TarteTatin

Yes, we were in Reims and Epernay and Ay over Christmas. Between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve this past year, 05 just before 06. We posted lots of stuff, can't remember the title of the thread? Anyway, IM us if you want anything specific.

Okay, let's talk about last night. Thursday, Feb 16th. Five of us for dinner. I arrived alone, first. It's such a pretty restaurant. Our table was at the very front. They were playing Pink Martini; which is perfect, because we were on our way to the concert after dinner. One of the waitresses knew that, and said she was glad I noticed they were playing it. Hubby came in. We immediately got served water and the amuse bouche. Personally, I would have liked until all five of us had arrived before serving the amuse. Even though it was a cold one. It was beef carpaccio with a touch of truffle oil and a bit of frisee, I think. (forgive all of my food explanations-I forgot to pick up a menu, so there will be lots of descriptive items I'm missing) There was a pot of brioche type bread and a cute little butter bell (love those). I think what I liked best about the evening was that they took chances. They were creative, and the flavors worked. It wasn't too busy with too many tastes, but perfectly balanced. The wine glasses are absolutely perfect, in my opinion. They are little Riedel degustation (tasting) glasses. The perfect size for swirling to see the legs, and the perfect size to fit the nose completely into. The only problem is the temperature of the hand warms the wine. And whether it is red or white, this is an issue. But they are really unique and fine tasting glasses. I had the Cape May Oysters which tasted of the sea-but not fishy-just perfect-served with a cucumber something. Really refreshing, I wanted more of them. Small, as I like, but if they are so small, then serve six. Hubby had a Kasmir platter-3 types of vegetarian Indian items. There was a samosa, and something eggplanty-I think-and then this outrageous sort of Indian guacamole. It was spicy, but not in the Mexican sense, so good! Other apps around the table: Salt baked (poached) bosc pear with other items, short rib tart (which I'll get to later), and tuna carpaccio. For an entree, I had two more appetizers. This is great when you want to taste a lot of items! I had gnocci with pulled pork and a million more items. Tasty, light gnocci, little ones, with lots of absolutely delicious pork on the bottom layer. I think there were little fried shallots? It's hard to go out with others, because I had to concentrate on talking, even though they are also food lovers. I can't remember what else was in the dish, and I don't give justice to my description. I also had that Short Rib tart. A little tart with short rib slices and more. Good. I liked the pastry, another dining partner thought it didn't go with the meat. Hubby had tender duck breast. He didn't like his layered sweet potato mille fleuille, I loved it. Others had Venison, it actually had some taste to it, mostly we don't order it anymore-it doesn't taste of anything. The dining partner that ordered the diver scallops wasn't impressed at all. It was quite a few large gorgeous scallops, served with two whole (with the head on-that's great!) large shrimp. But I guess you can't get it fresh with the head on, he thought it should have been crispier, it was almost mushy. Someone else had the short rib tart for their entree. We had one cheese plate served for the table. She warned us that she usually serves 4-5 pieces of their 11 cheeses they had, but would give us a tiny taste of it all. So, it was barely the minutest piece of all 11, therefore only two people could barely get a bite of each cheese. Nice idea to let us try them all, but it didn't really work. I remember a nice cheese from Champagne (of course!), and a couple of good sheep's cheeses... For dessert we had: Vanilla Tasting Plate. This was three items, a mini creme brulee, a mini parfait with mascarpone and raspberry, and an ice cream sandwich. Good, but not overwhelming tastes of vanilla, as I had hoped for. Also, we had the Banana Split, which wasn't really a banana split and hubby scarfed it down and didn't really share. I do know the pieces of banana on top had been dipped in chocolate. I think there was another dessert too. Something Chocolate. We went at 6:00 and were out at 8:00 for the concert. It was packed by the time we left, with some reservations waiting on the street. This was a Thursday night. Service was good, a bit rushed, but then they had to get us out. We split the bill five ways, and it came to $54 a person including tip. We brought our own wines, an Auxey-Duress was the hit of the night. To sum it up, I agree with Greg's earlier post: This is a VERY GOOD byob! Who cares about the stars or bells. I think they take creative chances, and its probably the best BYOB in town. No, its not the Fountain. And that's why I like Le Comptoir in Paris; rather than La Tour D'argent. I think people lately, are generally into good, bistro food, in a relaxed atmosphere, where the food is taken just as seriously as the four stars.

I'm feeling peckish.

We have reservations there for this coming Thursday night, 5 of us, before a TLA concert: Pink Martini. We always liked both Django and RX, so I'm sure everything will be just dandy.

Besides Joy of Cooking, we always pick up any of the Elizabeth David books. French Provincial Cooking, especially. Also, Saveur Cooks French is surprisingly good.

Thank you for the clarifications, both of you! They really helped me try to understand; but we still want RARE MEAT!

That Prune/Armangac was made specifically for me! I special ordered it to be made into ice cream sandwiches for hubby's birthday party. They told me that they made a whole batch just for me, and it sold so well in the shop, they had to hurry and pull some aside for my special order! Good, wasn't it! Can you imagine it with dark chocolate covered toll house cookies on top and bottom?

"Alas, no establishment will advertise they serve rare burgers, because of city health regulations (Section 3-06.1): " I don't understand...according to health regulations, you can't get rare ground beef. But you can get carpaccio many places, I believe, and raw beef at Vietnam Palace and other places.

We agree with you, Rlibkind, about a true, rare burger. We also like it rare, and no one (even my favorite Tap), serves it that way! What are they so afraid of? I know for a fact that Tap gets their meat from good places... Actually, we have stopped eating burgers out. We get our ground beef from a Lancaster farm called "Dr. Elkins Grassfed" beef. It's the most amazing beef we've ever had. It's got taste, its local, it has no added stuff to it, AND, we cook it ourselves---RARE. We have it usually bunless, or on a baguette or brioche, plain or with a thin slice of Comte. We really need to taste this amazing beef. Hubby simply salts and peppers it, and cooks it on the grill pan or outside charcoal grill. The taste cannot compare to any restaurant recently. A bit of homemade ketchup, or Bauman's ketchup, or none. No mustard or mayo. Outstanding.

Oh, Society Hill Hotel has GREAT fries! I can't remember what they call them, but it's a huge order, topped with fried thin yams, onions, gosh, what else. Tasty. And, they should have room...

Elizabeth David and my husband

We like a good, crisp outside, soft inside, true baguette. Fork's bakery has a really good one...had it tonight. Also, in Nolib, there's a new store at 4th and Poplar? -that gets their baguette from a South Philly Asian Artisinal. I think that's actually the best we've had. Where else have you had really good baguette's?

I swear there had to have been a post on this before, with everyone always choosing sides... However, I went through 8 pages of the search site, and didn't come up with anything. We wanted an inexpensive meal tonight, and headed over to Vietnam Palace. This is the one we always go to. It's been renovated, and we like the informality of the place, very comfortable. Ask for Twi (spelled wrong, I'm sure) the Hostess. She's been there for years, left to have a baby and is back. Her Uncle and cousins run the kitchen. To start we had Jicama rolls in rice paper. Very crunchy and fresh, with sausage and jicama and tamarind sauce with peanuts. ($4) Hubby had Beef special Pho ($7), with all sorts of regular and exotic stuff in it. He doesn't usually like tripe, but tried it again tonight, and said it was a bit chewy, but ate it all. It came with fresh bean sprouts, lots of great smelling mint and some jalapeno slices. I had the Chicken with Vermicelli and Rice Papers. Roll your own, I love it...again, fresh mint, bean sprouts, also thin slices of gorgeous Daikon, carrot and delicious vermicelli. The chicken was sort of covered in bits of peanuts and scallions. I always order the red hot oil pepper sauce, and it comes with a rice vinegar. ($9) I love Daikon, but only out. When I buy it for home it gets limp and I don't use it... He had two "33"' beers and I two glasses of white wine. I think it was $40 something plus tip. Good, decent, Vietnamese food! We have friends in Amsterdam from Philly, and they said they miss the Ethnic food we have here so much! They emailed recently that they'd do anything for a bowl of Pho! (Their favorite is Pho 75 on Washington Ave-they said to go in and get the #15, I think that's the number they mentioned! We haven't done it yet) On the same note, friends in Paris said that's what they miss the most. Good, Ethnic food with spices. The French seems afraid to use spices. Even in Indian places!

We're having a dinner party for hubby's birthday next weekend. I contacted Capogiro and asked for a special request, instead of a cake. They're making us 25 mini prune and armangac ice cream sandwiches! Our request. Charging us $3 a piece, which sounds pretty reasonable. And they have to make a special batch of the gelato. From what I understand they have to make 5 liters of a batch, so there should be some of that left after Sunday! My only concern is what does "mini" mean. They said its about the size of a toll house cookie. I only hope I'm not disapointed with the size...

There's also a picture in today's New York Times. Darn. Now it'll be even more difficult to get in! (When it opens again!)

Rlibkind-We were there the same time as you and the million soccer coaches. Delilah's had run out of mac and cheese, so I thought I'd try their wings. Should've gone for the pork sandwich. Hubby tried the "Paris" crepe across the way. It was such a madhouse, the things we tried just weren't that great... For our dinner party: Got that fabulous Fair Food bacon and wrapped them around prunes we brought back from France. Put them on Rosemary skewers that we got at Fair Food, delicious! ($2.00 a bunch for the rosemary) I had already made a Potiron/Potimarron soup last week (combination of Pumpkin and Butternut squash that we bought from Fair Food with Livingood's leeks). Made my own chicken stock with chicken pieces from Halteman's... Topped the soup with slices of roasted chestnut that we got at Trader Joe's. Oh-used the pumpkin and squash seeds roasted with curry powder for cocktails. We bought some huge scallops at the place near Iovine/Salumeria. Hubby wanted to buy 18 of these humungous scallops for 6 people, I talked him down to 15. We could've ordered 6, one each...they were so huge and no one could finish them. Good, though. I think it was $12.99 a pound. He made them with a Champagne sauce with Hedgehog mushrooms that we got a Iovine. (wanted Chanterelles but no one had them, the Hedgehog's were a decent replacement. $19.99 a pound. I think that price scares some people, but, in all honesty, the amount we bought for the sauce was around $3.50) Hubby made real Potatoes Dauphenois from Livingood's Yukon Gold potatoes and Downtown Cheese's Comte and Emmenthaler, with Fair Food's heavy cream...got haricot verts from Iovine. Also bought a stinky, perfect Epoisses from Downtown Cheese at $11.99. And a little truffle goat cheese, around $7? I forgot the price.. He also made a Tarte Tatin (of course, his specialty!) from apples from our Winter Harvest. The Champagne's and wines were delicious too, but we didn't get them from Reading Terminal! We brought back most from our recent trip to Champagne! So, Reading Terminal is perfect for that one stop shopping for lunch and a dinner party! P.S. I forgot to buy flowers for my table, but could've gotten those at the Terminal too! P.P.S. Obviously, hubby is the cook except for Soups which I make. Aren't I lucky?

No, Katie, I don't want to kill you! I think-#1-that Aden wasn't that great, so that's why its going... #2-that Northern Liberties could bring more business and less rent than center center city (Metropolitan went out of biz, first at 2nd and Market and then at Farmacia-because they are surrounded by Fork, Old City Coffee, Double Shot, and not far away Petit 4 and Pink Rose-that's certainly not the area to go into, where there's tons of other similar places). Rittenhouse Square has had two bakeries go out of biz/new owners recently. The place near La Colombe (name?) and Miel has new owners and isn't as good...so that's not the place. I certainly think Nolib is better than Queen Village who has the Italian Market close by for competition...Art museum has more than a few places too...Gosh, Reading Terminal would be perfect! Can they get in there?

We called them on January 2nd and Madame said they were closed for the month of January. So we strolled by a few days later, just to see, and it was, indeed, completely torn apart, for renovation...We were so sad!

We have yet to encounter a decent Tarte Tatin (like my husband can make) in a restaurant in France. (or the US) --We, also, keep searching! Tarte Tatin (like Cassoulet) is one of those dishes best made at home-unless one wishes to provoke endless discussions. Especially as people have a tendency to use puff pastry, which is not acceptable. Edited to add the puff pastry line

We were just there a few weeks ago! Granted, all restaurants were closed between Christmas and New Year's. BUT- Cave au Champagne off the main square in Epernay was extremely good value and good food. It was 15 euros for a 3 course lunch, and the Champagne list was amazing! We had boudin blanc over feuillete with morels to start, filet with a marchand du vin sauce, dessert was tarte au pomme and fromage frais avec fresh fruit-can't remember all the details, but it was very good. The Champagne list was huge and we had a bottle of Pierre Peters Blanc de Blanc that was stunning. They don't import to the US and we tracked down the village in the snow and they were closed! Most of the Champagne was around 29-35 euros. La Grillade was open too. We had grilled fish and other items with a party of four in the fireplace in the dining room. Pretty good. Chez Max was a really informal place, not great food, but a really convivial atmosphere. All in Epernay. We stayed at a Chambre d'hote in Mareuil-sur-Ay, in a Champagne house called Guy Charbaut. Good, but a bit like Fawlty Towers! Our friends stayed in the same village-La Marotiere- a huge and classy place, both for about 68 euros a night! It was right across from Billecart-Salmon (which was not open to the public. If you want to know the Champagne houses we visited, email us. Oh, if you want to take a drive to St. Menehould, there's a place called Cheval Blanc that wasn't open, but where we were headed, that serves frites cooked in pork fat. So we went to the place across the street and my hubby had pigs foot. They serve that about 10 different ways, along with Andouillette a few ways and two omelettes. I had an omelette with lardon, that was beautiful. It's about 45 minutes east of Epernay (in the snow), had a liquor similar to Ratafia from the Lorraine....Louis the 16th was captured there because he had a fondness for pigs feet. Very interesting.

I second the Standard Tap - Northern Liberties rec. If you're here for brunch, they do an awesome brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. We were in Montreal a few months ago, drove up. Had good dinners at Laloux, L'express. Loved the marche Jean Talon-if you can bring us some spice from a shop in that market, I'll meet you and pay you! Can't find it anywhere! It's an Egyptian Dukka spice that's outrageous. Send me a message if you find the time; and we'll meet in the city! No problem, of course, if time is limited! javascript:emoticon(':biggrin:')

Sounds great! It's a block north of Spring Garden. Good location, location, location... Next to a coffee shop and a sushi restaurant. We'd totally welcome you here!

We noticed at Ripaille last week, that there were no ashtrays on the table, and no one was smoking. That's great, because it is a little tiny restaurant. Our reservation was for 8:30...when we were just finishing our desserts, about 10:30, I think?---a table in the back asked for an ashtray and one was immediately brought out. But, I think it's a very "respectful" place regarding smoking, got that feeling... And, the food was good! Since your name is Scallopeater, I presume you like Coquille? I always search for Coquille avec coral- with the roe. No one does it anymore. I see it all the time in the marches, but not in the restaurants! If you find it anywhere, let me know. I always ask in the restaurants!

Okay, I know this is a NY post, and I'm writing about Philly... But I find it interesting that Lacroix in Philadelphia (Jean-Marie, formerly of the Four Seasons), does an incredible "buffet" on Sunday brunch that he doesn't tout as a buffet, and its great. The appetizer bar full of caviar, house smoked fish, huge shrimp, ceviches, delicious adventurous cold food is in the dining area. Very classy. Then the main course is in the kitchen! You are greeted by the Chef and go into the actual kitchen, and at each station in the sparkling clean kitchen, you are greeted by a different Chef who serves you the usual basics for a classy Four Seasons brunch. Then the dessert bar is at the other end of the restaurant, with a million homemade choices. Although, if you want the Chocolate fountain, that is back in the kitchen, with fruit and other assortments to dip into the fountain. One time there was a chocolate fountain and a white chocolate one as well, and one time a strawberry chocolate fountain. Strawberries, raspberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, meringues, gosh, what else?? Not inexpensive, ($50ish each? Can't remember) but worth it as a treat. You can go back as many times as you want. I actually prefer the apps and the dessert. The main courses aren't as thrilling to me. I tried some insipid quenelles, and a couple of other things like your typical lamb chops, eggs benedict, pork, . But the more creative things were on the appetizer and dessert areas, in my opinion.

Elizabeth David's books are outrageous. I can't believe no one has yet recommended MFK Fisher.