Andrew Fenton
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Posts posted by Andrew Fenton
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The manager said I want the film that "B-word" took or I will call the police and also my friend Judge So and So and have her arrested!
MY friend said, so you know Judge So and So, and the idiot said, "I certainly do." Whereupon my friend said I doubt that as I certainly don't remember you, and if you had bothered to read the local paper you would recognize me, as my picture appeared last week and if you are going to drop names, you should really know the person whose name you are dropping.
It's nice to have friends that carry big sticks!!!
Awesome. You've always gotta treasure those Annie Hall moments; they're few and far between.
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Delorenzo's in Trenton
Oh, duh. Obvious, wonderful place, inexplicably missed.
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Andrew,
Gimme a call when you wanna do the Armenian place, Korean standalone @ 69th or Balkan Express.
I didn't even know there was an Armenian place around.
What's Bell's?
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what's The UC?
University City: as in "Welcome to the UC, bitch!"
(Credit goes to Rich Pawlak for the term.)
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When I went to Tacconelli's the other night, I noticed that a bar around the corner (The West Street Inn, 2537 E. Somerset) had a sign reading "Tommy Gunn's." Ducked in and grabbed a menu; sure enough, this is the same company as the Manayunk location. My guess is that they don't do the smoking at both locations ('cue reheats well), but I may be wrong about that, and I didn't have time to ask questions.
Has anybody been to the Port Richmond location? Is it any good?
edit: Oh yeah, they also deliver. But not past Fishtown, I'd guess.
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Five months from today, I'll be moving to Rome.
That gives me a good amount of time to make a checklist of things-- culinary and otherwise, but we'll stick to food here-- that I want to do before I leave. Some are old favorites, others are experiences I haven't yet gotten to in my years in the city.
Here's a preliminary list:
I. Things I've done before:
A. eat lots and lots of hoagies
1. Sarcone's
2. Chickie's
B. dinner at Studiokitchen
1. Taken care of this one: next week, whoo hoo!
C. one fancy dinner
1. Lacroix would be great
a. Maybe brunch there, instead?
2. I'd substitute another SK dinner if that opportunity presented itself
D. hit my favorite restaurants, of course
1. Rangoon
2. Chloe
3. Django
4. Rx
5. Southwark
6. Too many others to list
E. Lots of non-Italian food. Unless Rome has changed a lot in ten years, everything that isn't Italian is disappointing.
1. Mexican
a. load up on tacos at Veracruzana
b. mole at Plaza Garibaldi.
c. La Lupe, especially when the weather warms up
2. Must make it back up to Tierra Columbiana!
3. Rangoon: I'll really miss the tofu salad and thousand layer bread.
4. The UC
a. Dahlak
b. Vientiane
5. Sansom St. Kabob House for qabili palaw
6. The pate at Pif
7. Vietnamese
a. frequent banh mis from Ba Le
b. all aboard the Soup Train!
8. Sweet Lucy's barbecue
a. especially now that they have
F. Okay, I'll make an exception for pizza
1. Tacconelli's: we were there on Sunday, and it was as good as always
2. I need to go back to Franco and Luigi's for tomato pie or with ricotta.
3. (often) Sarcone's tomato pie. Eaten while shopping in the Italian Market.
G. And shopping at the Italian Market, because I love it so
1. DiBruno's
2. Sarcone's
3. Fante's, just to hang out
4. Claudio's mozarella machine
5. The Italian Market festival
a. June?
H. More shopping
1. Reading Terminal
2. farmer's market (South & Passyunk)
a. Livengood Farms
b. Meadow Run Farms
II. Things I haven't yet done, but need to:
A. I haven't spent nearly enough time in the Northeast.
1. Crabs at Bonk's
a. Wait till summer
2. I've never yet made it to the Grey Lodge.
a. For shame!
3. Syrenka's
4. Bell's
5. That Armenian place, whatchamacallit.
B. Restaurants (non-Italian ethnic) I haven't yet tried
1. Must have at least one good Korean meal out around 69th Street
2. Omakase at Fuji
3. Balkan Express
a. Before it gets too warm
C. Restaurants (non-ethnic or upscale) I haven't yet tried
1. Marigold
2. Fork
3. There must be others, but I'm drawing a blank
III. What else have I missed?
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No kidding. I'd assumed that it would be tough, gamy, et cetera. You know, what with all the hopping and so on. What does the steak taste like?
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D'Angelo brothers in the Italian market sells game meats.
How often do they have any of those in stock? It's tempting to pick up a nice piece of kangaroo. First I gotta find a good recipe-- braised in Foster's, no doubt.
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Faidley’s makes an incredible crabcake but that isn’t the only reason I love the place so much. To me, it represents a part of Baltimore culture that is slowly but surely fading away. I love standing there, eating a crabcake, drinking a draft and pondering the culinary possibilities of raccoon and muskrat. And swamp rabbit (!). Spending time at Faidley’s provides a very effective fix for anyone bored with the generic or the trendy.
I couldn't agree more. It's a real place, in a way that others can try to fake, but can't succeed at.
Question: you mentioned drinking a draft. Do they sell draft beer there? I only saw beer in cans; but if they have good draft beer there, I might just have to move in.
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the store associated with taqueria la veracruzana has several varieties of dried peppers. ancho, arbol, mulatto, pasilla, pequin, costeno to name a few. it's just up from 9th & washington.
Yup, and they sell them in bulk: cheap! The only problem is that you bring your own labeling tools... I have a cabinet with like five kinds of dried chiles and have no idea which one is which.
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Okay, here are a few recommendations for local atmosphere-type places.
Sweet Potatoes is a great spot for solid Southern food. Their catfish is first-rate, and I like their greens as well; I haven't had anything bad there, in fact. It's a low-key, locals-only sort of place, well off the beaten tourist path (in a strip mall). Their sister restaurant, Toucan, is good as well.
On the way to Tybee Island, go to the Crab Shack. Pretty good seafood, and a fun setting (outdoors, very casual.) Early March isn't the best time to go there: it's a little cold (though they do have heaters) and blue crabs are out of season. Still, the low country shrimp boil is worth a try. On Tybee, Tango serves solid "global beach cuisine". I've never had a bad meal there (but never had an amazing one, either).
Johnny Harris is an old-school Savannah institution: they have a great octagonal dining room with what used to be a bandstand in the middle. The food is generally good, and some of their specialties are interesting (for example, they serve BBQ lamb, which I've never seen outside of Kentucky).
The buffet at the Lady and Sons is excellent, but it's very crowded, and the crowd is 95% tourist. Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House has a little more personality; try them for lunch.
If you're in the mood to splurge, the only fine dining restaurant I can wholeheartedly recommend is Gottlieb's. It's excellent, and the Gottlieb family is a Savannah culinary institution.
With five days, you should think about heading to Charleston. Lots and lots of good eating there, but I don't know it as well as I do Savannah.
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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.
I'll take a New York strip over a filet mignon any day.And I'll take osso buco over either one. Or a really good brisket, or pot roast. In fact, that's another category: cheap cuts of meat are better for braising.
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So is the current restaurant
the new Old Original Bookbinders? or
the New Old Original Bookbinders?
I'm reminded of Spinal Tap, and how they started off as the Originals, only to discover that there was another band by that name, so they became the New Originals, only then the original Originals became the Regulars, and rather than revert to the Originals, they became known as the Thamesmen...
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Hey bakerboy,
Thanks for the behind the scene look at Metropolitan; interesting stuff. I had no idea that they customized their baguettes for different customers. Where do those sold in the stores fit into that schema?
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Well, it was a short trip to B'more, but a highly successful one. The lump crab cake at Faidley's was the best I've had, no doubt about it. Onion rings were also good, and the Maryland crab soup was interesting. Basically a vegetable soup (frozen mixed vegetables) with a crab stock. Even better than the 'cake was the store itself: it has the sort of encrusted, palimpsestic quality you only get from a business of long standing with a long, proud tradition behind it. Plus, in addition to seafood, I noted they were selling:
a) raccoon,
b) muskrat, and
c) "swamp rabbit." (What's that? Nutria? Or just a rabbit that lives in a swamp, like the one that attacked Jimmy Carter?)
I'm always impressed by that commitment to old-school, hard-core tradition.
Anyway, at the Lexington Market, I also had a sour cream donut from Harbor City Bakery (?) And a fine donut it was; I had to fight my way to the counter to get it, and as always, anticipation heightened the flavor.
Dinner last night was at the Brewer's Art. Boy was I wrong when I thought it would be a bar-type restaurant. What a great place! First, it's an absolutely beautiful space. I loved the upstairs, with its faded mansion decor, the couches in the front and dining room in the back (funky artwork, faux marble, brewing materials lurking in the darkness behind the glass). And the catacomb-like bar downstairs is terrific. If I lived in Baltimore, I'd be there all the time.
The beer was great, too. I had two glasses of their La Petroleuse: malty, a little tart, and strong! (6.8% alcohol: not bad) Probably should have tried different kinds, and if our waiter had been a little quicker-moving, I would have hard a third glass, of something else. In fact, the service was the weakest aspect of dinner: our waiter was a friendly, and fairly knowledgeable, but also pretty slow. I had to wait almost half an hour between ordering my second beer and getting it. That's too long for a thirsty man.
The dinner menu is well-chosen and solid. I had the ribeye: 22 oz, which is way too much meat (the rest is sitting in my refrigerator as I write this, awaiting dinner tomorrow, or maybe tonight's midnight snack). But it was awfully good, even for someone like me, who's generally pretty neutral towards steak. It came with an excellent slice of potato galette: something like pommes Anna, rich, slightly crunchy above and below, and a custom-built machine for absorbing steak juices.
Less successful was my Caesar salad. It was beautiful: a cylinder of salad topped with a Parmesan cake, and marked by the X of two anchovy filets. But it had too much cheese, and was a little gloppy and salty. The other appetizers were also a little disappointing: a squash-apple soup was too thick and too heavy on apple, and a baked Camembert was okay, but nothing special.
Grilled "white tuna" (that's escobar or wahoo to you, bub) was flavorful and moist, served with a saffron risotto. And the lamb stew was beautiful, what with the long, thin slices of carrot and other vegetables. It had a great flavor, as well; but the meat was pretty dry. I think they used leg of lamb; it'd work better with shoulder or one of the other tougher cuts.
I had a few bites (okay, more than a few) of the dessert special, a raspberry clafouti. A lot lighter and less pancakesque than most clafoutis I've had, it was tart, almost foamy in texture, and on the whole, pretty awesome.
In conclusion: the Brewer's Art kicks ass. You Baltimoreans are lucky to have it; thanks for the suggestion.
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I have just two words: Awe and Some. I love Sweet Lucy's barbecue, but in cold weather, it's a drag to sit there in the car eating it. Thanks for passing along the information.
Hmm. Mom's in town, and she loves her some BBQ. Maybe I'll take her up there on Monday...
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Update, five months later: I just bought a baguette (at the 2nd and Market store) and thought of this thread.
The baguette was fine: light, crusty, slightly browned. Maybe a little more brown than an ideal baguette would be, actually, but definitely better than the underbaked monstrosity that kicked off this thread. My guess is that that was an artifact of Farmicia's opening. So there you go, then.
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There's also the Japanese market in Narberth. Can't recall the name, but someone here can probably find you the thread. All I remember is how to get there by sight.
That'd be Maido!. I haven't been there, but from what I've heard, they're more into prepared foods than fish. Though I could certainly be wrong about that.
Review of Maido! in the Philadelphia Weekly.
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Rather than Le Bec-Fin, he might think about Lacroix. The food is equally good (if not better) and it's a little bit cheaper. The service isn't as over the top as LBF, but it's still great.
The best cheesesteak is a closely held secret, released only to a select few who undergo an extensive initiation rite. But I'd recommend Tony Luke's. And if he wants to be a really cool kid, tell him to skip the cheesesteak and head for the roast pork with greens and aged provolone.
That's assuming he has a car: otherwise, tell him to head to the Reading Terminal Market for lunch, and get a roast pork at Tommy DiNic's. He should also be sure to eat a hoagie while he's here.
For a third night (assuming LBF/Lacroix and Django) there are lots of other options. Would he want to further sample the world of Philadelphia BYOB's? On the cheaper side, there are a ton of ethnic offerings. I'd recommend Rangoon, on the edge of Chinatown: it's absolutely terrific food, and it's not like the east coast is saturated with Burmese restaurants.
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What do we mean by "out of style", anyway? I note that nobody's mentioning larks' tongues pickled in aspic, or swan poached in galantyne, or mastodon steak a la Grandpa Ugg. But you can't find any of these at a restaurant nowadays; more's the pity.
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Does anyone else remember the anti-beef "movement" about 17-18 years ago? Americans were drastically cutting down on the amount of beef they were eating. Or am I remembering it as a bigger thing than it actually was?
No, it was a big thing-- or at least a high-profile media thing, what with the fat and the cholesterol and the hey hey MY ARTERIES! But as a movement, it was sacrificed on the altar of the great god Atkins...
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I don't know if I'll eat there, in the near future or later. But I've been walking past their sign for months now: it features a lobster wearing a crown (rakishly askew). It's kind of cute, and it occurs to me: lobsters are not cute animals. But if you put a crown on one, it's cute. Really, you can put a crown on just about anything, and it'll look cute. A cockroach? Ick. A cockroach with a little crown? Awwwwww.
No word yet on whether the 350 lobsters in their tanks will be wearing crowns, though.
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Ooh! Now that sounds like a Book & Cook event I can get behind! Uglesich's is gooood.
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I've been to one of the Philadelphia locations. It's about as generic as can be, neither good nor bad, occupying that great bland middle ground occupied by office parties and hotel bars.
What do you think of skate?
in Cooking
Posted
Some thoughts on skate, with an eye to the ammonia & freshness issue.
I've had very fresh skate once. I caught a nice skate (line caught, on the beach at the Jersey shore) at about 3 PM, and ate it that night. Sauteed it and served it with brown butter and lemon juice. Nutty, a little sweet, no ammonia taste whatsoever. One of my all-time favorite food memories.