mrbigjas
-
Posts
3,573 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by mrbigjas
-
-
OK I'm gonna say one thing right here:
To my knowledge, this menu is the first place I've seen the word "sausage" used as a verb. And I highly approve.
-
Has anyone seen "Wolfgang Puck's Cooking Class"? I was wondering whether it was worth viewing.
It's mildly interesting; the shows I've seen were pretty basic--an egg show with omelets, lardon/frisee salad, etc. Things like that.
The key thing that's grating about that show is the constant swooping, diving camera work. It's like they're trying to film it for IMAX. And then every once in a while--OK actually all the time, whenever he flips something over in a pan, or stirs something, they do this camera thing where they zoom in and go digitalized slo-mo on it. You can practically hear that Six Million Dollar Man noise when they do it. It makes me homicidal.
-
Dear South Indian Vegetarian Chefs of the world:
PLEASE MOVE TO PHILADELPHIA AND OPEN MANY RESTAURANTS.
I beg you.
-
The 6% Licensee "discount" on any purchase over $50.00 is completely obliterated by the 7% sales tax. It's more or less a wash.
Charging you only a 2X markup won't really cover the expense of the bottle from the restaurant's perspective. Unfortunately, as someone else here wisely pointed out in another thread, "I could charge you half the price if I served it to you in a plastic cup on a bare table and you opened it yourself."
That's why I'm saying discount it more! Do you know what the licensee discount is in other states?
Edited to say: serious question, not rhetorical.
-
OK I've ranted and raved about the state store system for years now, about how I think it's draconian and antiquated and in general bullshit. But I think that we can agree that Jonathan Newman has made HUGE strides in the last couple years.
So can we talk about this again? I'll start:
Things I like:
1. specialty stores and superstores opening, although I haven't been up to the superstores to take advantage of the supposedly cheap booze there.
2. open on Sundays--I don't know what it took to get this through, but it actually might be my favorite thing. DAMN I hate it when things aren't available exactly when I want them.
3. They are much more open about what they have and what they can get, including their website, which I love--the product search button is in my bookmarks and I probably use it a couple times a day
4. Big socialist style state bureaucracy means things like this: in Y2K, a bottle of champagne cost as much as it always did, instead of being jacked up $10-15 just because it was new years 2000, like a private store would.
5. Big socialist style state bureaucracy means that there are occasional great deals, like the extraordinarily cheap Cuvee de Pena ($5.99), which THANK YOU VERY MUCH DEBORAH SCOBLIONKOV FOR TELLING EVERYONE ABOUT MY FAVORITE SUPER CHEAPO WINE BARGAIN is pretty much gone from the stores now.
Things I still don't like, why I still don't like them, and questions I have that I hope someone can explain for me:
1. Obviously, the prices. Sure there are some bargains, but in general we still pay more. Can we at least change the name of the 18% Johnstown Flood Tax to the Because We Can Tax?
2. the.. uh.. what's the word I'm looking for... like, the soviet-style sameness of the stores, even the specialty stores. I read a lot about wines and spirits and things, and half the stuff I look up, it's SLO (for those not drinking in PA who don't know, SLO means you gotta order it, which may or may not cost you money). They've made big steps--huge steps even. But the SLO designation--it's not as if it's not in stock at 12th & Chestnut, but in at 19th or 2nd or 5th--there are only a couple categories of shops, and they all have the same stuff no matter where you go. And the little store Circle Liquors in DC where my father in law shops carries probably nearly twice as many different wines (if not as much of each one) in a store half the size of the 12th St. specialty store here.
3. Speaking of SLO and storage in general, I'm wondering about the shipping costs: when I order, is the PLCB just ordering from somewhere else? Is that why they're charging regular UPS rates for shiping? What's really up with the whole distribution system? Do they have warehouses? What's in them? If I'm ordering a wine that's in their warehouse, do I have to pay the same shipping as a wine that they can just get for me? I assume each store has weekly deliveries; if I'm ordering a wine they have stored somewhere and can just send bottles to the store next time a truck comes, should I really be paying shipping? I guess I could ask them about this, and probably should.
4. Something that I think would really really endear the PLCB to many many consumers, and encourage even more purchasing from them, ESPECIALLY the wines that they get and sell for less money than other places (cf. cheap wine like cuvee de pena, above): case discounts. I really think, and I have no backup on this except my general feelings, that the vast majority of people wouldn't give a shit about this, except for the all-important concept that people's knowing that it exists would make them think the PLCB sucks less. And the number of people who do buy cases of wines is small enough that it wouldn't make huge differences in the bottom line of the PLCB. Which brings me to my final point:
5. Larger discounts for restaurants. While I love love love the BYOB culture in Philadelphia, one of the things many people complain about when they go out here is the high price of booze. And the first step toward fixing that is for the PLCB to charge less for restaurants. Give retailers a damn discount already. If I'm paying $15 for a bottle, a restaurant should be able to pay $12 and charge me $25, and everyone's happy.
That's what I got. Feel free to contradict/correct me--these were just some things I was thinking about today.
-
Living alone, there's no one to help me finish all of the results of my cooking frenzy, and I hardly need that many servings of dessert sitting in the fridge tempting me like a siren to my downfall and ever widening end (so to speak).
Geez, Mr. Rogers has barely been in the ground for a year, and we've already forgotten his lessons about sharing?
-
If you have a thyme plant, what's the best way to use it in recipes and still keep it healthy? Just pluck off the leaves, leaving the stems be or trim stems off and then pluck off the leaves?
As a followup, the stems of my thyme plant are green and tender, not hard and woody. I guess this is because it's a young plant (?) Can the stems be used too?
cjsadler, I don't know where you're from, but around here (Philadelphia area), thyme grows like a weed and you don't need to worry about keeping it healthy. In fact, if I were you, I'd put it in a pot rather than the ground--my mom used to have it bordering her garden and she had to mow it back with a weedwhacker several times each summer.
I've had a thyme plant and a lemon thyme plant going in my backyard for three years now, in a pot, letting it sit out there and freeze every winter, and it just keeps coming back every year stronger than ever.
-
I've eaten at the "Jet Rock" place. It was related to the Philly Rock people; I don't know, it was ... not as bad as you'd expect? But not very good either.
Generally speaking I try not to eat airport/airplane food. I usually bring my own, EXCEPT that sometimes eating craptacular food at airports is part of the fun of traveling. Not usually, but sometimes.
I think--not sure, but I think--that they've moved the security areas so that you can get to most of the restaurants w/o having a ticket. I could be wrong about that.
Re security lines, the last time I flew out on a Friday night they weren't too bad. We came back in through the new terminal and our plane was the only one around, so if the traffic is still that low over there you're golden.
-
Did anyone check out the Book & the Cook Marketplace in Fort Washington? If so, was it any good? I'm contemplating checking that out on Sunday, but if anyone's been and has an informed opinion, I'd be curious.
If you want a guest tomorrow and are going in the afternoon, just let me know. My wife has a baby shower to go to, and I could go for a couple hours out there...
-
There's a "wine bar" type place in the airport--looking at the list Herb posted it's called Cibo--that has a bunch of wines by the glass and, uh, very average pasta dishes and stuff. You can get a nice glass of Gallo White Zin for $8 or so....
OK I'm only KINDA exaggerating.
The Jet Rock place has a buncha beers on tap, and average bar food including cheesesteaks and whatnot. I mean, if you wanna get an airport-style taste of Philadelphia, by which I mean crappy, but at least you won't miss your plane.
-
They do it everywhere at the terminal--the meat places, the fish places, the poultry places. It always makes me think twice. And then I put it out of my mind because it's never actually caused me any problem.
To make a kind of inappropriate analogy, it's like those couple of times a year when for no explicable reason I crave a big mac or something. I just put aside my objections and do what I gotta do.
-
Ha, definitely. Although it was my lovely wife who was asking for it, not me.
As an aside, I'm not as enamored with this beer on tap as I was when I got those first couple bottles. It's missing something that I remember being there--it's more yeasty and alcoholic, with less of that mid-mouth malty balance.
-
beans, funny you should mention the pabst/beam combo--around here (Philadelphia) it's known as the special. There's a bar near my house that started it in Philadelphia and has been doing it for about 15 years to my knowledge. The place is completely covered in Pabst paraphernalia.
It's also filthy and smoky and there's often a dog behind the bar. I mean, the four-legged kind.
In the early 1990s a friend and I were broke and did a taste-test of beers under $10 a case. The big winners were Pabst and Yuengling Premium Beer, with the edge going to Yuengling because it came in 16 oz returnable bottles...
-
Yoinking this thread back onto page one to let folks know that I was just at Brigid's for lunch, and they have Grotten Brown on tap now. I didn't have one, but I'll be back this evening for happy hour most likely with a friend, and will report back.
As an aside, did you know they don't have ketchup at Brigid's? I've eaten there probably 20 times over the last however many years, and never knew that.
-
As if being a publicly drunk and disorderly spectacle were a means of showing your ethnic pride.
... as compared to just being a way of life....
-
Ended up at Karma after all. Pretty nice! Check out the okra dish in the vegetarian entree section, which is EXCELLENT. Maybe not the vindaloos, which are overly sweet and gloopy. Nice naan. Kingfisher will run you $5.
Edited to say that you shoulda SEEN the crew of plastic-green-bowler-wearing drunk-ass dudes crowded around the door waiting to get into Moriarty's. God I can't stand that shit.
-
Fork IS a great place. I've never had a bad meal there. But both there and Chloe we've been to too recently; I like to try new places if I'm forced to be in Old City.
Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions! I don't get down there much, as you all have probably realized by now. Too full of... well you know how Old City is. And considering that it's St. Patrick's Day, I figure the more bar-type places will probably be fuller than usual--and especially Plough & Stars.
Karma is where Shivnanda was, on the 100 block of Chestnut. They brought in an award-winning chef from New Delhi (the city not the restaurant) and changed some things. I'm interested in going back, although someone I know said it wasn't so great.
All the other places, I'm thinking about them, including Adriatica (is your friend still the bar manager there, Katie?), where I do want to go eventually, but that's a bit pricey and we don't generally like to wait till 10 to eat.
I'm also thinking of Kisso--anyone been there lately? Oh wait, is it BYOB?
That website is cool except for their review of Charlie's--I been stopping in there now and then for years, and it's a pretty good bar.
The show is.... uh.... yeah, it's Proof. I think it's nearly done its run; we've had to change our ticket dates a few times already because of other events.
Thanks y'all.
Edited to say hey, maybe I'll stop by Panorama for wines and apps...
-
I got thea-tuh tickets tonight at the Arden, the early show.
So... Old City, 9ish, looking for something on the light side, not too pricey, not BYOB. Anyone been to Karma yet?
-
Welcome Papaya.
I always forget to mention the sweets places because I don't really eat a lot of that sort of thing. Thanks for reminding me.
-
Dragging this topic back up to the top because we had dinner at Vetri tonight, and had a really great meal. It was my second visit as well, although my first one was probably 1996 and I was much more of a novice when it comes to nice dining than I am now.
Apps: sweet onion crepe, crispy sweetbreads with pickled veg and baby arugula, and lamb sausage/mint pizza
Pastas: spinach gnocchi, octopus & spicy tomato spaghettini, and artichoke ravioli
Main courses: grouper with clams/cockles, leg of lamb, and roast goat with polenta
Dessert, the mango gnocchi.
Things were excellent. The thing that kinda made me laugh and think of that Craig Laban article afterwards was that I thought: you know, you could do just as nice a job and drop the price by $5-10 per dish if it were a BYOB with much more casual service.
And then I thought, you know, that kind of thought shows the direction that I (and to some extent, the general dining atmosphere in this city) have come--that I go out to a very nice restaurant, have a really great dining experience in general (including a restaurant actually serving me roast baby goat, which was amazingly good), taking full advantage of the service by asking the manager/sommelier/whatever guy for wine advice, which he happily gave and we had a really nice chianti classico--and the first thing I think is, it could be cheaper with more casual service and maybe BYOB.
I mean, how effed up are those priorities that that's what I think?
Therefore, I am rebelling against my first thought, realizing that it's based on the proliferation of cheap BYOBs in this town, and that there is still a place for fine dining here, to say: we had a really great meal. I have only very minor complaints about the food* or service. Also, I got sweetbreads and roast goat in the same meal. We had a nice bottle of wine from the low end of the list. We sat there from 8 till 10:45 and were never pressured to hurry or anything.
Also someone else picked up the tab, woo hoo!
*the sweetbreads themselves were great, and crisp as promised, but the pickled veggies and baby arugula served with them kinda overpowered the flavor of the meat.
-
Now I wonder if he'll address his woeful beer writing, which was the number one topic of discussion on my annual Beer Tour this past Saturday. He's apparently ruffled a few feathers, but also exposed himself as a beer neophyte in a city of serious beer geeks.
Was there a specific article or two y'all were talking about? Or was it just general Laban-bashing?
-
Craig LaBan writes about the reaction to his review here.
Edited to say that it's really about BYOB's in general, not just the review.
-
rlibkind and Katie: great posts.
Every saturday that I am in town, I do my weekly shopping at the terminal (usually supplemented by a stop at Chung May, and a Sunday morning trip through the Italian Market for dibruno's, sarcone's, first oriental, lupita's, etc).
Other places of note:
1. The Tea Leaf: I love these people. Yeah, there are better tea places in the city, with more selection, etc. But they're so damn nice, and for the basics, they have a ton of stuff.
2. Old City Coffee: great coffee roasters. Try their Bolivia coffee--light, winey, NOT overroasted.. it's no espresso or starbucks-style roast, but there's a ton going on there.
3. DiNics is my favorite sandwich in Philadelphia.
4. Haltemann's--the Amish ones, not the Asian ones (although they're really nice too, and have better prices on a lot of stuff than Godshall's does). If I run out of their bacon (I usually buy ends for cheapness and because they're more useful than strip bacon), I start to panic. They also hooked me up with a crown roast of pork for 10 people that was just a great hunk of meat.
5. Martin's--while their steaks don't stand up to Harry Ochs, they are seriously kickass sausage makers, on par with D 'Angelos for variety and quality of their sausages; D'Angelo does better with the various Italian and game varieties, but Martins has great andouille, chorizo, etc.
6. 12th St Cantina--I don't like their food all that much, but we buy Cotija cheese and tortillas there all the time, and they have a great variety of dried chiles, masa, corn husks, chocolate, dulce de leche and all kindsa other mexican stuff.
7. Right next to there is that kinda weird hippy dippy supplement and natural food place--but they have great organic grains and stuff. That's where I buy nearly all my dried beans and lentils and things.
8. Across from there is what used to be Stoltzfus meats, who have my favorite ham in the market; better than Haltemann's.
9. Lancaster County Products or whatever it's called, right there as well, has expensive but generally good produce, but more importantly all of those central PA preserves I grew up with, like pickled watermelon rinds, pickled beets and eggs, tomato jam, etc.
10. Dutch Eating Place: if you're looking for a culinary epiphany, you're not going to find it here. But remember what I said in #9, there? It's all the stuff I grew up with: open faced turkey sandwiches with gravy, overly sweet "bbq" beef, chicken corn soup (although lacking rivels), and GOOD GOD THE APPLE DUMPLINGS..... ok those might be an epiphany if you've never had one.
11. ESH EGGS ARE FRESH EGGS. That's where I buy all my eggs if possible. And I eat mayonnaise and caesar dressing and poached eggs and whatnot all the time.
OK I've gone on too long, so I'll wrap up by saying:
12. southerners are known for cooking ribs, but the amish also know how to cook up some ribs (down by the 12th & arch corner)
13. fosters, even with their expanded shop, crams more stuff into their space than most anywhere else. And you have to admire their blatant markups--when something has a sticker that says MSRP $8.99, they don't even bother to cover it up with their $10.99 pricetag--they put it right next to the MSRP.
14. Don't forget that besides OK food, you can also get Thai ingredients from the Thai place--she'll sell you kaffir lime leaves, fish sauce, mirin, curries, whatever.
OK really that's it for now. I have more to say about how I love the place, but it'll have to wait for another time. I've babbled on too long already.
-
Good god, the times I've spent in Oscars..... OK I won't go into that. I haven't been there in a while, but I do appreciate that there are still dive bars like that right downtown when the rest of center city is getting so damn fancy.
LJC, let us know when yer coming back; we'll go for drinks or something. If you liked Oscars, you'll love Bob & Barbara's...
What are you doing for the Book and the Cook?
in Pennsylvania: Dining
Posted
Heh. Those guys in the pictures are my dad's former coworkers (he retired last year). He introduced them to beer day at the Penn Museum at about the second or third one, and they've been coming back in greater and greater numbers and are a little more rabid every year.