lfabio2007

You know, as someone who was born and raised in Italy and who still spends six months out of the year on average there, I am pretty certain I have a good handle on what I'm talking about: while a lot of people eat cotechino on NYE/NYD, when incidentally they should be eating zampone, if they really wanted to be pedantic, I've had very many bolliti with cotechino (in Veneto and Friuli, musetto) in them all winter long - and by the by, even the tradition of zampone on NYE is relatively recent and only really indigenous to the northeast, starting from Emilia and sort of radiating north and east. This is sort of like saying that since one eats magro on Christmas eve, clearly one should only poach a branzino on the 24th of december, traditionally. jmolinari, I did see your blog. The idea of making it myself did cross my mind, but I am not a butcher and I have little time to experiment. How difficult is it? The main problem I've seen in curing meats is avoiding air bubbles which cause oxidation where you don't want it.. and getting the cures right (though one could argue that cotechino doesn't really need a cure...). I already persuaded my GF to help me with Tortellin and I don't know how another cooking project would go over.

Run don't walk to the Rittenhouse 'farmer's market'. The rest of the stuff is fine... but the bread the gentlemen sell is Real Bread. No, not the 70%-overweight-by-water you get almost everywhere... both the baguettes and the boules actually weigh what they should and don't require two forklifts to handle! I'm investigating, I think they're the same bakery that was there year-before-last, they're in Collingswood on Haddonfield rd.

Thank you folks! Per professor Fenton's suggestion, I will have to go INVESTIGATE Modo Mio (hey, any excuse is good, right?) and I'll pass by croce... if not, it's off to NYC. I'm a bit puzzled by the New Year timeframe. Zampone.. I can sort of see, but cotechino for bollito is an all winter thing (actually, if you go http://www.ristoranteciccarelli.it/menu.html here it's fine in mid-july, too. Prior training necessary but generally eGulleteers are quite capable...).

Folks, having persuaded my SO to do the tortellini & bollito thing for Christmas (edgy, I know!), I am left wondering where to find a cotechino (or musetto) similar to what you'd get in Bologna (or Veneto, for musetto: slightly different grind, but the concept is the same). A couple of years ago we went to a butcher in the italian market and I bought... something... which had about as much to do with cotechino as 'balsamic vinegar' is similar to 'aceto balsamico tradizionale' (I prefer Reggio to Modena, incidentally). Any ideas? Pointers? Suggestions? Willing to travel if necessary.

Uh, I posted the review above and the thread... vanished?

After quite a while, we went back and finally had one of their tasting menus: “Game Menu!"” Venison Crostini Chestnut butter, balsamic cherries, juniper Wild Boar Puntanesca Potato gnocchi, black olives, parmesan, fried capers Bacon Wrapped Rabbit Toasted barley, wild mushrooms, fig compote, sherry gastrique Half Roasted Quail Vanilla-parsnip puree, haricot vert, cinnamon quail jus Almond Crepes Blood orange sauce, vanilla ice cream I could quibble as I usually do about the microgreens with the crostini needing a little more acidity and a little more ... watercress flavour or about the gnocchi being great but still a little too firm. Instead I'll simply make one very simple statement: best 'new american' meal of Q4 2009. As usual, the pairings were the strongest point and they all simply worked. It appears that the changes in staff simply improve this place. Oh and: the price for the tasting hasn't changed since they started. That in and of itself is perhaps even more remarkable than the food.

...so we went. The short review is: don't bother. Some wines are interesting, the selection is not particularly wide nor inspired. The atmosphere is.. ah, lacking and the food, though not bad, nothing to write home about.

Bumping this thread back up as we finally made it out to Zahav last night. I'll have to agree with Andrew that the salads started things off well, especially the twice-cooked eggplant. The cauliflower on the other hand must've come very close to the platonic ideal of CUMIN, so I wasn't in love with it. I did love the two varieties of hummus we had though - the turkish with roasted garlic and butter and and the tehina - mercifully low on cumin but high in paprika. From the following dishes, the fried cauliflower was very good, so was the malauch. The crispy haloumi also deserved a mention, as did the chopped liver - which was effectively a very good, mild pate. On the other hand, the chraime fish stew didn't impress anyone and the jerusalem grill with grilled duck hearts proved once again that I am not an offal person. Moving on to the grilled dishes, the bulgarian meatballs were good and the farsi lamb trio (leg, rib and tongue) was OK, but the really tasty dish was the house-made merguez, with a powerful red pepper sauce that reminded me a lot of a spicier version of ajvar (understandably). We did enjoy the desserts: our party was evenly split between the konafi, 'kataifi, ricotta, rose water, pistachios', a ricotta-cheesecake-alike with a very thin, phillo dough (?) covering on both sides and the pine nut tart, with honey and whipped labaneh, the latter working wonders with its acidity in cutting the SLIGHT OVERDOSE of sweetness from the honey. All in all, a pleasureable experience and a good value, though the wine list seemed quite expensive to me: we had a chateau musar from 2002, lebanon, which complemented the assertive flavours very well but was definitely over the top at $63 (winesearcher: $24 in NJ). A final note: though the location is very lovely, parking is not. It took us upwards of thirty minutes to find a place to stick a car.

Indeed: after reading about it, we finally made it over today. The soup dumplings were, indeed, very good, (the pork ones must've had some ginger in them too - an interesting counterpoint) though possibly the ones at the now-defunct Magic Kingdom of Dough were more flavourful. The pan-fried pork dumplings were also very good, though a little overgreasy - I prefer the pork & chives at Dim Sum Garden. Finally, the shangainese wonton soup was really excellent - with possibly the best wontons I've had so far, with a vegetable/pork mixed filling. Yes, we were on a dumpling binge. A particular mention also goes to the pancakes: they can possibly vie with Rangoon's thousand-layer bread as the best fried flatbreads in the area.

WineO 447 Poplar Street Philadelphia, PA 19123 (215) 925-0999 wineophilly.com Has anyone been? We've passed in front of it at least twenty times on the way to Cantina dos Segundos and we're curious...

The steak for two is still on the menu. Calling it a fiorentina is debatable - even in Tuscany there are differing opinions as to exactly what cut of meat should be used for 'bistecca alla fiorentina' - so I'd just term it 'costata'. And mind, the cooking is spot on, with one of the best sears I have ever seen, IF you like your beef adorned with garlic and spices, which is most certainly not something you'd find in Tuscany. My problem with it - you knew this was coming - was in the quality of the meat, which was not even remotely up to par. Oh, and with the pricing on the winelist, which could only be defined usurious if one were feeling exceedingly generous, but that's another debate entirely. In short: I'm hoping to find a better steak somewhere in Philly. I'm not sure that Osteria's rendition should be that high on the list.

Oh, er, two different events. Never mind me then! I apologise for the confusion...

Do I understand correctly that the Oct 2nd/3rd dinner is moved to Oct 16th? Also - is anyone planning on showing up? We were thinking of going....

We went by yesterday.. unless we got the location wrong (and I doubt it) there was a sign on the door that said 'Under new management - closed'. This made me sad.

It seems to be on for the 11th now? We can't make it back, we'll be there on the 2nd/3rd... we think.

Look what I found: http://foobooz.com/2009/07/dr-hadleys-root...ve-is-a-winner/ Good job Katie! We really must make it over!

Guilty for not going more, indeed.

Bringing this back up, sadly, just to note that the shop is now closed. Where to go?

Aha! So THAT was the deal with the OJ, it makes sense. Thank you matt, will try Carman's. As to Sabrina's - it's not really a ... fuss place. It just executes according to expectations.

UUuh, their website - with the correct address - now is http://www.tierranightclub.net/#/home/4531389360 ? Aha, there also is http://www.tierrarestaurante.com/ .

www.cafeestelle.com 444 N 4th St Philadelphia, PA 19123-4124 (215) 925-5080 We went Sunday for brunch, in our continued search for something new & better. The place was mentioned in passing in a brunch thread back in February, so we figured we'd stop by: the new part was there, the better part needs some work. Coffee was good, orange juice (fresh squeezed!) was good, they make their own scrapple, which was good, and their own bacon, which contained more sodium than most table salt. The 'mains' were... correct, acceptable, heavy handed. I had 'french toast' stuffed with cheddar, bechamel and sausage, which was light on the sausage and heavy on the cinnamon (?!?). My SO had the shirred eggs with mushroom and spinach which were a tad overcooked but definitely the better choice. The homefries were also... OK. In this pricerange, I can't say it's a bad experience, but I'd rather keep driving down Callowhill and go to Sabrina's.

Hmm. So when's a good time to come see if the Negronis are as good as the ones in Piazza Vittorio in Turin?

I think it was, indeed, Phoebe who served us - we were in the corner of the bar towards the door as usual. I signed up for the OH mailing list!

It is true that the FT columnist may have been a manhattanite with an axe to grind, but I will say this: we used to go to Vetris quite frequently. We've been the last time in October, IIRC, and we haven't been back.

In the past couple of months we've been here multiple times and I have to say that I love their tacos. The al pastor ones are great, the chorizo ones are great if a bit overpowering after the second one, the grilled lomo (pork loin) ones they frequently feature as a special really worth mentioning... the only ones I thought I'd enjoy more, though they were by no means bad, were the ones with carnitas. Their ceviches are also very good - though Paloma used to do a better job - and their cocktails, though perhaps a little pricey and busy, do not detract from the experience. It's been hour go-to place for odd hours for a while.