Andrew Fenton

I'm surprised to hear you say that. I can (and in fact, just have) listed several South St. restaurants that are decent or better than decent. There are others: Overtures, as Jas pointed out, is really good, and there are other, less fine-dining spots that are good too (such as South St. Souvlaki). Whereas Manayunk: okay, Grasshopper has been mentioned, and Le Bus (a chain, of course; not that that's a bad thing). What else? I'll grant you that South St. has an awfully skanky vibe, especially on weekend nights. But there's also a lot to do there, both restaurant-wise and otherwise. I can't make an equivalent list (of restaurants or anything else) for Manayunk.

Let's see: Azafran, NEXT, Beau Monde, Dark Horse... Django, for crying out loud. Just sayin', is all.

This is a very good question. It occurs to me that Manayunk deserves its own thread. If you don't mind, I'm going to take the liberty of starting one.

In another thread, MysticMilt asked what to me seems like a very good question: Which got me thinking: I never go to Manayunk. Probably haven't been in like two or three years. My favorite thing to do over there was to go to the farmers market, and that's closed. And this may be a misperception on my part, but it seems like a hassle to get over there, especially without a car. And if you do have a car, parking is a pain. But it is a cute area, and you'd think that there would be room for some good restaurants. But I can't think of one that I've heard of. So... Manayunk: What am I missing? Why is it a graveyard? (Too hard to spell?) Discuss.

Luxury condominiums? That's so very, very Philadelphia, isn't it...

Heh. I bought a bottle of Danzka just because I liked the bottle so much (also, I was getting rid of cash at duty free in the Frankfurt airport). The vodka is fine. But yeah, I'm a sucker for cool packaging.

I said (temporary) goodbye to Philly with a lovely dinner at Chloe last night. We both ordered entirely off the specials menu; lots of good stuff on it this time around. We each had the Grilled peach and fig salad, with gorgonzola and balsamic, with a big ol' mound of microgreens on top. Lovely mix of sweet and salty and great for a summer salad. If I could make one change, it'd be to substitute a sweeter Roquefort for the gorgonzola; but it was pretty great as it was. My entrée was the Hawaiian butterfish (Hawaiian what? Always something new from the sea. This was much like a sea bass in flavor.) Seared, with a great, great crust: well-seasoned and just crunchy enough. A thick slice, so it stayed very moist throughout. Served on jasmine rice with a cherry tomato and avocado salsa. Beth had a small entrée of five goat cheese and ricotta ravioli. She liked them; I only had a small taste. Dessert was also excellent. I had chilled peach and champagne soup with passionfruit sorbet. (This was one of the appetizer specials. And it would have been a good- if sybaritic- appetizer.) Wonderful stuff, especially the sorbet, which was as good as any sorbet I've had in ages. This was all washed down with a 1989 Clos Baudoin Vouvray Aigle Blanc. One of my favorite wines right now. It's a little sweet to go with most meals. That's why I chose the salad and dessert I did, and it paired great with both. As a side note, the restaurant was almost empty when we got there (6 PM Friday). That may be because we ate early- it was half-full when we left. Or because it's August in Philadelphia. But I've always been skittish about the no-reservations policy; nice to be able to walk in.

Hooray! Everybody is correct, and everybody shall have prizes! So how's the ice cream there?

Hmm? So is the St. Louis World's Fair story fakelore, then?

Maybe a naive question, but is this anything other than a gimmick? The article mentions that aluminum bottles are better insulated than cans (though I can't tell whether they're better insulated than glass bottles). That's a plus, I guess. And there's nothing wrong with cool-looking aluminum bottles. Anything else?

Lisa: sorry, that was mean of me. You were definitely missed. Herb: I always call it the Train. For two reasons. First, because I'm self-conscious about whether I'm pronouncing the name correctly: fuh shay lew-ah? Foe sheh looa? Phoo shoo loo? It's just embarassing, I tell ya. Also, because trains are fun! "All aboard the Soup Train! Stops at Tripeton, Phoville and Drunken Junction..."

Poor, poor Lisa. Sorry about your wound. You didn't miss much though. Not the killer martinis at Davio's, nor the multi-meat extravaganza (scallops! shrimp! prosciutto! lamb!) that Katie's contact there brought out for us. Nor the kickass pho and spring rolls and summer rolls and sate soup at the Train afterwards. Nor the Singapore Sling that put me down for the count. Okay. gotta sleep now. Hope you feel better soon.

You just need to start drinking on the job, Jas.

It's only on sale for the next ten weeks, and evidently, it tastes like grape. And it's black: black as night, black as coal. I haven't seen it yet, and I'd be tempted to try it because, hey, it's black. But on the other hand, it's still Mountain Dew.

Temple's Center City campus also offers cooking classes. They had a cool program a year or so ago in which chefs from local restaurants (I remember Deux Cheminees and Django specifically, but there were several others) taught one-off classes.

I'll be there. Bet I can drink a lot of martinis for $5 a pop.

Yeah, it's a shame. The restaurant had problems (the ridiculously bad service that Sara experienced, for one) but the food there was absolutely first-rate. (edit to add: at least under the ancien regime. I never went there after their chef shuffle...)

Either Castagne or Davio's would be fine. Those cheesesteak rolls are pretty damn good, and I've never set food in Le Castagne.

Yeah, I was confused about the Trenton thing too. My first thought was "Huh? What about DeLorenzo's?" And then my second thought was "Nobody could be so stupid as to ignore that sublime pizza. Trenton must count as central Jersey." But for all I know the infinite number of monkeys they have pounding out articles at Philadelphia Magazine just haven't made it up to Trenton yet. Pretty schtoopid.

I'm not crazy about Devon. Cheap lobster notwithstanding, I've been once and didn't like the food much. I'm still psyched about the free tapas at Alma de Cuba.

Well, Tacconelli's in Maple Shade is pretty terrific. Does that count as NJ or expat Philly?

Heh. Jas has L'Hexagone about nailed. I'll just add that it's as massively and deliberately Eurotrash as is possible in Philly. I probably wouldn't go back. Beth had to go there for work, once, and I went along; that was kind of fun, even though I had to pay for my beer.

While I agree with Holly's point about McD's dilution of their core mission, I'm willing to make an exception for the Egg McMuffin. I really love those things. Other fast food breakfast sandwiches don't do anything for me, but I'm a sucker for that McMuffiny goodness. Come to think of it, I haven't had an Egg McMuffin for years. I could go for one right now. Is it breakfast time yet?

I should be able to make it. Probably. Maybe. I'd really like to slorp down a few mojitos at Alma De Cuba, anyway... Oh yes I would.

Isn't this exactly what In-N-Out and Fatburger are doing? To a casual observer, they seem to be kicking a lot of ass indeed. (Though to the best of my knowledge, they haven't gotten the kinks out of the zombie Ray Kroc yet.)