philadining

THANK YOU! WHEEEE HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! <does the dance of joy> OH YEAH! Gotta love them dentists, eh? ← Ummmm I hate to say it, but THIS coming sunday is the 2nd, not the 9th.... fingers crossed that you're actually coming on the 9th!

This is an excellent idea, I think you're going to find some foods you want to take home. I agree with all the raves about DiBrunos, but if you're in the Italian Market, don't miss Claudio's for cheese, olives, salumi, oils, dried pastas and other Italian products, and even more, their fresh mozzerella operation right next door to the main store. I don't know of any place around here that makes those baked Chinese pork buns, I'd love to know if anyone has a good source!

Thankfully, I think he's trying to keep it to 20-30 dollars, I don't think he's trying to seat a whole dragon-boat's worth of people this saturday night. That indeed would be a challenge!

Ahh, but it IS open on sunday in a way, in that it's open until 2am saturday night, so the obvious solution is to go down there at, like, 1am, which is when the flavor of the crowd and the food is at its peak. www.tonylukes.com/restaurants.htm If you go to Tony Luke's, I'd recommend the roast pork. You're never going to find any agreement about the "best" cheesesteak in town, but there is something to be said for the overall experience of Pat's, Geno's, or Jim's. Getting a steak with wiz, onions and a little philly "attytood" can sometimes outweigh the inconsistency of the product. And at any given moment, despite their tourist-trap reputations, any of those three famous places CAN make a fantastic cheesesteak. I can't guarantee it, but I've had great ones from all three places. Not every time.... I think everyone above has given you some good advice. Given your price range, one of our BYOBs for dinner is a great idea. If you don't mind eating early, you'll have much better luck showing up at some of the no-reservation places right as they open at 5pm. You're not going to get into Marigold on a saturday, and they're closed sunday, the same may be true of many of the small BYOBs. That's one of the few charms of the no-res places, you actually have as good a shot as anybody if you're willing to wait around. Of those, Radicchio and Melograno are great choices for Italian, although they're not really representative of the local Philly-style Italian food. If you want that (homey pasta and "red gravy") you can do that within your budget, and still have money for several carafes of the house wine, at places like Ralph's or Villa di Roma, both of which are on 9th street, in the Italian Market. I'll also second the recommendation for Lakeside Deli for Dim Sum. I see the charm of the cart thing, but I'll forgo that for made-to-order, hot, fresh items. The restaurant doesn't look like much, but they do a good job. And I know DC has at least one Burmese restaurant, but I don't know how good it is. As Andrew mentioned, Rangoon is an excellent place here in our Chinatown if you're looking for an uncommon ethnic offering. And of course, you can NOT miss Capogiro. Thanks for sticking your neck out Andrew, I'm feeling a lot better about claiming that Capogiro is the best gelato in the known universe...(edited to try to adjust a bit for the fact that there were, like, 35 other posts added while I was typing!!)

El Milagro de Bistek.... I happened to catch a Globe Trekker show on PBS last night, and Justine Shapiro was visiting Mexico City. There was a segment in Plaza Garibaldi, which is apparently usually filled at night with hundreds of Mariachis, competing for gigs. I'm happy to say that the restaurant is NOT filled with hundreds of musicians. I've got nothing against that style of music, I actually kind of like it, except that I find that up-close, those bands tend to shut down my power of cognition, a phenomenon I've dubbed "Mariachi Paralysis." I would never have been able to decide what to order. Also on the TV show, they visited Xochimilco, a large area of canals and floating gardens a little outside of the city. I didn't see any particular reason our entree was called "Bistek Xochimilco," maybe if it had been covered with flowers or something. No matter, it's just kind-of fun to say "so-she-meel-ko" when ordering.

We've made reference to Plaza Garibaldi in a few other threads, but it really deserves its own spotlight. I think it often gets overlooked: it wasn't the first authentic place to make a splash, like Veracruzana across the street; it doesn't have an attractive outdoor vibe, like La Lupe; it's not hip and modern like Lolita or ElVez. But it does have good solid homey Mexican food at almost unbelievably low prices. There have been several raves here for their Enchiladas de Mole, and the Enchilladas Suizas are excellent too. And I think their tacos compare favorably with their more famous neighbor across Washington Ave. Katie and I tried a few more things recently, and left happy, full, and not much poorer. We started with three different Chalupas. The top left is Carnitas, simple cubes of roast pork. It's pretty fatty, but that's part of the appeal! Upper right is enchiladas, chopped pork with a spicy sauce. Bottom is Al Pastor, seasoned pork and pineapple, also with a bit of chile heat. The corn tortillas were quickly fried, but still pliable, so one could theoretically pick them up and eat them, but they were a little sloppy, especially the enchiladas filling. All three were really good. They don't really offer a mixed collection like we got, I think you're supposed to get three of the same, but they were very nice about indulging our desire for novelty. We also picked Tostadas de Tinga. These are crispy tortillas topped with delicious shredded chicken with a mild sauce, beans, crema, lettuce and cheese. Subtle, solid, very good. The star of the meal was the Bistek Xochimilcho. This was a thin, but flavorful ribeye steak, topped with mushrooms and melted cheese, and served with fried potatoes, peppers and onions, guacamole, rice and beans. This had great flavor, the meat was nice and juicy, the accompaniments were quite nice. Two of us couldn't finish all of this (and we tried!) and it added-up to $25 before tip. Service was very friendly, with three different people checking to make sure everything was good. One of the waitresses is a little shaky with English, she can take your order, but if you have questions or want to make an adjustment, it might take a consultation with one of the other servers, or for you to dust-off your Spanish skills. If I had any complaint, it was that everything came out pretty rapidly, so we ended up with a lot of food on the table at once. Miraculously the steak stayed pretty warm, so it was no crisis. And I might have inadvertently contributed to this by making a "bring-it-on" hand gesture when we ordered, our server might have gotten the impression that we wanted it all at once. All in all, we loved it. On one hand, it's nothing especially thrilling, just good solid homey Mexican food. On the other, that's often exactly what I'm in the mood for! Plaza Garibaldi 935 Washington Ave. Philadelphia, PA (215) 922-2370

I'm going to try and do a full write-up over the weekend, ← Please do, and when you post, why don't you go ahead and make a Royal Tavern topic, so we can find it later, rather than have it buried in this pizza thread.

I think I'm addicted... I headed back to Tifco for dinner tonight. We got the Chicken Guizhou style again, and it once again was intriguing, delicious, and really freaking hot! i asked the manager what was in it, and he said he didn't know - it's not a secret, just complicated. He was a little surprised we ordered it, thinking it would be too hot for us. And it almost was, up a few scoville units from the last time we got it, but I liked it like that! To balance the heat, we ordered "Peking Style Pork" (#58 on the Chinese Menu) which seemed really similar to the pork with garlic sauce we got at the Tasty House, or what stephenc identified as "yu shan ro shi" or "fish-flavored shredded pork". Whatever it was called, it was really good in that same way, with an intense garlicky, slightly sweet, sticky sauce. Not spicy. Neither of these dishes had many vegetables in them, so we added an order of Szechuan Green beans, which were nothing unusual, but excellent. Simple dry-fried fresh string beans, with ground pork and little bits of sweet caramelized onion. I forgot the camera today, but there wasn't much to shoot, there's a picture of the Guizhou chicken posted upthread, and I think you can guess what the shredded pork and the greenbeans looked like. All was delicious.

Indeed, big thanks Jeff! Wish I could have made it, regardless of the overall quality of the wines, and I hope these events will continue. It's every bit as useful to know about when wines are NOT thrilling as when they are, you probably saved me a good bit of money, I would have taken a chance on some of these. But there are plenty more to choose from, so I'll spend some money on those! I'm a little surprised about the Gewurtz, I don't know that maker, but every time I serve that varietal to folks who don't know the grape, they are intrigued and become fans. But maybe I've just gotten lucky to have good examples. And nice to know about the Sangiovese. I think that Liparita Cab has been lauded here previously. Do we remember how expensive the Mersault was? Thanks again for the report, and I hope to join in on one of these soon!

You can give them guidelines for the omakase, I don't think it would be any problem at all to ask them to avoid beef and pork. I did the least-expensive omakase ($80 per person at the time, I think it's still that price) and I got only fish without even asking for that, except for a small piece of foie gras with the cod. But that changes at the whim of the kitchen, so if you have preferences, just tell them what you do NOT want to eat, they can work with it, especially your particular restriction. (They might have trouble if you tell them "no fish".) Ordering a la carte would be fine, but I found the surprise and variety of the omakase to be quite entertaining, I'd recommend it.

I'm starting to suspect that the tasting crew discovered some AMAZING wines and are keeping this info to themselves so that Capaneus doesn't buy-up all the remaining stock... It's OK, he's currently unable to carry multiple cases at a time, seize the moment!! What did you folks taste, what did you think?

I ordered something from their "lunch express" menu to-go today. There is a routine usual-suspects lunch special menu, but they also have Chinese lunch specials on their website. I ordered #45 (from page 2) "Stir-fried chicken Chung King style" This was bigger than the picture makes it look, the container is pretty deep, so it was a very generous serving size. I liked this a lot. It had a fairly simple, but intense, thin brown sauce with garlic, ginger, and a little heat from some dried chile. The chicken was mostly sliced leg and thigh meat, which I prefer in a dish like this, it stayed moister and had way more flavor than breast meat would have. The lunch special came with soup. I tried the hot and sour, which was pretty good, if a little thin. It was quite spicy, and nicely sour. I suppose it was a perfectly adequate serving size for a lunch starter, and it probably would have looked fine in a small bowl at the restaurant, but it had the unfortunate appearance of being a very small serving in the take-out container. In reality, this was plenty large for a serving of soup before lunch, especially given that the main dish was quite generous. Overall, a really good lunch for $6, especially out here in the burbs!

My enchiladas had a lot more sauce on them when served at the restaurant, but then, having all that good mole soak up into the tortillas on the ride home might have tasted just fine! And bummer about the pork, my serving was really remarkably good quality, I hope that's more typical! More reports will follow...

I'll second cdh's recommendation of Mama Palma's. Their crust is not the most flavorful in town, but it has a nice texture and good anti-tip-droop cantilever factor. Their toppings are excellent. And they serve good beer. I also like Marra's, although they can pile on the toppings a bit too heavily. They could use some better beer. And I completely agree that pizza needs to be eaten immediately, on-site, without being boxed, for it to be at its best. But then that's true of almost all foods. Then again, lukewarm, soggy pizza is better than no pizza.

I feel a little less than confident offering advice, not living in Toronto, but I've had my share of saturday lunches in your fair city over the years - and nobody was answering Gordon - please flame-away if you locals think this is terrible advice these days! Over the years, and fairly recently, I've had very nice lunches at Gypsy Co-op and at Peter Pan, if you're out on Queen West. I like Pangaea better, but I can understand the desire for a change of pace. But I think my favorite casual weekend lunch, in any city on the planet, is a bowl of onion soup and a crepe at Le Papillon. I've been doing it once or twice a year for 30 years. I know it's nothing bold or innovative, and my affection is likely colored by sentimentality, but I have yet to be disappointed. And that includes a visit while still rapt in a hazy Susur afterglow a couple of months ago. It's not in your desired neighborhood (they're on Church near Front) but worth consideration if you can resist the siren call of a peameal sandwich from the market a couple of blocks away. (Now I'll retreat safely across the border, and return to lurk mode...)

The short answer is yes, it's back up and running, and very good, and not too different from a few months ago, even with a new chef. Maybe a little less elaborate or adventurous with the accompaniments, and it seemed like prices might have crept up again a bit, but neither of these changes was dramatic. I think it would be an excellent choice for an anniversary dinner. Closed Sundays and Mondays, and still tough to get a table on Fridays and Saturdays. Their Website hasn't been changed since they first opened, so it's been out-of-date for at least nine months, therefore not all that helpful. Note to Marigold: updating a webpage is not really hard.... Posting your current menu, and deleting the no-longer-valid reference to sunday brunch would be good!

Another visit for some take-out tonight. First, a Chile Relleno: This was a good-sized poblano pepper stuffed with mild cheese, breaded and fried. The chile had a moderate spice level, not super hot, but certainly not a bell pepper! The breading was kind of light, despite being fairly thick. The creamy tomato sauce was mellow, but had a good flavor. Not especially thrilling, but very good. $6.75 for a big pepper with rice and beans. I'd get it again. But the star of the evening was Pork in Green Chile sauce: This was freaking excellent! Tender cubes of roast pork, with good crusty edges, swimming in a mild but very flavorful verde sauce. The pork had great taste and texture, the sauce was great, even the beans were good, sprinkled with cojita cheese. Rice was fine. It's going to be really hard to resist getting this every time. $7.00

Well, there is the fully "authentic" phenomenon of the "cheesesteak hoagie", available in many steak shops around philly, which is usually a standard cheesesteak with lettuce, tomato onions, etc, and indeed, mayo. If it's eaten within about 35 seconds, it's actually pretty good...

Thursday night: Tahini, which had a smooth, mellow, sesame-nuttiness. The Mexican Chocolate was partying pretty hard last night! Both cinnamon and chile heat were turned up pretty loud, waking the neighbors and scaring the children. I liked them both!

In search of summer rolls, a small band of us surveyed the former Le Cyclo Bizarro, now known as Pho Ba Le, directly behind the Ba Le bakery at 6th and Washington. We started with Papaya and Beef Jerky. This had fresh, cool, crispy slivers of papaya with chewy, sweet, smoky dried beef. We're still trying to figure out why you can't get this jerky at the 7-11. They had a special appetizer of mini-pancakes, topped with shrimp and ground pork I think Katie hit it on the head when she said this was what egg foo yung dreams of being.... next was Grilled grape leaves filled with beef OK, I'm totally down with some smoky char, but these puppies were burnt... an interesting, thick, sour sauce helped a lot, but still.... We came for summer rolls, and they had a sampler platter, so we weren't arguing. At 12:00 was...hey, what was that?!? I moved too slow and missed that one... at about 2:00 was the fried pork skin, 3:00 was fried tofu, 6:00 was... I dunno.... 7:30 was shrimp, 9:00 was barbecued pork, and about 11:47 was a fried springroll with ground pork. I tried several of those, thanks to Katie's heroic attempts at portioning them out. I liked all of them, especially when matched with the appropriate sauces. Chive Soup had tofu, shrimp and ground pork in it. We misunderstood the description of this soup, thinking it came with tofu, shrimp OR pork, not all three. I steered clear of the shrimp, so i'll let someone else describe it. A variation on the broken-rice platter with grilled pork was pretty standard, which is to say, really good. It featured six flavors (and textures). Same for the Grilled Beef on vermicelli, no surprises, just darn tasty A special of rotisserie chicken might have been the surprise hit of the evening Looks a little plain, but the chicken had a great sweet flavor. All in all, I thought most everything was very good. I'm waffling about the grape leaves... Pho Ba Le didn't sprint out the the head of the pack, but remained a solid contender. I think i'd give a little edge to Nam Phuong, but i'd be happy to come back here too. And these are indeed among my favorite summer rolls in town. I'm looking forward to continuing the comparison... Six of us actually ate all that, for $14 each, including a good tip. Big thanks to my tablemates for the fine company, and especially to Katie for the libations! Who knew Spanish whites were the perfect match for Vietnamese food?

You'll probably find everything in center city at the places mentioned above, but if you ever find yourself in Upper Darby, you might want to swing by the places i mentioned upthread, maybe just for the candybars... I stopped by the little convenience store on my way home. It's actually an AM/PM minimarket attached to a Sunoco (not Mobil) but everything else I mentioned was about right. The cross street is St Laurence, but it's on a tiny street sign that's hard to see. It's not very far west of the Terminal, on Westchester pike, on the north side. Anyway, they have a shelf full of UK candy, and then another half shelf of various foodstuffs, seems like a similar array, and at least as much as the photo rlibkind posted above, which is surprising for a little AM/PM. The best part is that they're open 24 hours....

That's how it is with Ninjas, man, they appear out of the shadows, scribble reservations in the book, and slip back into the darkness undetected.

Hey Ellen, thanks for the report! That looks like a really nice meal. And seemed eerily familiar.... I find it kind of surprising that your meal was amazingly similar to an omakase I had there almost a year and a half ago. We did it at dinner, so there were a couple of more courses, but I think we had everything you had, served almost exactly the same way. That's not inherently a bad thing, I really enjoyed everything, but I guess I had assumed that the individual selections were changing all the time, at the whim of the chef, whatever was fresh and new and exiting that day. So it's funny to see an almost identical parade of dishes. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few hot hits showing up all the time, but, like, everything? Have other folks had the omakase there and gotten something completely different? A little different?

Indeed, welcome gmw, I don't know if their selection will be complete enough or the places close enough to make the trip worthwhile, but there are a couple of Irish-oriented shops in Upper Darby that carry UK products. Neither is a full-on grocery, but might have a couple things you crave. (I know Ireland and England are very different places, but many of the commercial products are the same.) The first is The Irish Coffee Shop 8443 W Chester Pike Upper Darby, PA 19082-1104 (610) 449-7449 It's mostly a little diner-style place where you can get really good, terrifyingly huge Irish breakfasts, etc. But they also have a few shelves of canned, jarred and packaged foods, I'm sure they have HP Sauce, etc. The other one is even less likely, it's a little minimart attached to a gas station. I'm sorry, I don't recall the cross street, but it's on the north side of Westchester Pike (rt 3) only a mile or two west of 69th street. There's a small side street, with a gas station on either corner, a Texaco and a Mobil (I think) on the other. It's the Mobil minimart that you want. It's mostly just a typical 7-11-ish convenience store, but there's an aisle of British candy (Cadbury galore!) and some biscuits, etc. There's not much there, but if you're out at the Irish Coffee Shop already, it's nearby, maybe they'd have something you're missing. Hope that helps! Or you can always just mail-order stuff. www.englishteastore.com

I was there a couple of months ago for a few glasses of wine, and some apps and cheese at the bar. The wine list is very thoughtful, with a wide selection available by the glass, in fact by various-sized glasses, flights, etc. I can't vouch for the food, but it looked good. Classic bistro stuff. Lovely space. Menus, full winelist, etc on their website: www.crushwinebar.com