Vadouvan

Ahhh..... Sir Shacke. My comment was simply about the interior. You have to admit the interior does look cool if you remove the Rittenhouse Mongol hordes mobbing the place, sadly it may become a victim of it's own success. Perhaps they should have closed off the back dining area for noise abatement. The real question is probably that it's doing about an average of 800 covers a day, it must be a challenge to pay attention to the food. Bill Some restaurants pound out hanger steaks to flatten them so they cook faster and more evenly that why it look like a flank, I think it makes it stringy and dries out quickly. Hanger steak of all the cuts out there pretty much needs to be cooked SV, end of story.

After a sneak preview, the interior has gobs of atmosphere and easily the best baguettes in the city made in house. Killer bathrooms. Bistro is back for real.

No offense intended, jusr curious thought it seems like a lot of entities, how is the food in the bistro and fancy parts ?

So it's basically a grocery store that sells food like Wegmans or am I confused that it was a restaurant ?

It should be said that while this thread may have started with a seemingly unfair tone, while I do not want to discount any one's experiences, I guess reaching conclusions about any restaurant in it's early life/firsts few weeks of opening does not give indications of long term promise once things start to gel. Congratulations to James Burke. 2008 Food and Wine Best New Chefs. Photos

Evan I know you and I know your flavor expectations, I predict you will find Modo Mio highly overrated. I would not saddle the horses quite yet. The food is simply OK but price driven to create value, after 3 trips, it really is not very good. Some have described it as Osteria at a lower price point. It's like saying a VW bug is a 911 turbo at a lower price point. It isnt great, it's just comparatively inexpensive.

In all fairness, they are not at full capacity yet so things may even out. It will be interesting to see the publics view of the prices, though expensive, defintely not overpriced for the quality of ingredients. Philadining...I actually forgot the name but I had the drink with Rosemary, a bit too bitter on the aftertaste for me, wears out the palate

Went last night. Drinks are quite good, very similar to Tailor, PDT , PEGU. I wonder how quickly they can bang them out when they are busy but drinks are great. The food menu is not very exciting but really the issue is the language, very confusing and I suspect that will be changed rather quickly. The roof deck should be fun. Def a place to check out.

Anyone with good chickens ?

The place is very pretty but I think the fact that there is just WAY too much meat on the menu will hurt them. Seriously WAAAAY too much meat.

Have no fear, an "actual" really good Indian restaurant is opening down the street at 1318 Chestnut. Soon you will forget about Bindi.

Fosters. Shaffrenberger. Olde city Assouline. Valrhona Liberty Place

If the food is good, people will go. Does not seem like much new or hardly reflective of spring but again if it's good, most do not care as long as it's tasty. Have to agree with katie, a tad ambitious and tooooooo many steaks. Shellfish and Sage works if Butternut squash and bacon are involved.

I doubt anyone should give a crap, most local evening "news" is not news by any criteria of news gathering judgement. It's just the nightly fire, murder and embezzlement reports.

Matt. The owners should hire proofreaders before printing this menu. Hopefuly this was not the *actual* menu. Don't take it the wrong way and I don't want to sound like a know it all but it's a bit rough around the edges and we on e-gullet would be remiss if we did not point out these embarassing typos and inconsistencies. Maybe I am bored today but here goes, better you read it from me than from Laban wouldn't you say ? 1.Why say "sorbetto" instead of sorbet if it's not an Italian restaurant, sounds pretentious. plus "sorbet" is used for the cucumber dish. 2.The term "Napoleon" is only aplied to pastry. 3.Steak "Tartar" should be "TARTARE", "tartar" sauce is served with fried seafood. 4.Brandied Seafood Bisque Rich and creamy with a tarragon crème fraiche Spring is coming. 5."Crab Cakes Crab Mousse, breaded and seared, served with sautéed leaks" That would be "LEEKS". " Leaks" are dripping fluids. 6.Shellfish and Sage are notoriously incompatible. 7."Flatiron" steak. One word not Flat-Iron. 8."Time’s Signature Burger 10 oz. sirloin patty" Saying the hamburger is a "patty" seems fairly redundant. 9. "Creole bouillabaisse" maybe subject to interpretation but fine. 10. "peppered watercress" Isn't that peppercress ? 11. "12 oz. NY Strip Served with grilled leaks, gorgonzola butter, seared risotto, and a fried quail egg" Again "leeks" not "leaks" "Seared Risotto" sounds ? , say risotto cake. 12. "Braised Veal Cheeks Braised in a local IPA" Redundancies read badly, it's assumed braised dishes are braised. Rather say.... "Veal cheeks braised in local IPA" 13. As a whole every instance of the phrase "served with" should be removed. Too many "ands" It reads badly and distracts diners. Simply say for example... "Filet of Mako Shark, shaved brussel sprouts, pancetta, lemon-tarragon butter.

It's been no secret for years that Georges would rather capitalise on his name and reputation to become a "restauranteur" as opposed to remaining chef-owner. There is nothing wrong with that and he certainly paid his dues but the thing that's always been in his way is gradiosity and ego (which we all have to some degree). Georges has always defined himself as a pioneer of creating the gastronomy scene in Philadelphia and the restaurant that obviously is attached to that history is LBF, nobody really gives a crap about the culinary contributions of Brasserie, La Mas or that absurdly decorated place in Atlantic city. LBF defines Georges. THUS : knowing fully well that it is operating at no more than 50% of what it was doing 10 years ago, it HAS to be too expensive to keep open even if he owns the building. The building has appreciated handsomely since he bought it and he could sell it for millions, keep his other places, not so much as boil an egg and still have a 7 figure income. If he closes it, then some smart person gave him two options. 1. here is your ego. 2. here is an excel spreadsheet. If anything lots of very famous french chefs have closed thier flagship restaurants or worse killed them selves, closing LBF won't be the end of the world for Georges, he has a good legacy and he certainly will not be at the welfare offce anytime soon.

Great review ! I just revisited it last night. Morimoto doesn't quite call for an open mind, it's actually fairly standard slightly overpriced for the quality Japanese food. It could be a great restaurant but a few quirks like sitting at the sushi bar and not being able to order sushi from the sushi chef set it behind the better Japanese restaurants that charge way less in the country and why the hell are they serving lamb with ratatouille ?????? IMO if you order the omakase, set some parameters, they tend to add a few filler courses, definitely specify the cooked to raw ratio of food and skip the regular menu items. They have the best chicken soup in the city but that shrimp tempura with blue cheese sauce must be the wierdest thing I have ever tasted.

Probably due to the usual phalanx of cooks at the fountain chain smoking behind the kitchen on 19th street.

Seems the Sultans of soy, wasabi and ginger are never at a shortage of customers in Philly. Pan Asian menus keep poppng up everywhere. Anyone been to Pearl yet ?

Ultimately I have always contended that restaurants with Liquor licenses that allow BYO nights like Lacroix only do it as an act of desperation. Fact is it isn't about wine or wine education, it's about money, Osteria does have the luxury that it is very busy and obviously there is no financial incentive to have anyone bring thier own wine. I do find it a bit surprising that they will not even allow corkage for customers who have spent hundreds of dollars there but again, they make more money selling thier own wine and it really is thier choice. Now I do have to agree with DAGordon that the stated reason "We dont allow outside food or wine" is a bit odd because it seeks to provide justification for not allowing corkage by actually trying to convey the fact that they get frequent requests from people asking to come to dinner at Osteria and bring thier own food.

Actually there is no such thing as "African Brasserie" food, it just reflects the pervasive silliness in the food biz by using marketing niches that are non existent. Even if you were to ignore the use of the term brasserie, the food isn't hardly comprehensive enough to reflect more that 3 countries out of over 50 in Africa for the restaurant to be called "African". It may be African inspired but it is definitely not African.

It's just going to sublimate into conflicting opinion. The best fried chicken in the city at Jones ?

Total Nonsense ! You miss the point completely. Either combining or averaging is wrong. The evolution of cooking evolved in a timespan, a significant portion in which none of the protagonists were alive. Unless someone there was alive when Careme and Escoffier were cooking, makes no sense. It simply creates hyperbole to suggest that any six 24 to 40 year old people have 150 years of cooking experience. By the way 2 has a finite value. There are no such things as "large values of 2" Unless you work at the Pentagon, Truth is not subject to interpretation. Back to the Top 50, I am off to Positano tommorow night, I shall report back.

Interesting ! Let me clarify, it's not that I have a problem at all with the rankings, I really am just curious about how the list was compiled. One thing I will say is this, I enjoy reading philly mag food articles but a lot of entities use that statistical anomaly to justify the details. 3 people non of whom are at least 50 years old can have a combined 50 years of eating experience. I remember how the 4 seasons used to say they had a combined 150 years of cooking experience by simple addition, math statistics just don't quite work that way. Their experiences are similar, concurrent and co-exist in the same time span. It may be nitpicky bullshit but It's mathematically incorrect. But really ! Positano coast ranked higher than the places below it

Greetings Phil A Dining.... Exactly how were these conclusions reached ? Just curious about the criteria.