Andrew Fenton
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Posts posted by Andrew Fenton
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It pains me a little to say this, but if you're going to stay in one place for a few days, Charleston is probably a better bet. Savannah is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but Charleston is older and better preserved historically (so there's more to see). And while I don't know the dining scene as well as I do Savannah's, from what I've seen, there are more and better options on the high end. That said, if it's packed with Spoleto crowds, all bets are off.
Another way to go would be what we did on our honeymoon: start in Savannah and drive slowly up the coast. You can spend a few days in Savannah and Charleston and then head up to Wilmington. The three cities make an interesting contrast in terms of architecture, history and preservation. And there's lots of great food choices in each.
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Yowza y'all!! Sounds like a great dinner! Shiao Lan Kung is a fave of mine too, but I'll have to put myself in the hands of a capable waitperson next time. Sounds like they steered you right.
No doubt. It's always nice to get introduced to some dishes you might not have tried otherwise. New favorites, hooray!
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First, and most importantly, heya Mr. Chairman! Congratulations on a good job so far, and I hope to hear more from you around these parts.
Also can you do something about having to buy a case of beer at a time? That's just nuts. How come I can't buy a 6 pack of Sam Adams for a reasonable price? Can you also do something about being able to ship into PA from wineries? My state rep informs me that I can ship to the state store and they'll then be happy to give it to me, but that is also nuts since small wineries won't do that.I'm pretty sure that these are matters of state law: cf. the legislation, defeated this fall, to expand beer sales in Pennsylvania. So the person you want to contact is your legislator.
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Had dinner at Shiao Lan Kung with the mrbigjases. Holy mackerel, what a great dinner. The place was crowded enough on a Saturday at 7:30 that we had to wait a little while for dinner. No worries; it gave us time to read all the glowing reviews posted on the windows outside and decide what to order. Also to pick up some beer to supplement the bottle of Spy Valley riesling we'd brought along.
Our waitress was great: friendly, cracking jokes, and-- best of all-- giving us honest advice on the menu without talking down to the non-Chinese. When I ordered the salt-baked shrimp and almost committed the error of getting them shell-off, she steered me right: "the shells have more flavor," she instructed me. "And they're crispy!" She was right. I tend to be leery about shrimp shells: I know they're edible, but so are fingernails, and I don't want an order of those. But these shells were delicate, crispy and packed with flavor.
We knew we wanted won ton soup, and were informed that there are two ways to go: roast pork won ton (old school, thicker noodles) and Hong Kong style (new school, thin noodles). We went for the latter, and it was some of the best won ton soup I've had: elegant, tiny dumplings in a mild broth. For double-dumpling action, we also had the fried dumplings: plump, robust, juicy.
We asked for another appetizer recommendation and got the seaweed roll: sort of a roulade with a shrimp puree (sort of like Vietnamese shrimp on sugarcane) wrapped inside seaweed and fried, served with hoisin sauce. I've never had anything like it before: it had a great crispy texture and a nice flavor.
Biggest surprise of the night were snow pea leaves sauteed in garlic. It was simple in preparation (not too much different than other sauteed greens you've had) but mind-blowingly good. I need to find a source of pea shoots, and then I'm going to make them myself, every day of the week.
The final entrees were kung pao chicken (a solid example of the dish) and the piece of resistance: a whole sea bass, steamed with black bean sauce. Again, great flavor with the scallions and the ginger and the black beans and the hey hey. The waitress was again very helpful, telling us to be sure not to miss the cheeks: "they're the best part!" But jas was way ahead of her: he's tricky that way.
Need I mention how cheap the dinner was? All that food came out to a measly $22 a person, with tax and tip and the whole bit. Yow.
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More than you'd think, I bet. For example, I know a lot of young lawyers who have no time to cook (and usually don't know how to cook anyway). They eat out a lot, but I also know that, as they move from their 20s into their 30s, they're interested in eating a little more healthfully. I'd think a personal chef, pitched right-- this is the key-- could clean up.
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of:
How many Egulleteers use a personal chef/are looking to?
But yeah, I'm not entirely suprised that more than a few lawyers are interested in using a personal chef.
Oh sure, you did say "here". Yeah, I'm sure that that'd be a smaller number.
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Lunch today at Sweet Lucy's revealed how surprisingly nice their restaurant is. I guess our DDC experience in the industrial break room led me to expect a similar atmosphere, but no: it's clean, bright, with high ceilings and tasteful meat-related artwork. And the 'cue is as good as ever. I made the mistake of not asking for the sauce on the side, but other than that, a pork sandwich with collards and green beans hit the spot like nobody's business.
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Interesting. I just drove by this place an hour or so ago, and wondered what's up. Seems like it'd be worth a try, especially for andouille or tasso pizza. I don't know if I could stomach crayfish or shrimp pizza. Melted cheese and shellfish ain't my thing.
Now, if the jambalaya, catfish, and so on are worth eating, it'll truly be cause to rejoice!
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Is grade B syrup actually cheaper? I agree that the maple flavor is more pronounced than with grade A, and for that reason I prefer it for pancakes, etc. But I seem to remember that (at TJ's, at least) the two are the same price.Some maple syrup prices from PiecesofVermont.com:
Vermont Fancy Grade $43.98/gal
Grade A Medium $39.98/gal
Grade A Dark $37.98/gal
Grade B $34.98/gal
And by the quart, from Trader Joe's (the way I usually buy it), it's $9.99 for grade A, and $9.49 for grade B. Cheaper, true, but the difference is trivial.
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Straw poll: How many people here use a personal chef/are looking to?
I wouldn't suspect many, but who knows?
More than you'd think, I bet. For example, I know a lot of young lawyers who have no time to cook (and usually don't know how to cook anyway). They eat out a lot, but I also know that, as they move from their 20s into their 30s, they're interested in eating a little more healthfully. I'd think a personal chef, pitched right-- this is the key-- could clean up.
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yeah--i should have clarified that i open the bottle, immediately pour half of it into a smaller bottle and throw that in the fridge. i drink the other half with dinner. i find that the half-bottle in the fridge lasts for several days before it changes too much.b
You know, this whole smaller bottle thing is a really really good idea. Much better than my plan of pouring duck fat on the leftover wine and making wine confit.
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(Le Bec-Fin)
Would anybody here recommend it?
I've eaten there once. It was an exquisite experience- food, service, setting- that I'll treasure for years to come. It was also well over $500 for two people, including a bottle of what I vaguely remember as their best, second-cheapest wine. Now, this was a very special occasion (four of us celebrating our 30th birthdays) which we wanted to do up in a grand style. The Bec-Fin was absolutely perfect for that, and was worth every penny. But I wouldn't go again, at least not until I have something equally important to celebrate. Maybe not my 60th birthday; let's say, getting tenure.
The food at Lacroix is equally good, certainly at least as inventive, and it's somewhat less expensive (though I confess that I didn't pay when I ate there). The service isn't as over-the-top, but in some ways that's preferable.
It all depends on what exactly you want, and how much you're comfortable spending. I don't tend to think of LBF (or Vetri, or Lacroix, or Morimoto), because I don't often feel happy spending that much on dinner. But I don't know how much Justin wants to spend.
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Herb is right; you'll have no trouble getting a group. But you'll want to hurry on reserving a date: the SK calendar fills up really quickly, especially on weekends.
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I agree that citrus presses work great for juicing a few lemons (though if I were to make it for a crowd, I'd definitely invest in a power tool.) But I'm fascinated by the citrus trumpet also advertised on the W-S website. It looks like something from Dr. Seuss: does this thing work? What would you use it for?
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Okay, this has me in the mood for Chinese food. I think I'll head to SLK for dinner tomorrow night. What should I get there? Katie mentioned oysters and dumplings. I seem to remember that salt-baked seafood was good there, too. What else is good?
(also, if you want to come along, PM me. Shh!)
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tai lake is great for whole steamed or fried fish. mmmmm whole steamed fish.
Wow, I've never known a non-Chinese individual to actually like steamed fish.
Tolerate it, yes. But actually like it, you're the first.
Ahem. Make that two.
I always get the steamed fish at Charles Plaza (where I seem to eat inexplicably often); they do it pretty well, with a nice ginger sauce. But the best Chinese steamed fish I've had was at a restaurant in Cincinnati, of all places.
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Well, Takeout Chinese is a compeletely different beast than restaurant Chinese. Really, it's another regional specialty, alongside Cantonese, Szechuan or what have you; that is, American Chinese. When I go out for Chinese food, it's usually to Chinatown, and I'm usually interested in trying something interesting and maybe new. Takeout Chinese, on the other hand, is all about familiarity and comfort: it's about the old favorites, and it's meant to be eaten in your pajamas or (best of all) standing up at 2 AM, leaning over the kitchen counter with a paper package of chow mein.
That said:
I like white rice- never brown or fried rice, alongside the food (except when it's late at night and I'm eating straight from the package);
chopsticks first time around, but leftovers are served with a fork;
I eat everything, and refuse to acknowledge the existence of chicken wings or pork fried rice;
and I tend to stick to the basic American-style faves: mu shu vegetables, pot stickers, shrimp dumplings, and so on. There's a place not far from me that will deliver a good duck noodle soup or soup dumplings, but I always feel like that's cheating.
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Nice, Rich. I especially like the shout-out to Chambersburg. But I have to dispute this:
While the idea of an all-day beer-drinking tour with dozens of beer samplings sounds like a guarantee of drunken revelry, he says that isn't the case."Beer geeks are quiet, they take notes and pictures," he said. "They are very serious about their beer."
Quiet? You? Why do you lie to the nice newspaper lady, Rich? Why?
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Your list looks good. The only one I haven't been to is Nan Zhou, but all the others are solid. You might add Shiao Lan Kung to the list, as well as Lee How Fook. It's been my experience that you have to know what to order. Places will have their specialties, and those specialties will be really really good. But if you order, I dunno, General Tso's Chicken or whatever, it'll be exactly the same as every other order of mediocre General Tso's that you've ever had.
I don't know whether there are any Shanghainese restaurants in Philadelphia. There used to be New Joe Shanghai, but they've closed. You can get soup dumplings, however, at Pagoda (next to the Ritz East). They're not the best soup dumplings evah; but even a halfway decent soup dumpling is better than just about anything else. Probably they're available elsewhere, too: I feel like the soup dumpling has gotten a lot of press over the last few years. Sang Kee might have them, since they're associated with Pagoda (but Pagoda has a more ethnically diverse menu, so I don't know).
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Jamaican food (there's a place I love at 60th and Baltimore)
What place is this? I remember going by a Jamaican place (that I vaguely remember as being part of a chain) at around 50th and Baltimore. Can't remember the name, and for all I know I could be ten blocks off.
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After all the glowing endorsements, I bought two bottles of the Ravenswood at 12th and Chestnut tonight. I'll have it this weekend with, um, something delicious. Hooray!
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On the sammich front, I'd have on my list:
* roast pork/prov/br @ Tony Luke's or maybe DiNic's in the Terminal
* Schmitter @ McNally's
Roast pork, yeah. I left it off the list, figuring I'd try to find the best porchetta in Tuscany. Nevertheless... I've never had a Schmitter, so that's definitely on the list. Maybe at a Phillies game, if not at McNally's itself.
Thanks for the airline info. Massively useful.
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And while you're out that way, get a nice sandwich from Koch's. Sure it's not the same without Lou's bad jokes, but I went over the summer and it was still quite satisfying.
All good suggestions, but Koch's, in particular, is a Philadelphia treasure that I will miss. Gotta be sure to head over there!
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You're moving to Rome? I'd start fasting & saving up cash for cheap within-Europe weekend flights.
Herb's right that RyanAir is ridiculously cheap. I haven't looked into flights from Italy, but elsewhere in Europe, flying costs about as much as a bus ticket.
That said, I'm getting paid in dollars, not euros. And with the dollar in the toilet like it is, I won't be able to afford many trips. Hence, nibbles at Dahlak rather than grand dining at Le Bec-Fin!
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maf, those are some great suggestions. The Breakfast Club is absolutely the best place to go for breakfast (especially if you're on or near Tybee). I don't know for sure whether it's worth the drive from town just for that, but then, I'm not much of a breakfast person. On the other hand, weren't they the original selection to cater JFK Jr's wedding? Can't be all bad.
45 South is another good recommendation, that slipped my mind. I've only been there once, and found it indeed to be a little stuffy, but the food was good. (I think. It was three days before my wedding, and I was pretty distracted... I remember liking what I ate, but I couldn't tell you what it was.) Sapphire Grill is pretty good, too. But I have to disagree with you about Elizabeth's. I've been consistently disapointed by it. There's not much attention to food appearance (lots of brown piled on brown), and I think the food ranges between bland and oversalted. But I've only eaten there in the recent past, and have a suspicion that the place went downhill once Elizabeth left.
I've taken note of Love's and the United House of Prayer for when I'm next in town. It doesn't surprise me that the latter is good. First, because church ladies are always good cooks. And secondly, I've found that the best cooking in Savannah is often to be found in non-restaurant settings. The Savannah Golf Club, for example, can sometimes turn out amazing food- among the best fried chicken I've tasted.
I'm not wild about Savannah barbecue: it's okay, but there's better to be found elsewhere in the state, and much better to be found not far away, across the SC state line. Sweet Leaf is pretty okay (though I was a little nonplussed when I asked the waitress about what kind of wood they use and she replied "pine") and I'd give it another try. What do you think about Wall's?
It seems like the ethnic scene in Savannah is getting better and better. There's that Cuban place, which ain't half bad. And I see more and more Vietnamese restaurants every time I'm down there: nothing wrong with that at all!
Chinatown help
in Pennsylvania: Dining
Posted
SLK? BYOB.
OK?