philadining

I'll have to agree largely with Jason, I stumbled across Five Guys last night after a Trader Joe's run, and was curious. My burger wasn't completely dried-out, and actually tasted pretty good, but it would have been better cooked a touch less. But it really was a big mess, the double-patty thing, the fairly thick roll, and the generous hand with both cheese and condiments made it very difficult to eat without making a total mess. Also, for some odd reason, they insist on wrapping everything up, even if you're eating there, so it gets all mushed-together even if you're going 15 feet from the counter to a table. In the end, a decent burger, not the greatest, but not bad, mostly sunk by their insistence on cooking everything well-done. (I dunno, I think they make their burgers out-of-focus too.) But, as all have mentioned, the fries are indeed quite good: fresh, crisp, yet tender inside. I might go back and just get fries. Or they have hot dogs. One thing that weirded me out was that I noticed all employees were wearing latex gloves, yet a couple of them were trading positions: up working the register, or sweeping-up, putting buns on the grill to toast, assembling burgers, etc. But nobody was changing gloves, it's as if they thought the reason for the gloves was to merely protect us from their hands. It doesn't really help to wear latex gloves if you're going to handle money and operate the register and pick up the phone and then go back to assembling burgers without ever taking them off or changing them! I know all kinds of crazy stuff goes on in kitchens that we just don't see, but if they're going to give the impression of being sanitary by wearing gloves, I'd rather they didn't contaminate them right in front of me... I'd rather they just washed their hands, or stuck to one job. Anyway, not adding it to my regular rotation, but interesting...

Tim, go to Raw, or to Pod, or to Morimoto, some place that has cooked food that you'll feel more comfortable with. Don't sit at the sushi bar, or any bar for that matter, get a table, so you won't be self-conscious if you end up making some weird faces.... Order some dumplings, some tempura, noodles, whatever, something that will surely not freak you out. Then, just get a few pieces of sushi, or a small combo that has two pieces of this, 1 piece of that, etc. Personally, I'd go for something simple and pure, rather than all the weird saucy combo things, although that could be a valid way to ease into it for some people. That said, I'd get sushi, rather than sashimi, to start. Baby steps, man.... But in the end, I'm with mrbigjas, go somewhere good and order something good, so at least you know it's not just that you dislike bad sushi. I wasn't crazy about it for a long time, until I figured out that I'd only had crappy fish and gummy rice. On one level, Diann is right that Raw has some of that fusiony funky combo roll thing going on, but one can also get simple, straightforward nigiri, as well as the "rainbow rolls" and other whacky stuff. And I wouldn't normally send anyone to Pod specifically for sushi, but I've been pleasantly surprised a couple of times when people I was with decided to order it, I've had some very good fish there. The quality is pretty rocking at Morimoto, but it's crazy expensive. It would suck to spend that money if you don't like it, but that's why I'm suggesting you just start with a small order. At all of those places, there's good cooked food to bail-out to if you're just not digging it. It's hard to wrong with maguro (if you've had rare seared tuna, you're pretty close....) toro (fatty tuna - get whatever they have: chu-toro or o-toro if they have it, it'll be pricey, but spend the money, if you don't like that you probably don't like sushi... ) yellowtail, ebi, etc are fairly un-threatening. I'd hold off on the uni and the masago and the giant clam for now! Alternately, some maki rolls are tarted-up to such a degree that you barely know you're eating raw fish, and who knows, maybe that's a way to wade-in through the shallow end, and get used to the flavors. I'm not sure a California Roll really even qualifies as sushi, but hey, if it gets you there... In any case, go somewhere good, and eat there, even if you only order a little. And don't drown it in soy and wasabi, you're trying to figure out if you like the fish!

As mentioned above, it's just one of those things that they have a finite amount of, and they can't whip up a new batch quickly, so at any time of day, they could run out of it. So, just keep a good thought, and be flexible!

Oh, right, west.... I guess it would be tricky to be a few doors north of the Troc! Thanks, Herb. It's in the space that was Shogun for a long time, then something else recently. North side of the street, mid-block between 10th and 11th.

Greg, we still like you, and your food! I'm not sure it'll help you to position Raw as a milkshake joint, but hey, you never know...

According to some press reports, some former employees of Penang left and opened their own place called Banana Leaf, around the corner on Arch Street, just a few doors north of the Troc. I got some take-out the other day, and there's good news and bad news. The good news is that from my initial sampling, it's every bit as good as Penang. The bad news is that it's almost exactly the same as Penang. The menu has the same items on offer, described with seemingly identical prose, and what I ordered, and what I saw pass by, seems to be prepared the same way. It almost seems like a branch of Penang, a few hundred feet away from the other one... That's not inherently so bad, except if there are two Malaysian restaurants in town, it would be nice if there were some variety! Service was very friendly, and they seem to be open even later than Penang, 10am until 2am, 7 days a week. So, I'm glad to have them, but wish they were a little more distinctive...

I can't believe there wasn't a topic for Sang Kee, I know there have been plenty of posts, but I guess they're scattered around various Chinatown threads. With a few new places opening, and a few old ones worth reconsidering, I've been neglecting this favorite place recently, but I finally couldn't resist any longer... For just two of us, we ordered: Steamed Dumplings These are incredibly hard to pick up with chopsticks, but if you can avoid flinging them across the room, there's a big payoff: tasty pork filling, tender wrappers and salty oyster sauce. I like the fried ones too, and in a larger group I'll get an order of each. These are the plain-old dumplings, which I like better than the other kinds on the menu. Although there's plenty of other good stuff at Sang Kee, it seems somehow wrong to not get the duck. This is half a Peking Duck: The crispy, fatty, delicious skin is served with hoisin and scallions, and you roll them up yourself in fresh, thin pancakes. The remaining duck meat is stir-fried with whatever vegetables they feel like tossing in, and has an intense brothy juice, rather than a sauce per se. The crispy skin and pancake course gets the attention, but this part is pretty tasty too! We get in such ruts at Sang Kee, ordering a few things that we love over and over, that we've recently made an attempt to always order one thing we haven't had before. Tonight that was Sauteed Spareribs with Black Bean Sauce. This was pretty good, the ribs were very tender, falling off the bones, but it gets a bit messy dealing with all those little bones in a sauce, and in the end, I like other ways they make ribs, or other dishes they make with black bean sauce better, so I probably won't get this again. But I didn't regret ordering it this time! I'd missed going to Sang Kee, and everything was as good as I remembered, so I'll be back soon. More pics then! One complaint: their A/C is a little un-subtle, so if you happen to get caught under a vent, it can get pretty chilly, and it can cool the food down too, so try to be aware of where you are, and ask to move if you're in a down draft. And as a rule, downstairs is better than upstairs (food gets to you faster/hotter). But then upstairs is better than not being at Sang Kee!

Charcoal Pit on 202 just north of WIlmington makes a fine milkshake. I usually go for the black and white... In the city, I like getting Mocha milkshakes at Old City Coffee, they use Bassett's Ice Cream. And I'll agree with Chowfun: I haven't had one either, but I'd be shocked if Franklin Fountain didn't make a great milkshake.

yep!

Jason already provided the food porn quite completely, but, well, is there ever enough? Berkshire Pork Buns: gratuitous wide-open shot (insert your own porn joke here) Sugar Snap Peas with radish and horseradish Momofuku Ramen Pork Neck Ramen In retrospect, a hot, humid day might not have been the ideal time for steamy bowls of ramen: between the tight configuration of the restaurant, the open kitchen, and the continually opening door, it got pretty sticky in there. But the food made it worth it. The pork buns are just crazy good, the snap peas allowed me to pretend that my dietary habits weren't completely depraved as I set about consuming what seemed to be an entire Berkshire hog. The peas had the additional benefit of being quite delicious, their sweetness offset by the bite of the radish and shaved horseradish. Both soups were excellent, and fairly similar, although the pork neck soup had a more intensely-flavored broth, and about a ton of shredded meat, rather than a few slices of pork belly. I liked the thicker, chewier noodles in the pork neck version, but the thinner ones in the signature ramen had a nice spring and chew to them as well. As has been noted in other posts, both broths are pretty salty. We didn't find them TOO salty while eating them, but about a half hour later, while perusing obscure used electronica CDs at Mondo Kim's, both my buddy and I developed desperate desires for bottles of water! I think I'll risk that again, I really liked everything we ordered. The folks sitting across from us at the rather cozy counter ordered the sweetbreads, which looked great. Judging from the sudden cutthroat competition that developed between the gentleman, his mother and his girlfriend over who got the next deep-fried nugget, it appear that they liked them. Next time... While not a bargain, I thought the prices were fair for what we got.

Lunch at Patsy's East Harlem. The pizza was excellent, nice crunchy crust with just the right level of char, sauce was very nice, and it seemed like the perfect amount of cheese. Pepperoni wasn't especially noteworthy, but it was good. Still overall one of the best pizzas I've ever had, probably my favorite crust. We always used to like getting fresh garlic on the pizzas at Lombardi's, so we decided to order that here too. If I had any complaint about the pizza, it was that the garlic was not all that well distributed, and was a bit overwhelming if one didn't spread it back out. Also, the restaurant had a rather noticeable pine-cleaner odor that was a bit distracting, but the pizza was so tasty we managed to block it out.

Another visit to "the Cantina..." Empanadas might not have had as much (chicken) filling as the first time, but they were still moist and flavorful inside, light and tender and crusty outside. I'm getting these every time. Quesadillas had good cheese, tasty salsa, and were fresh and crisp. What more do you want from a quesadilla? Tacos de Tinga, served with nice fresh warm, soft tortillas These might have been even better than the first time we had them, the shredded pork was very juicy and assertively spiced. The only bad thing I can say is that the menu's feeling a little small to me. That's not such a terrible thing if everything's good, which has been true for me so far, but still...

I think he's a doctor, isn't he? I doubt he's in there making sandwiches... Or, if the guy that seemed to be in charge is a Koch, he's not quite Kochy in the way we're used to Koch's Koches being... he barely said a word, what he did say was really quiet... Nonetheless, the place is still a treasure. Go get a sandwich.

Koch's: L.B.K. special - turkey, roast beef, slaw, russian on rye. Delicious sandwich, even though it was not my first choice, but they'd run out of brisket... The food seems to be pretty much the same at Koch's, although it's a little surreal to not have a volley of bad jokes flying over the counter along with the sandwiches... and there was a very disturbing sign advertising a veggie cheesesteak posted a few places in the store. Seemed way out of place. Anyway, go,of course it won't be the same without a single Koch in Koch's, but they still make a hell of a sandwich.

The argument a few of us are making about the review is not concerned with whether it's correct about the food, but that it's poorly written. And I suspect we're not going to have any more luck agreeing on whether it's "good" prose any more on whether Superman is a "good" movie.

As Katie and Vadouvan have already mentioned, there's a hyper-sensitivity here in Philly about reviews that seem to talk more about their significant others than about the restaurant, given an odd concentration of that in local food writing over the years. And I for one don't find "my boyfriend didn't like it" type comments all that helpful, even if it is common in reviews. I think that element was enough of a trigger to set off the complaints about the larger issue: that there seems to be a fair amount of food criticism in the Philly papers written by people who seem to have little insight into food.

Yeah, Percy, no pressure! I just thought I saw you making some notes, at least more than I was! Edmeades. Didn't notice the year.Agree about the Coteaux du Layon, a bit intense for most situations, but just right with the foie, or in a small dose with dessert. Liked that one a lot. I think you're right, as much as I like the Dr Konstantin Frank Rieslings, I've come to like the Wiemer even more. I'll take the blame for that one: a goofy wine that I couldn't resist buying when I saw its assertively down-scale packaging. These guys even sell decent wine in boxes! www.threethieves.com And simple is right, nobody will mistake it for a fine Rioja, but it is a pleasant enough summer quaffing wine, and in the end, pretty good with that course, as noted, not so big that it stepped on the foot's toes, mellow enough that it didn't fight with the mustardy sauce. I'm not in a hurry to replace that bottle, but it would make a good summer party wine... Agreed, that was a delicious wine. But right about there i started losing the thread as well, not so much from drunkenness as just from sheer numbers. We had the good fortune to be there on a night that Marnie Olde stopped by for dinner, so she and Katie were passing glasses back and forth, so there were even more tastes getting circulated around, and I just got dizzy. I can think of worse ways to get confused. Good stuff overall, and most importantly, generally very complimentary to the food.

You had everything just about right James, so I went ahead and stole your descriptions and put them up with the original photos. I think Percy was taking wine notes, if not, between all of us, we can probably reconstruct it. (I remember the big Roach with the escargots, Warner Liebenstrauben and a Coteaux de Layon with the foie, Hermann Wiemer Riesling with the scallops, Three Thieves Tempranillo with the pigs feet, then, jeeze, I start getting a little hazy too...) I agree with Katie that everything was great: food and service. I especially liked the escargots, the scallops and the fig tart, but there really wasn't a bad course all night, I'd be happy to get any of it again. Kudos to chef Ansill who was cooking that night. Big thanks to Evan for getting it together, and to the whole group for good companionship, and great wine. BTW - we were having a debate down at our end of the table about the definition of "gratin" and after reading up a bit more, the rabbit was indeed a gratin, maybe should have had a bit more of a crunchy crust to it to be traditional, but there's no cheese required...

Not even! There are a lot of journalists working in print, and especially broadcast, that studied neither.But in the end I don't think that really matters. Some of our best chefs didn't go to culinary school. People can reach mastery, or at least a decent level of competence, through many paths. But in the real world, warm bodies are often thrown into positions for which they have little preparation. They either get good at it, or don't. There are plenty of people with journalism degrees that don't write or research well, and plenty of culinary school grads who are complete hacks in the kitchen. The proof is in what's on the page, or the plate. I'm not interested a person's resumé, I'm interested in the quality of the product.

I probably shouldn't accuse Murray's of microwaving my pastrami, I didn't actually see that happen, it's just that the meat was VERY hot, not merely warm as I'm used to getting it in NY delis. And I've never quite figured out why every time I've been there, they slice the meat out front, then disappear into the back with it to make the sandwich. I guess that's where my suspicion started: the pastrami seemed to come from the (refrigerated) deli case out front, but was piping hot on my sandwich, it didn't seem to be held at the warmer temperature. That said, both of the versions of the pastrami were very tasty sandwiches, and I've had good corned beef there too. I'll still head downtown to Famous or Koch's for a major deli binge, but Murray's is good, Ill be going back.

Went down to West Chester tonight hoping for some Puerto Rican food, but Sabor al Tropical had closed up by 9:30pm (so much for the "open late" on their menu...) So I ran a couple blocks over to Murray's Deli on Market Street in West Chester. Percy had recently implanted the idea in my head - he told me he'd gotten a good pastrami sandwich, and that sounded pretty good right about then! After I ordered, I realized that they offer a couple of variations on a pastrami sandwich. This was a plain-old "Roumanian" pastrami sandwich: cold and sliced thin. I've had a different one from them that I think they call "NY style" that had the meat warm and sliced thicker. I liked the flavor of that thicker-cut one a bit better, although it was kind of weirdly too-hot, like it had been microwaved or something... In any case, although neither version gives Katz's in NY any real competition, they're still pretty darn good sandwiches. And it's a shorter drive to Market Street than to Houston St.

Pif: June 29, 2006 Poached Char, white asparagus, endive in vinaigrette Escargots au Pernod Foie Gras terrine with spiced apples & almonds Marinated Scallop, mint, pink salt Roasted Red Mullet with olive tapenade Pig Foot Terrine with shallots and microgreens Fig boucheron tart Rabbit Gratin the Katie special: capogiro honeysuckle sorbet and moscato floats Boucheron, Blue d'Auvergne, and a third cheese Crêpes with Raspberry Jam Chocolate Pot du Creme Coupe Lorraine

I've hauled-out this quote before, but I agree with it: From Alan Richman's Fork it Over I don't think it's important whether a critic is able to cook, or has had experience working in a restaurant. But I do think it's important that he or she has solid knowledge about the food being written about, to be able to intelligently comment on the particular execution of it. Sadly this is not unique to food writing, many reviews of any cultural experience are being done from the perspective of a neophyte. I think it's misguided, but the theory is that the writer is standing in for the reader, going in cold to some new and exotic experience. It's an anti-elitist pose, but is really dismissing the seriousness of the subject. I don't think I've seen any opera reviews that consisted mainly of reports that "those ladies sure do sing loud, and I though it was pretty good, but my boyfriend just thought it was weird," or reviews of exhibits at the Philadelphia Art Museum written from the perspective of someone who's never studied art. I'll stick to the analogy above: I don't care whether the opera reviewer can sing, but I do hope she knows something about music, and could intelligently discuss this performance, hopefully with a frame of reference from having heard the work previously, live or on a recording, or at the very least be well-versed in the genre as a whole. Those standards are not always as closely followed in food writing. Everybody eats, most people have an opinion about what they eat, so sadly it follows, in some editors' minds, that if one can write at all, one can write about food. All things considered, we have some very good food writing here in Philly, but not all of it...

I'm not sure, there's just one major road that goes through Kimberton, it splits off of 113 just west/south of the Genuardi's (look for the Kimberton Inn sign). The Gelato place is on that road, on the right hand side, down as there start to be some businesses, it's kind of across from the Kimberton Whole Foods, but not directly across the street. Just get into Kimberton, you'll find it! Thanks for the other P-Ville news, mostly good developments. I'd heard some whispering among the Vale Rio Diner staff about changes, but I wasn't sure in what way. It's always had inconsistent food, but i REALLY like having something open 24 hours. Shame if it turns into a drugstore. I suspect Steel City is doing pretty well as a venue for music and other performances, they'll be OK even if a Charbucks opens. I walked past Brown's Cow the other day, and it looked nice, but I didn't stop. Reports soon!

Attached to the ultimate shrine of Rochester food: the Pittsford Wegmans (3195 Monroe Avenue). Just keep telling yourself "I'm NOT eating at the supermarket, I'm eating at Tastings!! I'm NOT eating at the supermarket...." and you'll be fine.