NCetr

A co-worker and I went to Table 31 Wednesday night. Silly me, for some reason I thought it got its name because it was on the 31st floor of the Comcast Center (I obviously made that up!). The atmosphere is very nice, not too loud and good-looking decor, and the bar looks pretty inviting. The sommelier paid us a visit. He is Spanish and we couldn't understand a lot of what he said because of his accent, but he was highly recommending a Malbec to go with our steaks and after bringing us a taste, we ordered a bottle, for $40. It was very spicy and tasty and despite feeling like it was pushed on us a bit, we thoroughly enjoyed it. We decided not to order apps, to save room for dessert. For a main, we each got the steak special, and I apologize that I can't remember the name of it but it came in a very hot skillet and was covered with mozzarella and tomatoes. The steak came with roasted potatoes (very average) and spinach (very average). Tables are given a basket of very good sour dough bread. The steak, which I believe they said was hand-cut in-house, was delicious and accurately cooked medium rare as requested. We split a pumpkin cheescake. Aside from being quite small (which I guess in this post-Christmas period isn't a bad thing) it was just okay. Instead of a piece of cheesecake it is an individually cooked cheesecake and the exterior was a little rubbery. Service was good. We both said we'd come back when we had more time to try more items on the menu. Also for two people, the bar looks like a pretty friendly place to eat, drink and watch a game.

My husband and I had a great burger last night at Dain's Place on 9th Street in Durham. http://www.dainsplace.net/ The menu is fairly small but offers a whole range of burger fixin's, along with a few other items that you can read about in a recent N&O mention: http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/din...ory/555893.html We each had the "Dainer," which has bacon, lettuce, tomato, bacon, sauteed onions, thousand island dressing and cheddar cheese. Burger was juicy, bun soft, toppings just right. We got a basket of fries (more than enough for two people) that were thin and crispy. We've been complaining for months about not having access to a good burger and now we have found one! We'll go back and try the homemade cheese sticks. The recommendation for the Dainer came from my hairdresser, who works on 9th Street.

Hi all, long-time lurker and first time poster...my keyboard is trembling... I have been assigned to Phila for one year for work, and am living in Center City but also commuting back and forth to NC. I am having a blast eating my way through the city; however, it looks as though I will run out of time before I run out of restaurants! Thanks for your great advice and discussions. My SO and I went to Osteria last Thursday evening. We got off to a somewhat shaky start after being seated under a stereo speaker, with music blasting. Even after they turned it down, it was too loud (why do restaurants insist on ruining a great atmosphere with loud, inappropriate music?). So we moved to a table right next to the prosciutto slicer -- what an excellent location! We were the recipients of two plates of light, tender "ham" (samples from the slicers) and probably could have gotten more. The waiters had no problems throwing us a few scraps as they sliced for others. We weren't starving (a mistake on our part!) so we decided to focus on first and second courses, our first was the Lombardo pizza. I had to have it -- have never had an egg on a pie. Sausage and egg is always good, and it really worked for us, we enjoyed wiping up the egg yolk with the crusts. Instead of mains, we shared two appetizers, the octopus with potato and chive and the robiolo francobolli. Of the two, we liked the pasta best. The octopus was just <okay.> A little too chewy for me (sidenote: had octopus at Matyson a few weeks ago, it was the best I've ever had, so so tender) but tasty. The pasta was good, but a very small plate, and by then we were wishing we'd ordered more food! So we both had dessert. The polenta budino was to die for. Wish I had some now for breakfast. The polenta is cooked with cream and sugar until it's super smooth, there's no grittiness to it at all. Yum. We also shared the chocolate flan, it was good but not as good as the polenta. For drinks, I had a glass of Trebbiano d'Abruzzo. I would have had a second glass of wine had somebody come to the table to ask me if I wanted one. Service was very average -- once the place got busy we were pretty much ignored, with one exception -- the service folks were way too fast in trying to take our plates. A couple of times we had to tell them not to remove plates, which still had very tasty bits of this and that to finish. Overall, we enjoyed the evening, the restaurant has a very "buzzy" feel to it, lots of energy, and next time we'll definitely arrive with a better appetite so we can do the menu justice.