philadining

In case anyone is saddened by the definitive end to summer signaled by the recent cold snap, think of the upside: the candele with wild boar ragu is back! Also (attn:Karen) a perfectly roasted half a duck, with concord grapes and cabbage. It's not a huge portion, but really excellently executed, just a hint of fatty richness remaining between the crisp skin and tender meat. And a "Cotto" pizza, double-crusted, stuffed with house-cured ham, gruyere cheese and spinach. Gruyere?!?! Not sure what that cheese is doing there, but I don't care, it was delicious. It's a bit more like a thin calzone, or maybe a super crunchy crêpe, than a pizza, but labels are beside the point. It's good.

I'm not boycotting or anything, but I haven't been to any Starr restaurants in a while... Interesting phenomenon. I was about to say that it's because the food hasn't really changed much, but A) I'm not sure that's true, and B) many places I do go to haven't changed much. With the caveat that it's been some time since I've been to most of them, I've usually had pretty decent food at most of the Starr places. But many of the chefs have changed since I was last there. Striped Bass was good within the last year, but my last visit was before the current chef was in place. I actually always liked Pod, but I was last there some time ago, before the chef moved to Buddakan NY. I've had really good food, and liked the vibe at Tangerine, but similarly, the chef and menu have changed. I unexpectedly found myself at Jones several months ago, and was not thrilled. I had liked the chicken, as Siouxie had mentioned, and a few other homey classics back when they first opened, but this time, everything was very blah. I had liked the diner food with upscale execution, but I was not so pleased with the diner food with diner execution, at Starr prices. Haven't been to Morimoto since the NY restaurant opened... There are rumors of menu or concept changes at a couple of places, and with new openings in the old Blue Angel space, and of the bistro concept on Rittenhouse park, maybe there'll be some fresh excitement. But the lack of recent buzz hasn't seemed to hurt, every place looks busy to me whenever I pass.

In Craig LaBan's chat on Philly.com he said that Matt and Sonja are gone already. That said, it's all the same kitchen crew otherwise, so I expect the food will be pretty much the same. And the porky menu looks awesome...

I've been there with people that don't like sushi, there's plenty more that that on the menu. The rock shrimp tempura, the chicken ramen, the (roasted) black cod miso, are all very popular there, and there's lots more. I doubt they'd have a problem with only one person having the omakase, I think they could handle it.

just gotta say I can't argue with anything on Katie or Rich's lists!

There's an Asian grocery in the Marchwood Shopping Center in Exton, just off of rt 100, down behind the Exton diner. It's small, but has some good stuff. There's a good Indian grocery almost next door too.

I can't speak authoritatively for Katie, her schedule may change from time to time, but she's usually not there on mondays.

I'm not sure I understand the rules: do you want just 5? Do you want one thing from each place? 5 from each place? Anyway, just to get started, I'll do one selection from each place, my top 5 things to eat in chinatown, in no particular order. 1) Roast Pork noodle soup at Sang Kee. 2) Spring Ginger Salad at Rangoon. 3) Three Pepper Chicken at Szechuan Tasty House (although the Double-cooked pork, the braised beef, the golden coins and the cold chicken in spicy sauce are close runners-up. ) 4) Hand-drawn noodles with ground pork at Nan Zhou 5) Barbecue platter at Vietnam that's if we're sticking to five...

And for $12.99, they have a Jackson-Triggs Vidal Icewine 187ml, code 10231. An easier casual expense. The couple of Vidal dessert wines I've tried have generally been lower in acidity than Rieslings. How do others' experiences compare? ← I think you're generally right, although that other (un-oaked) Inniskillin Vidal was really nicely balanced. I grabbed one of those Jackson Triggs too, perhaps we'll need to do an Icy Vidal tasting...

Katie Loeb hooked me on this stuff in simple wine spritzers, and just as I was dreading the annoyance of trying to find it, I discovered that the Pennsylvania State Liquor stores have it on-sale for $25. Every once in a while you gotta love those monopolies... Experimentation shall commence, thanks for the ideas!

Sorry to jump in, but those look like Louise Bourgeois spiders. Oh, and yet another great travelogue Peter...

Many of us have fallen in love with St Germain Elderflower Liqueur thanks to our resident bartendrix pouring it over at Chick's. The weather is getting a little cold for those white-wine spritzers, but I could imagine still enjoying this in various contexts. I was dreading navigating the SLO process to get a bottle or two, but figured 'd suck it up and do it one of these days. Imagine my surprise when I not only found it on the shelf at a State Store, but also a Chairman's Selection! $25 for 750ml, down from 30-something... Also, there's yet another Inniskillin Vidal Ice wine, $25 for a 187ml. I haven't tried this one yet, but the one they were running a few months ago for $30 was awesome. This one is "Gold" 2004, oak-aged. We'll see...

Oh, almost forgot: Han said they're adding Hot Pots to the menu soon...

We had the Pif menu served out in the main room, but we had a large-ish party, so it might have been a table-geometry issue. As we came in, they had both menus out, and you could just tell them that you wanted to do the Pif menu or the Ansill menu. No mixing of the two, for now at least. I didn't notice any French music, but there could have been some in the back room...

Empress Garden 108 N 10TH St (just north of Arch) Philadelphia, PA 19107-2301 Phone: (215) 592-0739 In searching for regional Chinese food in the Philly area, we'd heard that Empress Garden served traditional Taiwanese dishes. Props to the Chowhounders who'd checked it out, and recommended some dishes. I've passed this place many times, it doesn't look like much from the outside, and even looking at a menu, there's little indication of anything special here, unless you read Chinese. Big thanks to DaveF for doing some scouting and internet research, and to Diann for mad Mandarin skillz: between the two of them, and a very friendly and helpful waitress, we managed to get some really excellent food, mostly dishes you don't see at too many places. We're not entirely sure of the correct names for all of them, the Taiwanese dishes are not on the main menu written in English, they're on the back panel, in Chinese characters. But we'll give you the names as best we know them, and if you explain that you want real Taiwanese food and perhaps describe the dishes, I think you'll get what you want! Our server was really nice, and very patient with our flailing around. Scallion Pancake OK, maybe this is not so unique to this place, but it was excellent, served with a light vinegar dipping sauce. Beef Noodle Soup The noodles had a great texture, the broth a little spice, the meat was tender and flavorful. I'm so coming back for a bowl of this for myself once it gets colder... Three-Cup Chicken It's named for the recipe: a cup of rice wine, a cup of sesame oil and a cup of soy sauce, but there's plenty of garlic and ginger in there too, and a bit of sugar, I'd guess. This preparation in a casserole is a little different than the version we had at Han Dynasty, but it was equally tasty. Fried Pork Chops These had a light, crispy coating on them, almost as if they were pork chop tempura. They were very juicy and porky tasting - definitely a favorite. Pork Fried Rice Shut up, it's good! Snow Pea Greens These are becoming a little easier to find in Chinatown, but we still get excited when we find them, and these were nicely done. more greens... I'm not sure we could remember the real name for this - it's sometimes called "hollow heart" or something? Really good, a little crunchy. Dry Fried Green Beans These are not uncommon around town, but not always as good as these were. Pork and Pressed Tofu (?) This was fairly subtle, but I liked it, the texture of the firm tofu was really pleasing. Lion's Head Meatballs Let's not start any fights here, we'll grant that these come originally from Shanghai, but it seems that the Taiwanese have adopted them, and we're happy to get them from anybody. The ones at Han Dynasty are a little lighter and fluffier, but these were not bad at all. The dish had some onion and cellophane noodles underneath the meatballs, which were a good accompaniment. Seven of us just about finished that off, and the bill came to under a hundred bucks before tip. Big thanks to everybody for coming, having a decent-sized group made a difference! And thanks to both Dave and Diann for getting the ball rolling, to Diann for handling the ordering, to David and Rae for the Lambics. Really good stuff.

Formerly "Verge" - if that helps, it was there for a minute and a half. East Falls, East River Drive and Midvale?

The most important tip I can give you is to just ask for Han, tell him you're interested in traditional dishes, or specifically Taiwanese, or whatever, and he'll steer you well. Of course if you've got Mr and Mrs SaxChik with you, you've already got good guides. The second most important tip I can give you is to bring beer! You MUST have the Taiwanese sausage, and apparently it's a typical snack with beer, and the combo really does create a nice synergy. Enjoy, and please let us know what you had!

OK, my dining companions are pretending to be busy with work - leaving it to me to say it: Dinner was good, but not quite as Piftastic as we were anticipating. I think we might even have been thrilled with this meal somewhere else, but it seemed to be missing some of that Pif magic we'd come to expect. Mussels were very good, if not especially noteworthy. I'm told the bowl at the other end of the table was not all that hot, but the ones we had were fine on that account. I liked them, I'd get them again. The escargots were pleasingly tender, and roasted garlic and hazelnuts are always good accompaniments, but the sauce was a shadow of its former self, nowhere near as dark, intense and Perdod-y as the Pif classic. Pumpkin Ginger soup was quite tasty, the broth mined with a tiny dice of apple, a dollop of creme fraiche in the middle. It was thinner than most pumpkin or squash soups one sees, but I was OK with that. The salad didn't have a whole lot of duck on it, but was pretty similar to a version we got in the final weeks of Pif. I think a few at our table were expecting a whole duck leg from the description of "Mixed greens with Duck Leg Confit" but it was in fact shreds of meat mingled in the salad. Still, pretty tasty. I liked the grilled flavor of the porkchops, and the herby beans they sat on. They stayed surprisingly moist, given that they were very thin. But having had some big, thick juicy porkchops recently, they seemed a little austere... The quails were absolutely delicious. I was about to complain that mine were a little over-done, but you know, it didn't seem to impact them much, they were still tender and juicy, and I loved the port sauce. I only took a taste of the sweetbreads, and that bite was really quite nice, a crispy, charred corner, with a creamy interior. But someone else with a whole plate of them seemed less happy, but I'll let him explain, if he so chooses. So, again, not really bad but the flavors were not quite as vivid and enthralling as we would often experience at Pif. But then: an interesting turnaround - desserts were very strong. The Chocolate Fondant was crazy intense, yet not overly dense, almost light in texture, but ultra-chocolatey. Very nice. The chestnut mousse was airy, as one would hope, and had a very nice, not-too-sweet nutty flavor. I liked toggling between that mousse and the chocolate... The Financier had a great texture, and again, not-too-sweet. We're not entirely sure why the creme anglaise was green, I don't think we specifically noticed any pistachio, or herb flavors, but it was tasty, so who cares? All in all, it was a good meal, and I honestly wouldn't hesitate to go back, but it didn't quite knock us out of our seats like we were hoping. Two at our table had liked Pif night much more the week before, so maybe something just wasn't quite clicking on our night. Or had we over-romanticised our earlier experiences? Were we hoping for too much? I don't know... All I do know is that afterward, someone in our party felt an overwhelming desire for Royal Tavern french fries, and it didn't take a lot of arm twisting to get company! Fries were awesome...

Late night at work, got some take-out during a break: Taiwanese Sausage (of course...) OK, I might have eaten a couple of pieces in the car before snapping the pic. Let's see YOU resist that smell. I think I was just being paranoid, but I kept getting the feeling that either Percyn or SaxChik were pursuing my car, and were going to carjack me at a stoplight, just to steal my sausage. Tried something new on Han's recommendation: Lamb in Dry Pot Tender slices of lamb, onion, mushroom, LOTS of chile. Seriously spicy, but delicious. I'd definitely get this again.

Why do all these dinners keep happening on bad days for me? I'm starting to suspect a conspiracy! Michael Klein reports over at the Food and Drinq Blog that former M chef David Katz is doing a guest chef stint at Little Fish on Thursday. (ETA: that's thursday 10/18/07) Menu looks good: There's more info on that blog post, or call the restaurant: 215-413-3464 Really wish I could be there.

Hit Pif night, and toward the end, Chef Ansill dropped by the table and noticing the camera, insisted that the spirit of his food could best be communicated in Black and White. So, OK, I can play along... eaaaggh!!! Sorry, I think we might have to stick with color... Mussels Escargots Pumpkin Ginger Soup Mixed Greens with Duck Leg Confit Porkchops Quail Sweetbreads --- Chocolate Fondant Financier Chestnut Mousse

The Marzella's crust is nothing special, and they just have the standard deck ovens, but there's something about the whole package that works for me. The sausage and green pepper pizza always had a nice balance, but there was also something appealing about the tiny meatballs they put on their pizzas. One odd thing I noticed: if you get your pizza directly out of the oven, you need to be REALLY careful to keep it level for a little while, there's something about their sauce/cheese matrix that would send the toppings completely off the side of the pie if you tipped it even an eighth of a degree. (Yes, I carry a protractor and a plumb bob just for these occasions.) If it had set for just a couple minutes, still hot, it was fine. I suspect there are some weird anti-gravitation devices being tested at Ursinus, or perhaps we can blame the pharmaceutical companies.

Yeah, with 6 or 7 people, I'd suggest doing exactly what we did! If I were to return with that size group, I'd once again get one of everything, rather than ordering 3 lamb shanks or something.

The duck was very tasty, and the intense reduction it sat in was great. If I were to nit-pick, the beans and beans (stewed white beans and haricots verts) that accompanied were kind of blah, and the fat on the duck was a little thicker and less-rendered-down than I prefer (and I have no fear of duck fat!) Still, flavor was great, and there was none left on the plate at the end of the meal! I can't quite put my finger on what was up with the steak frites. There was nothing technically wrong: it was skillfully-cooked, as you can see from the photo, it had a nice char, yet remained a juicy medium-rare. But it just wasn't all that beefy-tasting. I suspect it might be the particular cut of meat, or who knows, maybe just the one we got that day, but it was just not super-flavorful. I might be over-romaticizing the steak frites at the Blue Angel, but there was something about that hanger steak, with a bit of reduced sauce underneath and herby butter on top, that remains a standard not many have met. That said, I was musing about this on the ride home with a friend, and he said that he really liked the steak last night. So there you go. The pork chop was a little dry, but even so, pretty enjoyable, and that celery root/fennel hash (with bacon) is really great. There was a little debate at the table about the mussels. I quite liked them, thought the sauce was good and loved the toasted bread with aoli. I think someone at the table preferred larger mussels (not me!) and thought the sauce was merely good, but I thought these were a very good version. The onion soup was good - appropriately cheesey with appropriate cheese. It's not quite as intense as some I've had, but it's a perfectly credible version of that bistro standard. The only real down-side is that there wasn't a whole lot of actual soup, most of the broth had soaked up into the substantial crouton. I've had it like that in Paris, and it's not bad at all, but in a perfect world, I could go for a little more un-bound broth. Escargots were clean and tender, no grit! Good intense sauce, perfect for soaking up with bread. Chicken livers were once again a controversial item. I think everyone agreed that they were good, but just a bit too intense as they are. Someone proposed serving maybe just 3 or 4 of them, each served on a little toast or something. Probably need some sort of accompaniment to mitigate the strong flavors of the livers and the sauce. We found ourselves not being able to finish it, even though it was good. The Black Bass and the Scallops kept coming up as favorites, and we hypothesized that it's partly because they are bright, light dishes among the stronger, heartier offerings. Of course it could just be because they're really delicious. The pork shoulder and lamb shank really stand out on the other end of the spectrum, as solid, homey, warming dishes. But most importantly, despite any whining and monday-morning-quarterbacking, everything we had was solid, any of it could make a satisfying meal on any given day. As Diann mentioned, desserts are still a work-in-progress. The creme brulee was a very good example of that standard, the other two offerings (a carrot cake and a black-and-white cake, both from Pink Rose) were OK, but not a thrill. Our waiter used the phrase "for now" when explaining that the cakes were from outside, so presumably, there will be more made in-house eventually. Again, any of our complaints or suggestions are minor points, overall this was a very satisfying meal, I think any of us would go back and not order too differently.

What? You need proof?!? Seared Scallops with Frisée, Lardons, Roasted Peppers, Fingerlings, Lemon-Thyme Vinaigrette Haricots Verts Salad w toasted Almonds, Shallots, Tomato, Mustard-Vinaigrette Mussels w Tomato-Leek Saffron Broth, Grilled Baguette Escargots w Shitake Mushrooms, Tomato Concassé, Pernod Garic Butter Sauce Onion Soup Crispy Chicken Livers w Balsamic Vinegar, Candied Walnuts, Raisins Duck Breast w White Bean Ragoût, Hericots Verts Steak Frites w Red Wine Sauce and Aoli. Japanese Black Bass over Sweet Pea Risotto, Saffron Buerre Blanc Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder over Lentils du Puy, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Poached Egg Braised Lamb Shank with Ritabaga, Fingerlings, Crimini Mushrooms Grilled Pork Chop w Celery Root - Fennel Hash, Juniper Oil Crême Brulée Details to follow, and hopefully my dining partners will chime in, but the short version is that the food was again very good, and both kitchen and front-of-house are amazingly together for only being open a few days. Looking forward to when they add specials, and eventually, we were told, a tasting menu. But we'll let them get settled before pushing for those!