Andrew Fenton
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Posts posted by Andrew Fenton
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Andrew - you said it five courses but I count more than that! does everyone get the same stuff or is it alternating plates?
Everybody gets the same stuff, and it's normally five courses; this was kind of a special situation.
I don't know how the duck was cooked (didn't ask). But it was gooood, yo.
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Hmm, no topic yet for the new formula of Diet Coke (with Splenda, not aspartame)? Time to rectify that.
At lunch today, I tried a bottle, and... it's really, really good. Doesn't taste exactly like regular Coke, but it's pretty close. There's none of the aspartame bitterness, and the flavor is more rounded and balanced. In some ways, the flavor is more like cane sugar cola than regular Coke is: maybe because Splenda is chemically close to sugar?
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... which makes me wonder why they can't do it in more places.
I'd guess it's just a matter of needing a dense population (so there's not too far to travel) that's willing to pay a premium for what's normally cheap food. The Taco Bell and KFC near me in Philadelphia deliver; McDonald's doesn't, though.
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Wow wee. I will be there in a couple of weeks. It looks amazing - Andrew - how long was the whole affair? It would be good to let the sitter know if and when we are ever coming home?
The evening ran about 3 1/2 hours, I think.
Also - did Shola suggest the wines or did your group come up with it?That was me-- well, me with some help. Shola will send you the menu a few days in advance (pester him if you haven't gotten it by the beginning of the week). If you take it over to Moore Brothers, they'll hook you up. (Though it occurs to me that a fun project would be to post the menu here and see what people suggest.)
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Ooh, that's bad. Reminds me of a similar incident at Salt, from a while back.
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Any idea if something's changed over there?
It's now $100 for five courses (tax and tip inclusive). Still a bargain. Here's the menu and photos from our recent over-the-top dinner extravaganza:
Chilled Foie Gras Custard
Sauternes Gelee
Pistachio Raisin Toast
Fillioux Vieux Pineau des Charentes
I'd just been to SK a few weeks before this, and Shola had served a similar dish. I'm glad, because this is awfully good: sweet and salty, rich, smooth and crunchy all at once. I'm also particularly proud of the wine pairing here: I'd never had Pineau de Charentes before, but it just nailed it.
Early Season Corn Soup
Fennel Compote
Belon Oyster Beignets
Yumeakari Junmai-Ginjo Sake
If you'd asked me, I'd have sworn up and down that the soup was thickened with cream. But it turns out that corn, at least early corn, has enough cornstarch in it that it's naturally creamy: there were like three ingredients, and the whole was amazingly good. "Beignet" is sort of a misnomer: this was more like an oyster fritter, crunchy and juicy at once.
This was the wine pairing I was least happy with. The sake was just too dry for the soup, though it got better as it warmed up and the flavors started opening. I don't think I've ever tasted a wine whose taste has changed so much over the course of an evening.
Slow Roasted Baby Roma Tomato
Tomato Sorbet
Lemon Oil
100 yr old Balsamic Vinegar
Apologies for the blurry photo, but I wanted to get a shot of this. What was most surprising about the sorbet was that it had so little acid: not too sweet, either. And I've never, ever tasted anything like 100 year old balsamic. It's this amazing, complex, oaky, sweet syrup, not like vinegar at all.
There was some grumbling about the sake at this point, and Shola generously shared a bottle of 2002 Newton unfiltered Chardonnay. That's a crazy wine, folks, let me tell you: at first I didn't like it, but it just got better and better with every sip as it breathed.
Slow Roasted Halibut
Parsnip and Pistachio Puree
Roasted Shiitake
Green Pea Emulsion
2001 Borgo del Tiglio Milleuve Bianco
The really big hit around the table was the puree: the key, evidently, is to use pistachio oil to give it the essence of pistachio while still keeping it smooooth.
Roasted Scallop
Marcona Almond, Bacon and Lemon Pepper Crust
White Bean puree
Onion Caramel
Almond Milk
Just a little bit of almond milk, as a foam on top. As much as I love bacony goodness (because after all, who doesn't?) I thought that the bacon kinda overwhelmed the scallop's sweetness.
Poached Duck Breast
Braised Duck and Onion Ravioli
Infusion of Star Anise, Cardamom and Thai Long Pepper
2002 Domaine Louis Cheze Saint-Joseph Rouge Cuvée Ro-Ree
Look, it's floating off the plate, like an ethereal duck calling from the afterworld! Anyway, I could probably eat duck ravioli every day for a month and not get tired of it. This was my favorite dish, I'd say.
By this point, things were slowing down. We were walking around, stretching our legs, making room around the corners of our bellies, going outside for smokes, taking photos of the kitchen, et cetera. But there was more to come:
Cheese course!
St. Agur (cow milk, France), Sauternes jelly
Pecorino Pienza (sheep, Italy), baby arugula
Chaource (cow, triple creme, France), apricot jam, baby amaranth
Chabichou du Poitou (goat, France), truffle fondue
I think Shola was improvising at this point, but the truffle fondue was such a natural fit for the goat cheese that it made me want to slap myself. (Instead, I polished off my own and one other serving of the goat.) I hadn't really noticed the truffle flavor with the fish, but it's so earthy and deep that it is absolutely perfect for goat.
Next up was dessert... I didn't get a photo of it, but here's the menu item:
Ginger Scented Peaches
Apricot Coulis
Caramelized Rice
Mascarpone Ice Cream
And finally:
Because it was a birthday dinner, here was the cake! I don't remember exactly what it was (well, chocolate, and those are clearly cherries on top) because I was way to full to eat anything else. But the little moans and grunts of pleasure from those who did suggested that it was pretty good.
Here's Shola at the end of the meal. The rest of us were smiling, too, at what was one heck of a fantastic dinner. Oh boy.
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Geeze those are some pretty tall claims.. 99 miles to philly i heard from some friends wasnt that good. And i have never heard anyone say tony lukes cheesesteaks are better then geno's. Just the roast pork sangwich.
I would say that the Hospital cafeteria at Temple makes better cheesesteaks than either Geno's or Pat's.
Now you are just being ridiculous..
<off-topic>I can't speak for the food at Temple hospital, but Temple's faculty club has some really good food. Soul food day, in particular, has some of the best greens and mac n' cheese I've had anywhere. I'll bet the steaks are good, too.</off-topic>
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We tried Meze the other night. It's sort of a weird menu, split between traditional dishes (baba ganoush), more sophisticated stuff (tomato sorbet), and reinterpretations of traditional dishes (deconstructed dolmades). I'm not sure how well it all fits together.
That said, some of the dishes were quite good. I thought the dolmades (divided up between beef-stuffed and rice-stuffed) worked well. And I was a lot happier with the loup de mer and potato taffy combination than cinghale was. The fish was pretty simple, but with a nice crust, and if you come into the latter expecting saffron mashed potatoes, you'll be more satisfied, I think. The semi freddo was a nice dessert, and I was very pleased with the saffron ice cream/mussel combo and the tomato sorbet (both of which the management very graciously sent to our table, even though we weren't ordering the tasting menu.)
Other dishes were kind of lackluster. The baba ganoush, made with roasted cumin, tasted like roasted cumin and not much else. I wasn't crazy about the foie gras parfait: it's foie whipped together with butter, so it's as buttery and fatty as a foie pate, but without a really intense flavor. Kind of bland. Ditto the grilled sardines: they were okay, but mostly just salty.
There's a ton of potential at Meze. I like the ambition that the kitchen shows, and I think that with a little tweaking, it could be really good; it'll be interesting to see what happens over there.
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Welcome Hendricks Farms and nymerical2!
I checked out the website, and those are some nice looking cheeses. Is there a place to buy them in Philadelphia? Ideally, I'd like to taste a few (goat, especially), and don't want to wait until a summer Saturday for a country drive to the farm...
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This weekend is no good, but next weekend should be just fine: I'm there...
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there's no Indian area in the city comparable to Chinatown or other ethnic conclaves.
Do you mean ethnic enclaves? Conclaves are what the cardinals do to elect a new pope, right? I guess that word has been floating around recently!
grumblegrumble "wall-to-wall Pope coverage" grumble grumble "stupid Freudian slip" grumble grumble
I agree with the poster who said that the Indian places in the 'burbs are MUCH cheaper (and BYOB) than in the city.You think? Maybe I just tend to go to the cheap places in the city (so, Cafe Spice rarely, An Indian Affair never), but they seem pretty comparable to suburban Indian.
Anyway, I'm down with the Khajuraho recommenders; that's really good stuff. But I'd really like some good South Indian: Uduppi Dosa House sounds like it's gonna get a visit from the Fentons soon...
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I had dinner at Rx recently and have been thinking about it ever since then. Because I'm kinda slow, it took a while for me to figure out just what I like about it, but then I realized: Rx is the ideal neighborhood restaurant. It's casual and pretty; the servers are friendly and humorous; every time I'm there, I see people I know. There's a warmth you don't find at a lot of other places: it's a great place to to relax on a spring evening, chat, and finish a bottle of wine or three.
Of course, you wouldn't just want to drink, because the other thing that makes Rx so great is Chef Tim's awesome cooking. You can tell, after nine months, what a good fit it's been: lots of creative, fresh, accessible dishes. High points for us were: a plate of shellfish (oysters, clams, shrimp, seared scallop) with a red pepper-butter sauce. Was I tempted to distract my fellow eaters and, while they were looking out the window, drink the rest of the sauce? Perish the thought: that's what dippin' bread is for!
Calamari with a black sesame crust was another great seafood treatment: tender and crispy, more spicy and interesting than the usual squid, with a fish sauce dip and a wee salad of pea greens. Oh, how I love those pea greens. I also loved-- and was shocked that I did-- a chicken breast with gnocchi. I mean, gnocchi, sure, who doesn't love gnocchi? These were just as good as you could ask. But chicken breast? This one was tender, with a hint of foie gras: the best chicken dish I've ordered in ages, and I was tempted, once again, to distract everyone else and start licking the plate...
What else to say about Rx? It's just a great place; as I said, the ideal neighborhood bistro. And on a beautiful April evening, we found it verrry tempting to move to West Philly, just to be in that neighborhood...
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Yow. I've walked by a couple of times and have wondered about the place; thanks for the report. Maybe I'll check it out this weekend. It sounds like they have some genuinely interesting stuff: I like the dolmades description... when do I ever get good dolmades? Never, that's when.
I agree that that amount of food is a little outrageous. Too much food, even good food, is just gross.
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I like Southwark, too, even though this review means it'll be a pain to get a table now. Here's an old thread about it.
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I had the all-herb, all-the-time combination the other day:
* rosemary goat milk. Old standby, this one. Never disappoints (though it doesn't taste at all goaty), and
* basil. Very nice. There ought to be more basil used in desserts: it has a similar sort of flavor profile to mint, but for whatever reason, it just gets ignored. Anyway, this was perfumy and just delightful. Aw yeah.
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I'll confess to not actually liking brunch very much. For one thing, just about anything breakfasty is something I can make better myself. (Carman's breakfast is a notable exception here.)
That's why for brunch I like to go in another direction, and do the sort of thing I wouldn't or couldn't do on my own. So: Mixto has a good brunch (I think on both Saturdays and Sundays, though you should check): they do both Latin and gringo dishes. But I like La Lupe even better. It's not fancy, but there's nothing I'd rather have for breakfast than huevos rancheros, and if I can have a tamale with them, so much the better. Plus, once the weather is warm, they roll up those glass walls and you get to eat on an outdoor pavilion. (These both depend on the direction in which your friend's mom is conservative, of course.)
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It has always struck me as strange that the best Indian food in Philadelphia is to be found outside of Philadelphia. Why is that?
hypothesis: Indian immigrants to the area (most of whom have arrived in the last 20-30 years?) settled in the suburbs; there's no Indian area in the city comparable to Chinatown or other ethnic conclaves.
comparandum: up until a few years ago, the same was true with Mexican food; for anything other than fancy food (Tequila's, Paloma), you had to go to Kennett Square or maybe Norristown to get the good stuff.
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Thread-tying: Ran into the owners of Hamburger Mary's last night at Woody's. They're none too thrilled at the prospect of Ruby Tuesday's opening right down the block from them.
I still maintain that Philadelphia's big enough now to accommodate them all, but I'd be apprehensive too if I were faced with competition with a national advertising budget.
I wouldn't be too worried either. To tie this together with the "breeder" comments: it seems to me that Ruby Tuesday's is occupying a parallel niche to Hamburger Mary's: not gay-friendly (though I hasten to add that I presume they aren't gay-unfriendly), but kid-friendly. There just aren't that many Center City restaurants that are moderately-priced, have a liquor license, and where kids won't be out of place.
But that, my friends, is a whole 'nother thread.
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I had a pretty good brunch at Caribou on Saturday (salmon Nicoise salad for me). They don't open until 11:30, for what it's worth.
(And I now seem to remember-- though I may be misremembering-- that you don't like Caribou that much. Well, for other people, then...)
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2) I can't wait to see what they throw up on the walls of the forthcoming 15th Street location.
My guess is, riblets. (If they can't make it to the toilet, that is.)
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location, location, location! Really, it's mostly a matter of them being pretty easy to get to, and open late. With some good reports from their other locations, I had been hoping for some good, truly smoky, barbecue without driving to the Northeast.Big question for me: why all the attention here for Tommy Gunn's, which I found to be very mediocre.Yeah, that's about right: it's easy to get to, so people talk about it. Same deal with the Smoked Joint, which is okay but not half as good as Sweet Lucy's. On the other hand, it's in Center City, so more people go to it.
The other thing is just that there are cycles of attention for particular restaurants or kinds of food. Today it's barbecue; tomorrow it'll be something else.
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I asked the cook at the South Street location. He says the meats are slow smoked over hickory - 7 to 10 or more hours - at their catering kitchen in Manayunk.
Hmm. Wonder if growing pains are causing a dropoff in quality? Just speculation-- I've never been to the Manayunk location-- but I'd heard it was pretty good, and the South Street product wasn't so great.
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Oh good, another high end steak house chain West of Broad! Just what we need!! So now within 4 blocks we have: Capital Grill, Palm, Mortons, Prime Rib, Smith and Wolinsky and Ted's Montana Grill. Am I forgetting anyone? Delmonico coming anytime soon or Old Homestead???? I guess you can all tell that I'm not much of a steak house lover.
I don't think that the Ted Turner chain is high-end. I mean, according to the menu, they serve pot roast and chili cheese fries in addition to steak. The gimmick, of course, is that they specialize in bison, not beef. But I agree, steakhouses aren't my thing either.
Ted Turner isn't a bajillionaire anymore.With the AOL stock price down, he's a lowly multimillionaire.
True, true. Nonetheless, from the perspective of this thousandaire, it still looks pretty good.
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Eleven intrepid Philadelphiegulleteers, assorted hangers-on and a good dozen bottles of wine headed over to Rising Tide restaurant last night for an evening of (sorta-)Chinese food, hijinks and tomfoolery. I didn't take notes on all we ordered, but here's a selection of photos. I'm sure others will fill in what I've missed.
First, an EXTREME CLOSE-UP (outa focus, sorry) of steamed dumplings. I'd thought these were going to be soup dumplings, but they turned out to be the regular kind (but plump and oh! so juicy):
Next, beef! On a stick. It looks like satay, it smells like satay, but brother, it ain't satay. Or a corndog, for that matter:
And braised beef short ribs. These were my favorite:
Except maybe the fried sea bass (actually, two basses, I think):
Finally, an overview of the whole table, with carcasses and leftovers plainly visible. David is making his move for some fish:
And then, dessert! (not pictured) at Capogiro. Hooray!
Rising Tide was pretty good, I thought. The menu is weird: lots of non-Chinese dishes (we had quite good tom yum soup, and those satay thingies, for example). But they seem to be able to pull them off with a fair amount of aplomb. It's definitely a good place for a group- they had us locked up in a glassed-in room, where we wouldn't bother the nice folks in the room next door.
Hell's Kitchen, U.S. Season 1
in Food Media & Arts
Posted
Terrific article. I love Ramsay's mix of overstated honesty (it's all about the benjamins, not the food) and undisguised BS (his quest to "keep it real"). But this paragraph:
makes me think the show is gonna suck in a big way. I like food, but watching other people "reach for their dreams" makes me reach for my revolver.