Andrew Fenton

I had a very good dinner at Zahav last night. It's bit of an unusual restaurant in that I would have been happy ordering literally ANYTHING on the menu; it all looked great. Probably the high point were the salads that opened things: for some confusing reason, they're not on the menu, but for $14, you get a tray of eight little dishes of salad. A couple were only okay (e.g., a sort of Israeli coleslaw) but others were really outstanding (twice-cooked eggplant, marinated cauliflower, Moroccan carrots). All very simple, and as a whole, all terrific. Turkish hummus (made with butter and served warm) was fine. Really, there's only so much you can do with hummus; I can't get too excited about it. I can, however, get excited about the flatbread they serve it with: hot, dusted with za'atar, and really delicious. They'll give you extra if you ask nicely. We had two cold mezze: the Tunisian salad, which is sort of a variation on Nicoise: a pile of olive oil-poached tuna (that's the most typically Tunisian thing about it, I think: EVERYTHING in Tunisia comes with tuna), olives, and egg. We also had the kibbeh naya: sort of a lamb tartare, with oil and mint, to be rolled up in lettuce leaves. I liked this better than any steak tartare I've had in a long time: I love lamb, and the spicing is delicate and really complements the flavor of the meat. And two hot mezze: the fried haloumi (extraordinarily good: it tastes like French toast, oddly enough) and malauch: fried flatbread served with a tomato compote and egg. These were another high point. We finished by splitting the Bulgarian skewer: beef and lamb meatballs served with rice and tomato. The flavors on this were good, but overwhelmed by too much salt. I'll grant that I'm not much of a salt-o-phile; others might disagree, I suppose. Oh, they have an interesting selection of cocktails, too: I had an Israeli salad martini (gin, cucumber and tomato water), which I enjoyed. Something that irritated me, maybe unfairly: it's a pretty expensive restaurant. But instead of tablecloths, they have the paper menus. That's just tacky, IMO. Still, all in all, I enjoyed dinner, and I'd happily go back to try out some of the dishes I missed. Oh, and on Thursdays, there's a special prix-fixe dinner. I saw the menus for tonight's (there are two, a meaty and a vegetarian), and they look incredible, both of them. That'd definitely be worth a go as well.

Nice butt, Anne! I'm too nervous to try to serve BBQ the same day I smoke it; a day ahead means I can take as long as it needs. I don't have any experience with smoking on the Weber, but my feeling is that there should always be at least a little smoke escaping: that means you're smoking, not slow-cooking. Of course, I'll sometimes just smoke something for six hours or so, then finish it in the oven: that's what I did last weekend, once it hit 11 PM or so, and I didn't want to keep going outside. It turned out fine, and let me relax a little more. A question for the buttheads in this thread: any recommendations about smoking a picnic shoulder? I'm doing some more BBQ later this week, and like the idea of getting a little skin into the mix...

Ha! I was there for lunch, and had the Hanzhou duck and an order of the XLB. The pork dumplings weren't ready yet, so I had the beef dumplings, which were an interesting change: very rich, like the pork, but with a flavor of, I guess, beef tallow. They were good, though I really like the pork better. edited to add: evidently they are going through a lot of soup dumplings! Only a brief window for the pork ones, I guess... Good for them.

Oh, good timing on bumping this thread back up! We got an invitation yesterday to dinner at TT in October. Which made me wonder: will they send you the menu in advance? I might as well (in my incompetent half-assed way) try to pick out some appropriate wines.

And I, in turn, blame the villains who created the Big Mac for creating that generation! Damn them and their special sauce... their special, special sauce...

Baby Vito is cherubic in every way. Straight out of a Renaissance painting with the blond curls and all. He will undoubtedly be a member of the Olympic gymnastics team in 2024. Big brother is a bit less of an extrovert, but is quite charming as well. The whole family is in attendance and couldn't be more gracious. Loads of fun and much like being a guest in their home. ← Hmm, I'm guessing that with Young Hercules in attendance, this would be a pretty good place to bring my own rugrat along? Kid's gotta learn about stuffed cabbage sometime...

I was wondering the same thing; I've never seen a rolled schnitzel, either. Looks good, though!

Dave beat me to it: I own, and love, Peterson's book. In addition to recipes, it's a good reference book, with descriptions of different fishes (and their many names!) and suggestions for cooking techniques. It's the first place I turn when I have a new kind of fish to cook.

For things that cook quickly (hamburgers, steaks, vegetables and so on), I don't think there's a difference in flavor between gas and charcoal. At least, I've never noticed one. Still, a charcoal grill does offer more versatility. You can smoke things on it, for one thing: when I'm done grilling, I'll throw a couple of chunks of wood on the coals, then put an eggplant or red peppers on the grill and close it. After 30 minutes or so, you've got a nice smoked eggplant (ideal for baba ganoush) or peppers (put them on turkey sandwiches) with zero effort. Can't do that with a gas grill.

I'm having a hard time keeping up with your current itinerary, but if you do go to Osteria, be sure to get the polenta budino for dessert. It remains (and trying it again on Sunday confirmed this) the single best dessert in the city, IMO.

Glad to help! Next time, have faith in the power of low & slow, and don't boil your beef. I think you'll have a better-- and certainly, more BBQ-- product.

I've never used the bags, so I don't know for how long the smoke is active. If it's really well sealed, you could probably cook the meat in there for a long time and let it absorb a lot of smoke flavor. That's just a guess, though; obviously the bag will have some instructions included that will give you a better idea. But yeah, at a certain point, you'll want to move it to an open roasting pan so that it'll brown and get a little bit crispy. You'll also need to check the meat's temperature, which is a lot easier to do in an open pan. Have fun, and enjoy! I'm sure your guests will love the finished product.

I noticed that too; but the SRO restaurant is just called "Parc", not "Parc Bistro."

Yet more love for Chick's-- specifically, for Katie's mad bartending skills-- in the current issue of Philadelphia Magazine. And an excuse for me to point out just how refreshing Katie's blueberry electric lemonade is in the hot weather. It goes down suspiciously easily...

Yes, if you're only going to smoke a couple of times, the bags are a great way to go. But stovetop smokers aren't super expensive: around $40-50 for a good-sized one. You can also get them on sale, occasionally.

After 45 minutes in the smoker, the wood shavings have become ash; unless you do something like violently shake the pan, they don't affect the food at all. All you do is take off the lid of the smoker and use it as a roasting pan. As to bacon: the Cameron only hot-smokes. So you could cook bacon in it, and infuse it with extra smoke flavor along the way. I imagine that would work quite well-- it seems to be optimized for smoking things that only need a short cooking time. But you couldn't cold-smoke bacon, alas.

Easy-peasy. I lived for years in an apartment (didn't move until a month or two) and was in the same situation. Get yourself a stovetop smoker. I recommend the Cameron, which I've used successfully for lots of things: chicken wings and salmon (which don't need long smoking) are best, but it'll make a credible pork shoulder and brisket as well. Ribs wouldn't be a problem, either: just smoke them for 45 minutes or so, then finish in a 225 degree oven. You'll get something that isn't quite as good as slow-smoked BBQ, but is still tasty! That said, if you want something authentic or authentic-esque, I don't know if I'd go for short ribs. If your guests eat pork, I'd do spare ribs; if they don't, I'd try a brisket. But I don't know any reason why short ribs wouldn't work. edit: how did I not notice that sentence fragment? eek!

I'm going to look silly if this is wrong, but didn't the Swiss Pastry Shoppe reopen?

Just buy a pitter. They're not expensive, and it makes the job so much easier! Anyway, I picked four quarts of cherries on Friday; if any of them survive until tomorrow (something that is looking increasingly unlikely), I'm going to make cherry granita.

Ooh, snap!

And right across the street from Jones is Aqua (Malaysian/Thai), which I believe has a semi-private room upstairs.

O serves banh mi (and was quite good, the one time I went.) For banh mi, I like Cafe Nhu Y, at 8th and Christian. Ba Le (606 Washington) is also good.

Aha! There are two Capogiri: the original (119 South 13th Street), and the Rittenhouse outpost (117 South 20th Street). Each is near lots of good restaurants. edit: ninja'd by mrbigjas. DAMN YOUR CAT-LIKE REFLEXES!

Well, Ansill -> Amada -> Capogiro (original location, on Sansom St.) is totally doable, especially if it's a nice summer evening. And you'll want the walk. Oh my, yes.

Water ice, of course! I really like the strawberry, pineapple and lemon at Philly Flavors (in Fairmount, and at 13th and Pine). Some of their other flavors are a little suspicious, though. Last time I was there, I noticed a jug filled with liquid and labeled "Blue." Blue is a fruit, right? John's (7th and Christian) is famous, but disappointing (and again, sometimes suspicious, like the cough-drop cherry flavor). But last weekend I tried their cantaloupe water ice (a special), and it was great! So you never know.