. It's good, go if you can, but don't get too bent out of shape if you can't score a reservation. It's just dinner.

As Capaneus posted, these are from Dim Sum Garden, on 11th street, between Filbert and Arch, just east of the Reading Terminal Market, under the overpass, behind a big idling bus, just to the right of that knot of people waiting to get on the bus, to the left of that clot of people just hanging around for no apparent reason... It's not an especially picturesque location. But they have Xiao Long Bao, so all is forgiven! They are indeed good examples, with nice thin tender skins that threaten to tear on their way out of the basket (OK, sometimes they do, if one doesn't break or leak now or then, the skin's obviously too thick.) Dim Sum Garden is not really a good name for the place, it's not a typical dim sum place, not even like Lakeside was. Yes, they have dumplings, a few different kinds, but most of the smallish menu is noodles (with or without soup) or rice platters. Most importantly, so far, everything we've tried has been really good. Shaou Mei (filled with pork and mushrooms, no soup) Shanghai Steamed Vegetable Buns Hand-Drawn Noodles with Duck Hand-Drawn Noodles in Soup, with Chili Pork and Cabbage Pork Chop on Rice (this is WAY better than it looks, better than it has a right to be...) Meatballs I should have put something in there for scale, these are not the huge Lions Head meatballs, these are probably golf-ball sized. Really tasty regardless of their circumference! Smoked Fish Pretty intense: smoky, salty, a little sweet. I was surprised to like this as much as I did, but still, small doses works for me... Seaweed Salad Tricolor Salad (with pressed tofu and shredded vegetables.) The restaurant itself is pretty tiny, and was doing a bustling business on Sunday, so I wouldn't be surprised if they started having waits on weekends. I'd stand in line for any of the food we had, not just the XLB.

Wow! Xiao Long Bao!

Finally made it back after several attempts that seemed to get sidetracked somehow... had a few old faves and a few new items. Lardo Pizza Seems impossible, but we didn't love this. Of course it wasn't terrible: some nice toasty pizza crust with lardo on it can't possibly be a bad thing. It seemed like it needed a little something - more rosemary? More Olive Oil? salt? something... Snails wrapped in pancetta, over polenta didn't need anything. Tender, salty, bacony, fantastic. They do something scary with the polenta up there, in this dish in particular it was ridiculously rich and creamy, we couldn't help thinking of Robuchon's pommes purée... Candele with boar bolgnese might just be the perfect winter dish. If they happen to be roasting a pig and offering it as a special, don't pause, just order it. I've missed the last plate of it more than once by dawdling. It's crispy, juicy, herby, oily, almost overwhelmingly delicious. We had a few other things, all of which were quite good. At the end of the meal we snacked on something I hadn't noticed before on the dessert menu, a plate of petit fours. We were actually entirely too full to appreciate these, but I'd totally get this again as an accompaniment to an espresso, or after-dinner cordial. Maybe sometime that I haven't made a total pig of myself earlier in the meal. Yeah, like that's going to happen...