Rich Pawlak

I'm in the hunt for outdoor dining spots, especially in the suburbs, and especially in the western suburbs of Philly. I want to EXCLUDE the sidewalk style al fresco dining choices, and focus on courtyards and patios and such that have been specifically created for the warm weather. What are some of your favorites? Thanks in advance!

Best bowl of mussels I've had in 2 years are the RED Thai curry mussels at the Grey Lodge, and that includes bowls of mussels at Standard Tap AND Monks. Another good bowl of flawlesss mussels can be had at Cassis Bistro in Radnor. But the Grey Lodge's may be the best in town.

As have I. The Yardley Inn is a terrific restaurant!

Had my annual bottle of Red Stripe (the best of the lot at a beachside bar here in St Croix USVI), and later I was able to snag a sixer of Virgin Island Brewing's Blackbeard Ale, contract brewed by Shipyard in Maine, a pleasant brown ale with a nice, refreshing hop bite. Later snagged a couple of bottles of Jamaican Dragon Stout, coffee-rich and chest-warming, maybe not tghe best brew in 85 degree beach weather, but a very nice adult beverage poolside at night with a Montecristo White Label and a Ghurka Reserve toro. Thanks God there is decent beer or two on St Croix!

Maybe is was the hammock, the sea breezes, and the view from our rented house high in the hills east of Christiansted, but I enjoyed a most unusal and oddly enticing beer here on the isalnd of St Croix , USVI. Picked up a sixer of local Virgin Island Pale Ale, contract brewded by Shipyard Brewing in Portland, ME, but every bit a unique island brew. Good hoppy notes right up front, but the aroma was not of citrus, nor of bitter herbs, but of.....MANGOES! Yes, the beer is tinged with more than a hint of mangoes, and it works! In fact, it ROCKS. I am no fan of fruit-tinged beers, but somehow this beer has a fantastic flavor and earthy sweetness that I thoroughly enjoyed. A sixer is making its way stateside in two weeks.

Glad you got to sample that excellent Farmer John's Oatmeal Stout, always my fa vorite Heartland beer. And all I'll say about the Alpha Male Ale is that AMA + troupe of high school drama students = Bob in custody for corrupting morals of minors. Glad you were able to avoid arrest in the Big Apple.

You rule. I want YOUR food life. What do you have. a hollow leg?

I noticed that it was turning into a wraps and salad place. Looks promising, but it's sad to see Paninoteca go. That was a great place.

I dont work for Philly Mag. I havent been able to get to Rae. And if it's not on the "Main Line (defined as Manayunk to Downingtown east to west, Brandywine Valley to Chester Springs/Phoenixville south to north)", I'm not able to review it.

And secretly dine with one another, I have been reliably told.

Visually, the place looks better than in any previous incarnation, including the 2nd version of FishMarket. And the food really was exceptional.

I dont recall a Laban review, but Catherine Lucey at the Daily News didnt give it a great review. The lunch menu has a lot of different stuff from the dinner menu (I snuck a peek), but I will say that the quality was evident, and the food was overall very satisfying.

I smell an eGullet Happy Hour one day next week. Perhaps let's meet for crab races one afternoon. Or a lovely beer at the Ft Christian Brewpub.

Chef Al Paris is finally hitting his stride at his newest endeavor, MANTRA, at 18th and Sansom. And he's finally open for lunch, too, so I took advantage of that by stopping in yesterday. The place looks great, a pan-Asian vibe, a dazzling wavy metallic back bar, clever woodwork (done mainly by wood hobbyist Paris himself) and a calming, sexy orangey-ruby red color scheme. The food was fabulous. We ordered a lot of things, as I had the twins in tow, and needed to find things that they would enjoy, but everyone nibbled something from every dish, and it was damn impressive. Warm scallion Roti bread were nice oniony crepes with a chunky cashew sauce alongside, great quick finger food. Followed with a bamboo steamer-full of light chicken dumplings, with sheer wrappers around really tasty ground chicken and a tangy rice wine dip. We, and the twins, devoured them, and we almost ordered another serving, they were that good. Then came a deep earthenware bowl of chicken soup, with maybe the richest, tastiest chicken broth I've had since my grandmother made soup in my childhood, filled with carrots, onions and celery, as well as a bunch more of those tasty dumplings. This soup would make for a damn fine lunch with a plate of that roti. But onward we plunged, ordering two of the eight Vietnamese sandwiches (banh mi)on the menu., choosing one filled with roast chicken, another filled with BBQ pork. Both were much larger than a typical banh mi, but the larger bread was excellent, the chicken banh mi was topped with cucumbers, pickled carrots and jalapenos. I don't know where Paris gets his chicken, but it is some tasty chicken. The pork filled banh mi was also superb, a bit sweeter glaze on the pork, for a slightly different flavor. We ordered 2 noodle dishes, Buddha vegetarian noodles, a holdover from Paris' late-lamented Guru restaurant on South St, as nicely spicy as I remembered it, with big cubes of grilled tofu. The other noodle dish was Mongolian meatballs and lo mein, with terrific sirloin meatballs, nice Chinese brocoli and shiitakes, and a zingy chili sauce tossed throughout. Great noodles. My daughter Sophie is already developing a palate for heat, and she really liked both spicy noodle dishes, not much to my surprise. Dessert was a grilled poundcake with orangey creme anglaise and honeyed ice cream, a huge dessert, much too much for lunchtime, and a vanilla-rum raisin creme brulee. Both were quite nice, but we were stuffed. Kids LOVED the desserts, even though they had quite a lot to eat at that point. Desserts were on the house, owing to the fact that Paris, an old friend, cruised the dining room and spotted us. Place was maybe half filled for lunch. Mantra has a nice friendly lunch staff, a welcome relief from the typically indifferent lunchtime wait staffs around town. Still and all, lunch for 4 was just under 50 bucks, not only a steal, but some damn fine food. I've always admired Al Paris' culinary style, and it's in full bloom at Mantra. I hope he can make it at this seemingly cursed location, which has seen its share of restaurants come and go. Mantra, in my opinion, is a keeper.

Got some bad news for you Rich, Tattoni's has closed. No doubt due to Trenton's ever rising gang/drug problems. This is the 2nd of my favorite places to go after Sal De Forte's closed. Before having pizza at Delorenzo's yesterday, made a quick stop for some cheese at Porfirio's where I was given the news. Really sucks, I loved that place ← THAT is very bad news. Sadness is all I feel.

Ah, Kim, Kim, a good sweet stout can marry so deliciously well with a bracing dish of oysters and mignonette!

I'm working on something and I'm hoping to pick your collective brains for suburban romantic OUTDOOR dining spots. Now I know that one glance out the window today, and outdoor dining is the LAST thing on your mind, but bear with me, I'm writing for something that won't appear until summertime. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few places in the burbs that can make any diner swoon outdoors: Avalon's back yard garden patio in West Chester 333 Belrose's garden patio in Radnor Restaurant Taquet's porch at the Wayne Hotel Coyote Crossing's patio in Conshohocken but after that, I'm stuck. I know that there are more romantic outdoor dining options that that in the burbs. Thanks in advance!

There is nothing more annoying than a wine snob. Price is not always the measure of anything. Sometimes you don't get what you pay for. Sometimes an extraordinary experience can be had for a small sum of dinero. What the CS program did, in my opinion, was to level the playing field and allow the average person, and the casual wine drinker, to enjoy very good wine without the pretense of puffery used by wine snobs to seperate themselves from their perception of the hoi polloi. Jonathan Newman's lifetime legacy, despite whatever he pursues in the future, will be his skill and passion at wine discovery and his determination to bring his passion and his discoveries to the masses. His brief tenure as Chairman did more for wine appreciation in PA than any flippant snooty comment from an effete wine snob who equates price with quality. Newman proved a thousand times over that that relationship need not always apply.

Oh, Rossi's is style fine, as a recent visit, showed me. And add to the fact that now there is NO SMOKING at Rossi's, that big bad burger tastes a whole lot better!

Sadly and for whatever reason, not any more: "We no longer use oysters to brew this beer. " http://www.yardsbrewing.com/ales.html Very sad indeed.

I second Rossi's for an amazing burger, fried zucchini strips or homemade potato chips; Amici Milano for the veal and chicken dishes, but my strongest rec goes to Tattoni's Cafe, 800 Chestnut St., a simple, rustic place with very good food, no menu, and the lowest prices in Chambersburg.

My favorite beer-oyster pairing is a nice plate of fried oysters, chicken salad (it's a traditional Philadelphia dish that is as old school as it gets), paired with Yards Love Stout, which is MADE with oysters. The creamy stout playes well off the chicken salad, and the sweet hint of the sea amplifies the fried oysters like no other drink does.

That seems to have changed: Eulogy draft beer menu Eulogy bottled beer menu ← OK, but just for shits and giggles, print out both menus and see if the stuff is actually THERE. I think exaggeration is the style of Eulogy.

The last time I went to Eulogy, they had beers like Bass, Harp and Guiness on tap along with Yuengling, Yards Philly Pale and one other that really annoyed me. And the Belgian beer selection was pretty lame, all familiar stuff you could get at many non-Belgian places. If you're so DAMN BELGIAN, then serve the stuff, you know, like Monk's has been doing. And as far as anyone considers, Philly remains the epicenter of Belgian beer appreciation in America. and the place where it all started for Belgian beers (right at Copa, Too, actually, when Tom Peters ran the joint over 12 years ago). It is also safe to say that without Tom Peters, Philadelphia would hardly be one of the best, if not the best, beer cities in America. His work and enthusiasm paved the way for all of the great beer lovers and bar operators that now make the city so beer-centrically great. That's what I've been saying on my annual beer tours for the last 10 years.

I've never understood anyone's fascination with Eulogy. I've been consistently disappointed with their ber and food, even when told by folks whose opinion I trust that they have improved. Not enough for me. They are merely (and inadequately) a Monk's wanna-be. I've never had a bad burger at Monk's, so I expect that it may be an anomoly. Their mussels are world class. Their frites are an acquired tatse, especially since owner Tom Peters insists on using a locally-grown version of Belgian binjte potatoes, which so far have yielded puny-sized taters. They actually make a better frite at Monk's sister restaurants, Nodding Head and Grace Tavern. As much as I love all of the myriad recipes that Monk's offers for mussels, for my money the best bowl of mollusks in the city is being served in a Thai red curry sauce at the Grey Lodge in NE Philly. And the fresh cut fries at the Grey Lodge are also Best of Philly material. Sounds like heresy, until you have them.