serpentine

Siouxsie: I visit Paradiso fairly regularly with my own parents, and find the food to be generally excellent, with a few caveats, and I would say that you folks managed to eat some of those caveats. The pasta dishes are more rustic than the rest of the menu, and I find the tomato-based sauces to be often clumsy. The soups are hit-or-miss; I've been disappointed with a couple of soups there. But I love the rabbit cacciatore, my mom can't get enough of the octopus, calamari, or whatever seafood salad is being served, and the desserts are usually all winners. It's pretty traditional for the skin to be left on the outside of the fish when its pan-seared or grilled. It's easy to pull the meat off of the skin, but if your dad's lady friend is squicked by the skin, she may want to stay away from whole fish.

matt, I don't understand what you mean by "wouldn't let you modify their preset selections." You go down the line with them and tell them what you want in your burrito. If you want mixtures of meat or no rice or all three kinds of salsa or whatever, that's fine. They do overcharge for bonus guac in meat burritos. But it's included in veggie burritos. I do think that they overstuff the burritos and that it's just way too much food. I don't find them terribly sloppy, though -- unroll a portion of foil, take bites, strip off more foil, take more bites...?

I am so going to Fuego for lunch now. Veggie burrito is my usual too, with a mix of black and pinto beans.

kosoffj, that line gives all of us time to chat with strangers about how many people are coming over for Thanksgiving and what else we're making and telling the newbies how good the turkey wings are and where the potatoes are cheaper this year. Which is to say that I was a bit weirded out the first time, but now I'm used to it. I just relax and consider it part of the charm. I must say that on Wednesday early-afternoon the line went much faster than in previous years.

I order mine from Godshall's at RTM every year. I'm sure that you can still order one for pickup on Wednesday -- you can just call them. Oh, and you can get your turkey breast there, too.

Throwing in dessert recs...get a cookie from Famous 4th to eat with that ice cream from Bassett's.

Mom's TMC at 6th and Chestnut (in front of the Wachovia Bank, next to the damn Ducks) also does a good basic meatball sandwich. Four nice fluffy meatballs, lots of sauce, good bread, I get mine with provolone. This was lunch yesterday for me. Toscano, the gelato place owned by the Mezza Luna folks a few doors west, has a good meatball panini, but it's hard to justify paying $7.50 when Mom's is $2.30.

You don't mention price. If your like my in-laws, he may balk at the prices at the upper-tier steakhouses. If you're looking for less expensive options, he'll probably be comfortable with a tasty sandwich at the gastropubby places. Good Dog is in Center City. Other reasonably-priced places I've taken my in-laws that they've loved and not found too fussy or weird: Cucina Forte, Marra's, Sabrina's.

Seconding Shanks. It's at 10th and Carpenter, though.

Hmm, some way indeed. Like Googling "990"? 990 finder here. However, it'll be a couple years before you'll find out the details of this particular fiscal year. (I'm impressed that even 2006's statement is available, honestly.)

Two recommended ways you could do this: 1) Pick a place with a comfortable bar to get a couple of small plates with a glass of wine and the foie sample (with perhaps the classic accompaniment of a glass of sauternes.) For this, I'd say Caribou, Zinc, or Vintage off the top of my head. 2) Pick a mid-priced BYO and have a nice evening out, including foie as one of your apps. Of the below restaurants, Matyson leaps out at me. Me, I'd probably shy away from places that don't seem like the most natural place to order foie, even if I otherwise really like those restaurants (Standard Tap, Little Fish.) Personally, I think that even though the more expensive restaurants (Vetri, Osteria, Le Bec Fin, Brasserie, LaCroix) are justly renowned for their excellent foie gras, this would puts a lot of pressure on you. If you don't blow your dining budget for the month on one Very Fancy Meal Including The Legendary Foie Gras, you can try it a couple of times at a couple of different places. Besides, foie can seem like a different thing entirely depending on the presentation (let alone the preparation!) I know people who find fresh foie to be a bit much, but looove pate de foie gras, for example.

Not necessarily, sez Mr. Klein.

These two categories are by no means mutually exclusive. "We assumed he didn't want a lease, since he had so much to stay about proposed terms." That's petty and passive-aggressive. (And seriously, they've never encountered anyone who's possibly more bark than bite? Here? In Philadelphia?!) Fine, it wasn't in retaliation, to serve a hidden agenda, or blah blah blah other merchants. It was "merely" a stunning lack of professionalism by a board who claims to be trying to raise the bar.

I finally just got up there a month or two ago myself -- Fishtown is kind of out of the way for me. It's got a similar comfy, cozy vibe as Sabrina's, but with the griddle behind the bar, diner-style.

Ida Mae's Bruncherie in Fishtown, of course.

I see 'em at Ansill, Southwark, and Fork periodically. I think I remember seeing them at Caribou on occasion as well.

Warm fuzzies to bring the article to a close on a cliched "positive note." Yawn. Why can't we all just get along, Mr. Volk? Uh, because the star of your article is suing. Also, "bringing people together" needn't mean "agreeing." Sandy, I believe you and Philafoodie were cited, as you speculate, to give additional examples of Philadelphia's "food community." Apparently Mr. Volk didn't find any of your comments sensational enough to print. Perhaps you two should bicker more to provide insta-source material for Philadelphia Magazine writers. Erroneous, perhaps, but we don't know that the claim is libelous. Isn't that the whole point of this lawsuit? Anyway, LaBan said that the waiter referred to it as a strip steak. Perhaps Mr. Plotkin should sue the waiter.

Philadelphia Magazine published the article online.

Probably not too helpful, Holly, but I thought of you while enjoying a lovely, classic, cool vichyssoise at La Bonne Soupe in NYC this past weekend.

Good to know that the pho at Pho Hoa is good. I found their summer rolls to be disappointingly pathetic -- small and wimpy and flabby, sauce possibly from a jar. Across 11th Street at Viet Huong, however, the summer rolls are fat and fresh and tasty and cheap with a lovely homemade gingery-peanuty sauce. I've been getting bahn mi from Saigon Bakery (behind Nam Phuong) lately due to its close proximity to my house. Doesn't beat Cafe Nhu Y, my favorite, but they're still good. Their pork buns are nice, too.

Okay, before we start tossing around definitions of facts and truth and beauty, let's back up a bit here: Question: Why was Olivieri's lease not renewed? Dunston's Answer: Olivieri didn't agree to the proposed terms, so Olivieri's lease was not renewed. Olivieri's Answer: He was discussion w/management over the terms of a lease, but RTM refused to produce a written lease. Common sense and general business practices certainly permit negotiation of the terms of a lease renewal by both sides; RTM should be willing to explain their decision to apparently end negotiations and rescind their offer to Olivieri. Otherwise, it logically follows that other merchants are in danger of having their leases yanked if they disagree with management. Has anyone from RTM ever provided any details beyond Dunston's comments in the linked article? Dunston's "no-one gets a lifetime lease" and "the terms of the leases are fair" are insight into his management philosophy, but do not provide a specific explanation of this situation. And why all the mystery? If Dunston is so business-practices-oriented, certainly there would be documentation of the negotiation process?!

We have a chicken-or-egg problem here. Perhaps we should form a Coalition For Shopping At RTM to organize weekly "Shop-Ins" to demonstrate our interest to the few merchants still hanging out at 5:30.

What about the people attending the convention? Y'know, customers? I'm not suggesting that the Convention Center should officially dictate the operating hours for RTM. I actually think that Market management should be better-selected, with more representation by vendors, so that they can work out compromises that would serve the interests of the market and of the vendors. I would hope that a majority of food merchants would agree that it is a bit odd to for a food-providing market to be "open" yet have limited food for sale, despite having a huge pool of customers staring at them. If I were brokering a compromise, I'd ask that a certain percentage of food merchants agree to voluntary participation in specifically offering food up to closing, so that a customer would feel that a critical mass of businesses were open without mandating that all businesses change their model. I get that the hours of produce vendors are convenient for you. They're not for me, or anyone else who works the fairly standard hours of 9-5, unless their place of employment is immediately adjacent to the RTM. It's a sore spot for me that I work several blocks from RTM and live several blocks from the 9th St. Market, yet have to rely on Acme, SuperFresh, and Whole Foods for produce because they're the only businesses open when I get out of work. The proliferation of farmer's markets does indeed help, but the markets do not have nearly the variety of produce.

Convention going businessman that the guy is, he's on expense account. He’ll hop a cab to Pat’s or whatever the cabbie recommends. Luckily, being a business man who knows what the hell a plenary session is, he is sufficiently savvy to understand that RTM is not a food court for the Convention Center and that its merchants should have the option of whether or not they should have to stay open to feed him. Holly, with all due respect, perhaps you're not very familiar with conventions? It's really not all expense-account businesspeople. Check out this list of upcoming conventions. Needless to say, the folks attending FaerieCon are not there on expense accounts. But you may not realize that the regular attendees of something like the "Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals" are not wealthy or on generous expense accounts, either. In many professions, you're lucky if your company agrees to spring for your (sizable) registration fees and actually lets you take a few days off to attend. And you conveniently ignored #9. People who work dayjobs and would like to make dinner using fresh ingredients.

I haven't decided whether I've forgiven McManus for "The ceiling is fitted with tiny patches of the sort of material sails are made of." At this point in the review, I stopped thinking about burgers because my mind did this: Wow, is that awkward. And, uh, wouldn't that be canvas? Oh, perhaps he's referencing synthetic cloth and isn't sure what it's called. Yeah, that's called..."sailcloth." Google is your friend.