Tim Dolan

Seems like a good idea to bump this thread around this time of year. Anybody have anything to add? I do. St. Stephen's Green. Had a very nice dinner at the bar there last weekend. I had a ribeye with blue cheese which was perfectly cooked and quite tasty, gf had red snapper that she loved. This place is definitely going to be in my normal rotation. Bartenders were cool and were encouraging a few patrons to try things that they weren't familiar with. Always a good idea, I say.

I'm a big fan of gorgonzola drizzled with warm honey. Add some nice prosciutto to push it over the top.

Can I ask what kind of blue you stuffed the wings with? And I'd imagine that the prep on these would be pretty annoying if you're making them for more than like four people.

Whoa whoa whoa. Please explain...

The Grey Lodge Pub in Philly also celebrates Friday the Firkenteenth. Then there's Philly Beer Week coming up. Yeah I love it here.

So I've been turning my attention towards cocktails recently and have been reading up on the numerous threads going on in the Cocktails forums. Only problem is, if I want to replicate some of those drink recipies at my house or a party, I can't get the correct ingrediants since our state stores don't have them. Katie pointed out to me that a number of items are available via SLO, but that takes things like planning and patience and I'm trying to mix some stuff up tonight. For example, I was looking for some rye whiskey and struck out at 3 locations (not Chestnut St, which I'll be hitting tonight) and the only vermouths that each spot carried was Martini and Rossi. What's the deal?

I'm the farthest thing from an expert, so you could be right. Parma was my first introduction to the good stuff so maybe that's why I hold it in a slightly higher regard.

I love prosciutto, and I find that prices differ wildly depending on the kind you get. I understand that Parma is the authentic, more expensive thing and San Danielle is next in the pecking order, but some places like to jack up prices for domestic prosciutto just cause most people don't know any better. My local WF sells San Danielle at about $25 a pound, while fortunately I live near a little mom and pop shop that sells Parma (stamped and all) for $21 a pound. The mom and pop store also has a very good domestic prosciutto, clearly labeled as such, right next to the Parma and have even encouraged me to buy the domestic depending on what I was making (*sweet little old Italian lady's voice "Oh honey go with the domestic if you're cooking with it, it'll save you the money and it's almost as good. Use the Parma by itself or with cheese.")

So I just got back from lunch at Satchmo's. I tried their bbq pork, which I liked better than the Italian pork, but it still didn't quite knock my socks off. I think it might be the roll. It's a good roll, but not good enough to push a sandwich over the top. It is just a normal steak roll, NOT the better looking seeded roll in Percy's pictures above. In any event, it's still a good sandwich. I also got the crab and andouille gumbo which I thought was out of this world. I will be the first to say that I know absolutely NOTHING about authentic gumbo, but god-damn this stuff was good. Spicy enough to open up your sinuses and PACKED with sausage, crab and rice. Next time I go I'm gonna see if they'll give me a quart of that stuff.

I agree with MikeM. I saw the show as well and as soon as it was over I was texting my friends to see if they wanted to plan a trip. Eatrustic and Xando Head, I think the Chinatown thing works like this; most major cities have a Chinatown that are probably dynamic in their own little way. I'm sure Bourdain could do a show that simply focuses on the Chinatown of the city he's currently in. That could get redundant, and he's more into the indigineous thing anyway. Many cities have a Chinatown, but not a Sooke Harbour House or that ziptrek thing, which looked awesome by the way. Just my two cents.

I stopped by on Monday and had the pork and prosciutto sandwich. Slow roasted Italian style pork, asiago cheese and prosciutto on a nice, fresh long roll. Also comes with roasted peppers just I got mine without. It was pretty solid, but I'll eat my way through some more of the menu before I go back to it. It's a nice little place, and I do mean little. There's 4 seats at the counter and two small tables by the walls, which will suck if (when) this place gets popular. I might swing by today and grab a cheesesteak, or a hoagie, or the bbq pork. Haven't decided yet...

I'm gonna try to hit the kickoff event in East Falls and the Philadelphia Real Ale Festival. I figure between those and the thing at the Navy Yard, I'll have sufficiently covered the bases.

Sweeeeeet! New lunch spot. I'll be stopping in next week for a cheesesteak, roast pork, and whatever else I'm feeling like. I wish I liked shrimp so I could sample that po boy, but that's not really up my alley.

I foolishly tried to get tickets at the door to last year's Philly Craft Beer Festival at the Navy Yard and was turned away at a relatively early hour. I remember hearing mixed reviews about it, but that it wasn't bad for it's first year. Anyway, I won't be making the same mistake this year and I'll order tickets in advance. More importantly, it looks like this year's festival will be a precursor to Philly Beer Week. I, for one, am pretty f*cking excited.

Tommy Gunn's in my 'hood is the ultimate head scratcher. Most of their stuff is average but their pulled pork and spare ribs, when done correctly, can range from very good to borderline great (imho, certainly no bbq expert). When they're on top of their game, which was most of the time when they first opened, the definitely satisfy the bbq craving and justify not having to drive all the way up to Sweet Lucy's. But over the past few months they've been all over the board, ranging from how-is-this-place-still-open bad to why-isn't-it-always-like-this good? One pet peeve of mine is that they don't let their pulled pork simmer in a pot of bbq sauce. They leave it plain and give you sauce on the side to sauce it as you like. I suppose this is done to showcase the smokiness of it, but I like the idea of pulled pork simmering away in a pool of bbq sauce, just getting more and more tender and delicious. But that's just me.

Same exact thing with my brother, but only if you add "flat broke" into the description. These things are the top of the food chain for him and his roommates, followed by Top Ramen then condiments.

Word on the street was that there aren't really any good places around for soup dumplings. Where'd you score those???

My girlfriend and I stopped in last night and had a fantastic meal and some excellent drinks served up by Ms. Katie Loeb herself. This place is the perfect date spot, cozy and friendly with some seriously good food. I started off with an Aviatrix, which was delicious and went down way too easily. GF had a champagne cocktail (champagne and limoncello, I believe), which she loved. We ordered up some food, starting off with the shrimp and chorizo skewers. I'm not a big fan of shrimp, but this combination works well together. After all, grilled chorizo has that bacon-esque quality of just making other things better. Up next was the spinach and prosciutto gnudi that my gf ordered... wow. God DAMN were these things good. The light and airy gnudi, the garlic-laced spinach, and the razor thin, delicately salty prosciutto were all very good on their own, but together they were on another level. I was immediately jealous that my gf had ordered them and I didn't. I had the steak frites, which was a perfectly cooked med rare strip steak on top of a huge pile of shoestring fries. It wasn't the best I've had but it was solid, and it's not like I was at a steakhouse, I was just jonesing for red meat. Katie picked out a very nice nebbiolo to pair up with my steak. She also chose a white wine (forget which kind) for my gf to pair with her gnudi which she raved about. I should mention at this point that I had not introduced myself as an eGullet member until after the meal, mostly because I didn't want to seem all dorky and saddle up to the bar like "HEY I'M FROM EGULLET!!!" But Katie was an excellent host, from choosing wines to go with our meal to also mixing up some delicious cocktails. Her and the other bartender just seemed to be having a good time, chatting with all the patrons and making everyone feel comfortable. Isn't that the way it should be? She had mixed me up a Sazerac, which I had never had and is a serious cocktail, but I now understand what people mean when they say "balanced" cocktail. If made carelessly, this drink could easily be an overpowering mix of harsh alcohol. However, it came off as still assertive but very well rounded. Tasty stuff. We had also met Katie, very briefly, close to a year ago when we had a Valentine's day dinner at M. So for those scoring at home, we are 2-for-2 with having incredible dinners at Katie Loeb-employed establishments. My gf already can't wait to go back. Thanks for a great night!

Also had Delerium Tremens for the first time the other night. Outstanding. I'm pretty much new to Belgians, and it's great to starting finding out just how good they are.

Over the holiday break, me and a few friends decided to hit a local bar (Flat Rock in Manayunk) with an outstanding selection of all kinds of different beers and have a holiday beer tasting. We started off with a Chimay Blue to warm us up, then went with a Belgian (I believe) called Golden Dragon. Not a holiday beer, but damn good. The first holiday beer was the Mad Elf from Troegs. I happen to think that this beer was better when they first brewed it a few years ago, but it's still nice. After that we moved on to Delerium Noel, which I loved. Up next came a beer called Samiclaus, which tipped the scales at an astonishing 14% alcohol. You could definitely taste the alcohol, but it wasn't as pronounced as you would think a 14% banger would be. After this we throttled down a bit and went with Sam Smith's holiday beer (forget the name), which I liked but my friends weren't so fond of. After this we were joined by another friend who grabbed a round of Mad Elfs for everyone. I find it somewhat amazing that I remembered all this, as my memory was quite hazy by this time. The high alcohol content was the common thread among all these beers, and as you can imagine we were all toasted by the end of our impropmtu session, but that was kind of our goal anyway. Definitely a great way to get you into the Christmas spirit.

Anyone have any recomendations for an "easy" drink or two in this book? As you'll see in this thread my friends and I are new to the game, so I figured that it would make a ton of sense to buy this book (very interesting, by the way) for my friend's party and start at the beginning, and also since I am in the presence of so many experts on this board.

Let me start by saying the only thing I know about this subject is what I have read on this thread, a few others throughout eGullet, and what I Googled, but it seems logical to ask that if this product is already pulling down bellota prices, what will the actual bellota be priced at?

I stopped in once for a breakfast sandwich (more out of curiosity) and it was as no different than a typical, average deli. Haven't tried their roast pork....yet. ← I actually stopped by last week and got a roast pork. I would say that you're right on with it being an average place. It certainly wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly good either. The roll was above average, the pork itself was average, and the sharp provolone was below average. It could have potential if they seasoned the pork better, and stepped up to a better sharp provolone. I'd say it'd much better than somewhere like Wawa, but I'd only go back if I was seriously jonesing for a pork sandwich and didn't feel like driving over to the Italian Market in Skippack.

Thanks for the replies. I'm halfway through the "Bartending for the perplexed" thread, which is hysterical. It should be required reading for people like me.

I have a friend who is in the process of building a bar in his basement and in a few weeks will be having a little opening party. I have had some success in the past few years of slowly weening my friends off of Bud, Miller and Coors light, and now I would like to set my sights on cocktails. I would like to serve maybe two cocktails to start everyone out on the right foot. My crowd is roughly the straight shots/vodka and Redbull set, the types who would order vodka and cranberries and Jack and Cokes and consider that the entire world of cocktails. I actually have a friend who occasionally drinks straight Canadian Club whiskey and calls it a Manhattan. Seriously. It's not that they're idiots, (wait, yes they are...) it's just that they don't know any better. I like to think of this as having a clean slate. If they had any concept of what is good, they'd accept it. I need to step my game up as well. For instance, I had never heard about an Aviation until reading all about it on this board. But after doing my homework, I went out and bought all of the ingredients that were needed, and mixed up a few crude versions. I served some up at a party, and they were a big hit. I'm certain that I cranked out a rudimentary version of this cocktail, but it tasted good, and more importantly, everyone else really liked it. So this is one drink I will be serving at the party, but I need one more. Preferrably one that is pretty basic, but will get people talking and wondering what it is and how I made it. Any and all help is appreciated!