cjtst11

I've not yet had the Bassetti but the Wylie-Fenaughty is excellent and reminds me of a nice Crozes-Hermitage. At $15 a bottle they are a good deal and I bought some to put away. The Tablas Creek Roussane is not as good a deal but still worth trying. It could probably use a few years as well but is drinking decently right now.

I got one of the last two bottles of the Wild Turkey Rye at the Chestnut street store yesterday. I tried some last night. It is nice, a little hot, a little sweet but nicely spicy with some good menthol notes on it. I don't like it as much as the Michter's 10 year but for $15 it is hard to beat.

My wife and I are big fans of Monk's but I think you are correct, the mussels a the Standard Tap are awesome. We order them most of the time that we eat there and they are consistently very good.

I understand the economics and was just trying to illustrate the problem. I also know that the staff is not there soely to serve my table. Maybe I didn't make my point clear... This place does not know what it wants to be. I see the current overstaffing as a result or symptom of this. I don't know that it just a matter of time until the staff gets it. I think the problem starts at the top and the owners will have to decide what kind of place they want Osteria to be.

I made it to Osteria last night with my wife. We agreed that it was good but that's all, in fact we were a little dissapointed. Nothing was bad, our pizza was excellent (lombarda) and the salumi plate was very good as well. We also tried the wood oven roasted clams which were excellent but we we only served about 8-10 small clams for $16. Dessert was the cannoli which was not that good. The shells were too hard and filling did not have much flavor. We should have taken our waiter's advice and tried the budino... I guess this all leads to why were were dissapointed: It seemed to us that Osteria doesn't know what it wants to be. The prices and abundant staff seem to indicate that it wants to be more than an Italian bistro but the menu and execution say otherwise. There are entirely too may staff on the floor. We had no fewer than five different people wait on our table. At times they seemed more confused than anything about who should be doing what. There were several miscues including not replacing our silver before the next course arrived, attempting to take our order twice, and the fact that everytime I took a sip of wine there was someone at my table trying to refill my glass. I may be willing to chalk some of this confusion up to the fact that they have been open less than two weeks but it still seemed like overkill. It is like a chicken and egg dilemma, that the large number of staff were there more to justify the prices than to actually provide good service. Why do I need three waiters, two bus boys and a sommelier to have two appetizers, pizza, dessert and a bottle of dolcetto? I think Osteria could be very good if they would just back off all of the nonsense a bit. I would still have spent over $120 without the staff buzzing around us the entire time and I still thought it was the best pizza I've had in a long time.

I was there last for opening night last night. It was fairly crowded and loud but we got seats at the community table after about a twenty minute wait. The food was good, not quite Amada good but less expensive. The wine list is good as well but I still like Amada's list more. Bar Ferdinand seems more like a place to go just to hang out, have a few tapas and some wine. It is more laid back than Amada so I guess it depends on what kind of experience you want. We will definitely go back and I could see it being a regular spot for us.

I bought a magnum of the Burgess Cab 1993 library release to serve at a New Year's party that I had. It was excellent, at its peak and had aged very nicely. Very smooth, fully integrated and just a little bit of orange on the rim. The bottle didn't last long!!! I guess its a good thing that I bought a few bottles of the Roderer Estate NV sparkling (on sale but not Chairman's Selection) as well...

Another bottle that I found especially good for the money from the 12th and Chestnut Street store: TN: Petaluma Shriaz Adelaide Hills 1999 $19.99 This is not a chairman's selection but still qualifies as good deal. This is drinking really well right now. It is atypical Australian Shriaz in that it's not huge, not overripe and has not seen tons of new oak. There is about 5% viognier blended in making it smell more like a good Cote Rotie; pretty and floral over a base of dark fruit. It is really dense in the glass and definitely has some time ahead of it to develop. But, it's so nice right now, I don't know if it's worth waiting.

This is a first post for me... I've been lurking on this board for several months and have really enjoyed this thread. I live just a few blocks from the Chestnut Street store and have really been enjoying the glut of Chairman's Selections there. My most recent: TN: Saintsbury Pinot Noir Reserve Carneros 2003 $19.99 This was excellent right out of the bottle. It definitely has that distict sweet "cola" that I get from a lot of Carneros pinot. It is fairly big for pinot but not not overripe or jammy. It also has decent acidity so it's not all over the place. As nice as it is now, I'll be saving a few for 3-5 years down the road. If my wife and I can hold out until then, I'm pretty sure it will be even better.