KatieLoeb

Congratulations on your wedding!! I wish you both every happiness! Nice to hear that D-K is still doing a good job. Especially for such a special occasion!

Over on the other side of the Delaware today for an appointment and to run a couple of errands. My growling stomach had me make a stop at Weber's for a hot dog, great shoestring fries and a big frosty mug of root beer. I just love this place. If the waitresses were on rollerskates it would complete the retro vibe, but honestly, they're so sweet and friendly you just have to love them (and overtip them to death). I can't believe the prices at this place! .99 for a gigantic mug of root beer in a real thick frosty glass mug. My entire lunch cost less than $5! The food isn't that great, although the fries are real good and the root beer alone is worth a trip. But still. This place is such an experience. And on Sundays they've got this guy: to guide you into the parking lot. Gotta love it!

Stopped back into Naked Chocolate Cafe on Saturday night to introduce a similarly addicted to chocolate friend to the place. What can I say? I'm just helpful that way... I had another go at the bittersweet drinking chocolate. My friend tried the Caramel Mousse Nudo pyramid shaped thingie and it was quite delicious. I saw the owner puttering around behind the counter and greeted him with a "Hello Mr. Wonka! Nice to see you again!", much to the giggles of the staff and a couple of other customers that overheard me. This place is dangerous, I tell you. Completely dangerous.

Heirloom gazpacho in your future?? Those tomatoes are just so pretty...

There is most definitely a $30 Monday-Thursday special running at Mandoline. Chef Todd was kind enough to e-mail and tell me about it personally. The regular a la carte menu is also offered, but he and Chef Jeff are taking the prix fixe menu as an opportunity to create some new dishes and test drive some new ideas. It's a win-win for everyone, but especially for the diners! It's like Restaurant Week all the time! I'll definitely be stopping in there again soon on an "early-movie-at-the-Ritz-then-dinner-at-Mandoline" night. I can hardly wait!

Welcome simply_perfect! Happy to have you join us here. Speaking as one who has been accused of same, shameless shilling should be kept to a minimum.

Oh yeah!! Those Crying Tiger dishes were deadly! Those would make me sweat like a workout, but man were they good! Cleared the sinuses for days! I have a new entry into the pantheon of spicy spots. Aqua at 705 Chestnut Street has some really outstanding Tom Yum soup that was pretty spicy. It's just joined my rotation with Lee How Fook's Hot and Sour Soup. There was a lot of the menu at Aqua yet left to explore, and the owner told us if we wanted really spicy they'd be happy to accomodate, so that's worth checking out to satisfy your capsaicin jones.

It's butter. Saw many 1lb. blocks of PLUGRA no less, sitting on the counter in the chocolate room. This place is a great addition to the scene. The hot drinking chocolates are top notch. I tried the Aztec spiced and the bittersweet and both were freakin' awesome. As it cools it develops a pudding-like texture that's irresistable. Tried a sample of one of the nut barks as well. These folks are really doing chocolates right. Watched the owner banging out molds of beautiful glossy dark chocolate hearts and wrapping them for storage. He let me into the kitchen for a second so I could see the big 100 pound heated vat of chocolate. I wanted to dive in it and do flip turns. Looked really good. Like Willy Wonka come to life in my own demented chocolate fantasy. This place is the cure for all that ails a woman craving chocolate. And you know who you are...

Penza's is about 6 miles from me (I'm in Medford) on 206 outside Hammonton. This is about 45 minutes from Vineland. It's ok, but it's become very touristy as a result of the write-ups. To get there you have to go through Hammonton (the largest percentage of Italians of any town in America). Coming from Vineland as you come into town you will see an old Italian grocery store on your left. Super old store with barrels of olives, great cheeses, meats and the best Italian sausage on the east coast. About a 1/2 block past it on your left is a Mexican Restaurant. You will be the only gringo there and they will have to find someone to speak English, but the food is out of this world and as close to free as you'll find in Jersey. ← Jim: What's the name of that Mexican place?? SouthJerseyEpicurean is constantly telling me about some Mexican joint on 206 that has the world's best mole sauce. Could this be the one???

Apparently it will be earlier than originally expected. I received an email from them saying they'll be available this month. Unfortunately, when I called the Customer Service # they provided, she said they've already sold out their initial supply of over 2,700 glasses in each style. She suggested checking back in a few weeks at 866.645.2721. Pictures/prices are available in their new catalog (but couldn't view online as of today) at www.mikasa.com. Cheers! ← Carolyn: Thanks for the info!! It's funny, I was just talking about this glassware earlier today with someone, after not giving it a thought for several months. It's as if you're clairvoyant!

1. Roti Canai 2. Tom Yum Soup with Chicken 3. Mango Salad with BBQ squid 4. Chicken something 5. Tofu Aqua 6. Sizzling Beef with Pepper 7. Fried Striped Bass with Bemican (sp?) sauce I'm running out the door so I don't have time to elaborate much, but I can say that Aqua is absolutely delicious!! It's restored my faith in Malaysian cuisine. I always hated the heavy oily food at Penang, not because it didn't taste good, but because it inevitably made me ill. The food at Aqua is prepared with a far more delicate hand, subtlety of spicing and eye for presentation. The roti, tom yum soup and tofu were exquisite. I've never had lighter crunchy-on-the-outside-creamy-on-the-inside tofu anywhere. This may be the single best tofu dish in Philly. Mango salad was spicy and sweet. Everything was as good as I've ever had. And there's a whole bunch of menu items we didn't get to try yet, as well as the Thai section of the menu that bears exploration. Service was friendly and efficient. We were checked on frequently. We had a nice chat with the owner who takes his food and service quite seriously. He decorated the entire place himself. It's minimalist but very lovely inside. I think we're a table full of new regulars. This place is awesome!!

I didn't know it at first either. Seems the Kaiken is the vin de table end of the Montes line, which includes the very fine Montes Alpha. Clearly the winemaker knows what they're doing, so I'm happy to drink skillfully made wine at a bargain price.

Wow. That's appalling. I don't even know what to say to that. Mr. Butz, are you reading this????

Is this the same Brett that used to be at Amada? He's great. We haven't been back to Marigold since Jonathan left but friends were there recently and loved it. ← Different Brett. Brett H. still works with me at Amada as a server/bartender. Brett Meier-Tompkins worked as a manager at Rouge and then moved to Marigold as management.

Stephen: You're welcome to come join us over on the PA board and tag along for DDC dinners or Pizza Club. Let us know when you arrive and good luck with your move!

OK folks, listen up! Tonight's wine exploration in the key of "A" will bring us to: ARNEIS A rather unusual and underappreciated grape from the Piemonte region of Italy, more often recognized for its reds than its white wines. [Aside: I must comment on how the wine shopping experience changes when you are specifically shopping for something that has an "A" in it. There is a runner-up bottle of Abruzzese Montepulciano sitting down in my kitchen that I will enjoy in the near future. You can't really ask for help when you're shopping for an "A", bacause, well, the sales staff would think you were nuts! ] The wine I chose is the Valdinera Roero Arneis 2004. I paid $13.49 for it in PA. The wine is unoaked and very fruity. A medium golden hue. 13.5% alcohol. Medium bodied. Hints of white peach, apple/pear, marzipan and fennel with a very "green" finish. Very refreshing and a delicious summer white. I enjoyed this with a dinner of tuna-noodle casserole (Go ahead and laugh, but even white trash cuisine has wine pairings that work! ) Undoubtedly, it would compliment the white truffle based dishes of its region of origin. Would be heavenly with a potato, parmesan and white truffle pizza. Arneis is a rather odd grape that fell out of favor for awhile, but seems to be making a comeback. It's grown mostly in the southern part of Piemonte just north of the city of Alba. It's making some inroads in California and Australia of late. "Arneis" in the regional dialect means "little rascal." It is often used as a blender to soften tannins in the Nebbiolo-based red wines of the area, much as the French use Viognier in the Northern Rhone. So there you have it. Who's next??

A very dear friend, a paralegal by trade, sent me a press release about this earlier this morning, under the topic title "Good To Know". She's a former bartender herself, so I find it amusing that she's approaching this news from an entirely different angle these days.

Cobbler, cobbler or cobbler. Drizzled with Dulce de Leche. Oh Baby!

I have no idea whether you could get it in the US, but Marius Bonal (based in Rodez in the Aveyron department in South West France) make an excellent eau de coing (quince) liqueur. I've been using it in both bourbon and gin based drinks (sometimes with calvados and/or a Greek cinammon and clove liqueur called Tentura). If you are more interested in the possibilities of membrillo, rather than simply looking for the taste of quince, would fiddling with the acidity of your melted, strained , alcoholised membrillo (eg adding a little lemon juice) make it more liquid ? Are you using a Spanish membrillo ? I often buy a Brazilian (tinned) quince paste that is smoother and perhaps easier to dissolve than most Spanish membrillo. My local Brazilian shops also stock a range of other fruit pastes (guava, paw paw, banana etc ) in tins that, now you have put the idea into my head, could well be interesting possibilities. gethin ← Even if that quince liqueur exists in the U.S., I am fairly certain that I can NOT get it in Pennsylvania. Interesting sounding stuff, though. I am using a Spanish membrillo, because it fits the restaurant in which the drink would be served. I like the idea of the other fruit pastes and if you have any success with those, I'd love to hear about it. I'm trying not to mess with the membrillo too much, to preserve the flavor "as is". The apple juice concentrate worked and went well with bourbon, so it was an "apporved" additon. Don't think I'd want to add anything acidic to the basic Manhattan recipe. I want the end result to be a quince flavored Manhattan that has good texture and flavor, and would be viable for sale in a high volume Spanish bar without any "fussing" on the part of the bartenders, other than say a squeeze of quince/apple juice puree from a squeeze bottle into a shaker of standard Manahttan ingredients.

The owner should be reported to the local labor board and brought up on charges. I have no doubt he's paying substandard below-minimum wage hourly wages on the presumption that the servers will make it up in tips. Except that they aren't seeing their tips. He's a scumbag and a thief and being a server is not an indentured position. He needs to be reminded of that with a heavy fine and some bad publicity. Managers are generally on salary, but I don't see a problem with them getting a tip for "finding" a table on an otherwise crowded night, or for allowing folks to BYO and waiving the corkage fee or some other act of kindness toward a guest that is above and beyond normal exceptional service. They shouldn't get into the habit of having that happen, but it's usually only occasionally anyway. Owners should never accept tips. Period. It's bad form.

D'oh!!! Look what I've gotten myself into. OK - I'll go wine shopping tomorrow after work and find something "A" and post about it. Everyone else can follow me. And here I was thinking I'd come up with a brilliant solution to a complex problem. I'm looking forward to the "B's" - Barolo, Barbaresco, Barbera, Barossa...

Howzabout we go from A to Z??? First week could be Alb(v)arino, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Auslese, Alsace, Abruzzi, Alto Adige, Alexander Valley, or whatever. Whaddaya think?

I'm happy to report that I received a prompt and apologetic e-mail from Bootsie's owner Mr. Yair Butz very soon after posting my experience here. Mr. Butz assured me that the service lapses I experienced have been addressed and invited me to return to Bootsie's on him. I'm impressed with his reponsiveness to criticism and his commitment to customer service. Kudos to him! I had every intention of returning anyway, since being an "in-the-biz" type, I know it just isn't fair to judge a brand new place until they've had a few weeks to work out the kinks in service and get into the groove of operations. But I will most certainly ask for Mr. Butz next time I stop in so I can introduce myself and shake his hand.

Ohmigod! I can NOT believe you had room for anything after brunch! I do love love love the Franklin Fountain though, and it's dangerously close by every day when I'm leaving work. I had myself one of those Japanese Thirst Killer Phosphates last week and it was absolutely delicious and incredibly refreshing on a hot afternoon. This place is very dangerous...

I'd like to add that ricotta, cottage cheese, sour cream and soda pop all last a lot longer if your store them upside-down in the refrigerator so the air pocket is at the end of the container that's air-tight.