Capaneus

Hmmmm.... The two noteworthy falafel carts in that general neighborhood are at 15th and JFK and 20th and Market. Both very good, the cart on 15th St. is a bit cheaper and more straightforward. At 20th St, I don't recall any particular weirdness. He did put a bunch of different things on the platters, as opposed to the pita sandwiches, but all of it was thematically appropriate. He's not at all Nationally Socialistic, he's a pretty nice gentleman. He is very methodical, however, and there can be a bit of a wait. His food is absolutely worth it, though. If you are certain you can never get excited over grilled chicken, try his, and feel foolish.

Davio's is probably a good choice, I think. Osteria can probably do a group that size, but I've heard mean things about their pricing. It strikes me that somewhere in the Garces Empire there have to be accomodations that would serve: it's just too big a potential revenue stream for a smart man like Jose Garces to ignore. Maybe he'd even be able to cordon off one of the areas at Tinto, like downstairs or the Sansom St. side? I know your people said they're getting bored of hotels, but does that include the foodier hotel restaurants? I know that the Fountain and Lacroix could do it, and I I'd bet my third-from-the-bottom dollar that XIX could as well. And there have been a slew of steakhouse openings, mostly in very large spaces... Somewhere in the steakhouse universe, there are restaurants hurting for business, I would think. Might take a bit of creativity to make it happen, but...

Funny that. I had their food for the first time last week, and I was really impressed by how solidly good everything was. Their pad thai was the best I've had in a long time, the papaya salad was perfectly seasoned, the green curry was excellent, and even the pineapple fried rice was much better than I expected. I'll need to check whether they'll deliver out my way. I'm not a whole lot further away than you, if memory serves.

I've been there a few times the last couple of months. It's never been less than very good, and it occasionally is great. One of the dishes this past Sunday was oddly underthought, though: swordfish, over white beans, topped with grapefruit; no seasoning that I could easily detect, beyond the probable salt and pepper, though I'm guessing there was something subtle. All the ingredients were very good, and well prepared - but I couldn't for the life of me find the point of combining them: I tried them together, I tried them in the various possible sequence. Good fish. Good beans. Good grapefruit. Meh. On the other hand, the squash soup with crabmeat and bacon was a real success, and the arugula, beets, blue and oranges salad was the best rendition of this particular chestnut I've ever had. As for "third best seafood restaurant in the land", sorry folks, but that list must be about something beyond absolute quality: I really like Littlefish, but le Bernardin doesn't even make it on the list? At a guess, they considered only new, and unusual-format, places.

dagordon may be the wrong person to ask: he's been known to order entire additional entrees off the menu, to supplement the prix fixe. I'd guess that you get about as much food as if you were ordering three courses a la carte. Each tasting menu course is maybe about app-sized, except the dessert, which is, oddly enough, dessert-sized. Enjoy. I've missed the last couple of weeks, and I'm hankerin' for some...

If sales are bad enough, retailers are going to start having excess inventory, and feeling the resulting cash-flow crunch. So while wholesale prices might be somewhat inflexible, I expect that retailers would be forced to cut their margins to move product and improve liquidity. Of course, that comes from someone who is relatively ignorant of the specifics of the wine business, so those assumptions may well be faulty.

Literal translation is "under empty/void/vacuum".

The Euro is losing strength against the dollar, but I don't know if prices will drop with the same alacrity with which they rose... Something to hope for/look forward to though. ← If sales go the way I think they might, prices might well plunge right along. Certainly, I've been getting a lot of "Huge Sale!!!!!" e-mails from online retailers. Along with the recent PaWineAndSpirits online firesale, that's meant that I've been buying wines I wouldn't have been able to touch a few months ago. And now, the '05 Bordeaux...

That's likely to be true: the PLCB will try to obtain any wine you request through one of their vendors, and if they succeed it becomes an SLO catalogue item, available to any customer, though sometimes with an order minimum - a case, in this instance. Most often, their access to older wines is very limited, but occasionally I've been pleasantly surprised.

Well, color me disappointed. I had several snarky remarks about how Perrier would never sell a wine for a fair price, but http://www.lcb.state.pa.us/webapp/Product_...C&submit=SEARCH which is roughly what the restaurant paid for it, and which makes $56 a remarkably fair price for your bottle, by Philadelphia wine-list standards. By any standards, really. And which means any of us could Special Order the wine through our local PLCB store. I do wonder at a ten-year-old zinfandel, though. Not something you see very often. How was it drinking?

Our mileages on chocolate clearly differ widely. But as to availability, it is definitely the case that Pa General Store has carried Jubilee in the not too distant past. I'd need to check whether that has changed, but as of a couple of months ago I was able to purchase them. You had to ask, but they were for sale. Assouline's, on the other hand, stopped carrying them, at all its locations, long before the RTM store closed. Whatever the case, Asher's is also truly outstanding chocolate, so the general notion stands.

Now that you mention it, I do recall members of this forum referring to the rabe. We definitely got baby spinach. It won't be hard to convince me to circle back to try it again. ← I was told DiNic's now had both options available on an ongoing basis. I've gotten rabe pretty much every time I've been there in the last few months. At some point you have to take the trip South and check out Tony Luke's and John's Roast Pork's sandwiches. And John's actually makes a cheesesteak I like a lot, though I'm not as fond of their roast pork as some here. Personally, I've never understood the appeal of Bassett's: it's not bad ice cream, usually, but that's all it is: not-bad ice cream. If r+d is unavailable next time, I suggest you go across the aisle to the Pennsylvania General Store and get some Jubillee/John&Kira chocolates. Best mint anywhere. As to the "real" RTM thread, you can find it here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=SF&s=&f=303

The Online Store is currently running an insane sale of Sommelier Collection wines: it's advertised as "up to 70% off", but several of the wines I picked up were discounted close to 80%. The Mas L'Abundancia Monsant, for instance, is now $12.99; the Latour Batard Montrachet '00 is $50; a Jaboulet Hermitage is $25; u.s.w. Several wines disappeared from the listings before I got around to ordering, so you may want to hurry. (Edited to add) And shipping is free on orders over $200.

"Insight"? The only thing novel about that piece are the depths of smarmy insinuation it plumbs, and the cavalier way in which which it drops in little bits of made-up dramatic business without a hint of sourcing, attribution or corroboration. Darn thing is scurrilous even by the often-questionable standards of the publication in question.

And Pif's prices were not exactly bistro prices in the first place (though in its early days they came darn close). I took a look at the whole menu, and damn! Those prices put this place in fairly exalted company... I think it's going to work against them: I know I revised my expectations upward as soon as I laid eyes on that menu. And this is still a tough economic patch for a lot of folks: even people who aren't all that affected seem to be fairly cautious. And Cochon is just around the corner, and Ansill, and even Coquette could seem attractive to some, given the price differential... I'm going to guess that either they have room in the books to revise those prices downward, or they're going to have a very rough time surviving.

Well... the actual unholy consortium is between the clam and the pig. The chicken is more in the nature of an innocent - yet delicious - bystander.

I respectfully disagree, Doc: Phil doesn't go into the details, so there's no way you'd know, but the clams came in the form of what we Portuguese know as Ameijoas a Bulhao Pato (in a white wine, garlic and cilantro sauce), and were also featured in Carne de Porco a Alentejana. Both are popular favorites in Portugal, and I've encountered neither in Spain, although that may have changed in the decades since I was in a position to know. And not only were they accurately rendered, but they were good. The only thing on the Portuguese side I was less than thrilled with was the chourico, which was mealy, undercured and oddly seasoned, almost suggesting some sort of hybrid with the Mexican variety. But that was a problem of sourcing, not execution. And my sense of its inauthenticity definitely hindered me in enjoying it. In retrospect, it seems to me that it wasn't bad, if taken on its own terms. The Croquetes de Bacalhau were also very good: at home I would expect them to be denser and have a higher fish content, but they were lighter and fluffier than anything to be found in Lisbon - a good thing - and very tasty in their own right. The Peruvian side was less consistent, I thought: that chicken was really really good, maybe my favorite dish of the evening, which is saying something, cause the home side included two childhood favorites done well. I have no idea what was in that marinade, but it had a dark, earthy note that was unusual in a delicious way. The Lomo Salt(e?)ado was also excellent. On the minus side, I was fond but not delighted by the Ceviche, which erred by letting the fish be overwhelmed by the acid; and I thought the Tostones were the weakest dish of the night, smothered in some sort of nondescript tomato-based sauce that failed either to to thrill in its own right or to do much for the not-terribly-assertive seafood. Still, even they were not at all bad, just not that great, which made them the weak link in an excellent menu. And I found that following Gary's advice to warm the doggie-bagged fries, naked, under the broiler, for a couple of minutes, crisped them very nicely. I think the foil may have been a hindrance, Katie. The same treatment also worked pretty well on the chicken.

← The news teasers for the a la carte changes were the source of the rumors that spawned this thread. From what I've gathered, friends who tried ordering a la carte were disappointed. But several people who've been regulars for a while and have stuck with the prix fixe claim they detect no real change. I'll need to check it out sometime.

D'Angelo's has a decent reputation, actually. You're right that it caters more to a traditional clientele than a hip one, but it's reputed to be solid. It was once said to be a Mob hangout, which I'd think would be a spur to excellence. And it's just a quick stroll down 20th Street to Capogiro, so it's got excellent CPF.

No, I haven't had Chinese on the Main Line since I lived in the area many years ago. Generally, I stick to more urban settings for Chinese. Should I consider going to Yangming rather than Dragon's Lair. Also, I have been to Matyson, but before the change in ownership. If the new owners have kept up the standards, you will be in for a treat. ← I would say Matyson is actually a bit better - more solid, at any rate - than it was late in Matt and Sonjia's tenure. Certainly, the tasting menus have frequently been absurdly great. And hazardnc, yes that's Zahav. I haven't liked their regular menu as much as I wish I did, but the Thursday tasting menus look very good. I haven't had a chance to try one yet. They're actually $65, not $45 ($100 with wine, which is probably how I'd go). This week's (just got the e-mail): Chef's Tasting Menu Canapes Chicken Liver Truffle, Cracklings Lamb Tartare, Truffled Labneh Sweetbreads, Crispy Chicken Skin Fried Mussels, Tarator Blanc de Blancs, Francois Montand, France, NV Amberjack Crudo, Sorrel, Apple, Fennel Falanghina, Terradora di Paolo, Campania, 2007 Bluenose Bass al Ha'esh, Verbena Broth, Sea Beans Gruner Veltliner "Lois", Loimer, Kamptal, 2007 Duck Breast, Pistachio, Rose, Foie Gras Amazigh, Zniber, Meknes-Fez, 2007 Cheese Ossau au Piment, Dates Petit Mothias, Figs Chaource, Blueberry Blu del Moncenisio, Sesame Port, Dow's 10 yr Tawny White Chocolate Shortcake, Peaches, Vanilla-White Cardamom Ice Cream Moscato d'Asti, Borgo Monclavo, Piedmont, 2007 Vegetable Tasting Menu Canapes Watermelon and Feta Kebab English Pea Custard, Sumac Carciofi alla Giudia Corn and Summer Truffle Pastel Blanc de Blancs, Francois Montand, France, NV Beets, Haloumi, Yogurt Chenin Blanc, Mulderbosch, Stellenbosch, 2006 Chickpea Cavatelli, Tomato, Fava Beans, Kashkaval Falanghina, Terradora di Paolo, Campania, 2007 Porcini Kibbe, Dates, Carrots Negroamaro, Terre, Puglia, 2007 Cheese Ossau au Piment, Dates Petit Mothias, Figs Chaource, Blueberry Blu del Moncenisio, Sesame Port, Dow's 10 yr Tawny Blueberry Tatin, Sumac Caramel, Blueberry Sorbet Monbazillac, Domaine de Grange Neuve, Dordogne, 2003 If you're looking for good Sichuan, you may want to consider the Tasty House at 8th and Arch rather than MK or Yangming, for better food at a considerable savings.

Matyson, definitely. I actually had the lobster menu twice, which just goes to show how little parenthood has done for il Professore's palate... Marigold Kitchen is extending their $30 Sunday/UC Dining Days prix fixe week-round for... the rest of the month? At least the next couple of weeks. Sundays, Littlefish and Pumpkin have great deals for really good food. Check here: http://foobooz.com/2008/04/recession-specials-guide/ for a more comprehensive list.

10th and Spruce. Not really walkable if you have an afternoon at Penn to return to. Then again, none of the alternatives are, really.

You may want to consider some of the Mexican, both haute and basse, currently on offer. There are a slew of really good taquerias in the Italian Market area; near there, I just had outstanding goat tacos at Cantina Los Caballitos, washed down with a very pleasant blood orange mojito; and Amada's Garces just opened Distrito at 40th and Chestnut to glowing praise, notably from Philadining, who is reportedly able to tell a sweetbread from a mushroom. Of your list (and keeping in mind I can't judge a restaurant without taking QPR into account - a character flaw), I have no trouble recommending Kanella, which is much more casual than the rest. All of the others, interestingly, have received very mixed recent notices from various sources. Lacroix is perhaps the most interesting of the lot, but my own experiences there were poor, always excepting the incredible brunch. And the Fountain may be the most consistent, but it yields very little in the way of excitement, or even just surprise. Come to think of it, we may be experiencing a crisis among our most ambitious restaurants. Only Vetri seems to me to have escaped this malaise.

1. They have crepenettes?! 2. Are they open for lunch? ← 1. Their Greek/Cypriot iteration, but close enough; 2. Yes. ← I do recall the lunch menu differs somewhat from the dinner menu. I can't recall how, though, and Menupages were no help - only the dinner menu was available.

1. They have crepenettes?! 2. Are they open for lunch? ← 1. Their Greek/Cypriot iteration, but close enough; 2. Yes.