mrbigjas

funny you should mention this--i bought a bottle of this just last week. katie had recommended it a long time back, but i hadn't seen it around the liquor stores in a while. it's freaking excellent, and only $20 here in pennsylvania. i'ma buy it again and again. the price point is perfect for drinking straight, making cocktails, or even if it comes down to it, cooking without feeling like you're wasting TOO much money. excellent stuff. my only complaint is that the bottle is too tall to fit in my liquor cabinet...

i recently bought my first bottle of orange bitters, and did indeed add some to a plymouth/noilly prat martini. and it was delicious. it added this depth of flavor to it that isn't really describable, but made a huge difference.

i agree. i have to admit it would have been a little cooler to have the fancy wines we were having out of fancy stemware when we went to django a few times ago, because the guy we were with brought some real doozies, and it would have added to the special feeling the evening had. but for my general drinkin purposes, i'll swill from anything, even if it's nice wine.

do you remember at first pizza club, when that table of people near us at tacconellis had giant riedel glasses? while we were drinking wine out of plastic dixie cups? that one seemed really odd to me. i mean, somewhere like django or marigold where you're bringing something special, sure, but tacconelli's? given django's reputation for crappy glassware, i wouldn't hesitate to bring my own glasses if i cared that much. fortunately i don't, so that's something less to carry.

you're drinking the pink grapefruit 20/20 with the fish chowder? philistine. everyone knows that the kiwi-strawberry night train is the wine of choice for that.

p.s. only kidding, bill. just bring your bottle in, hand it to the waitress, and things progress from there pretty naturally. while, as cheriev said, django's service isn't like a super-high-end fancy restaurant, it is definitely casual and professional and you won't be made to feel out of place at all.

the most important thing in BYOBdom is to request... no, demand that the restaurant provide you GIANT RIEDEL GLASSES. sommelier series are of course the first choice, but if they insist you could go with something slightly smaller, as long as you huff and sigh a lot. and say things like, 'boy this goat cheese gnocchi with porcini ivory sauce would be a lot better if i had a decent GIANT REIDEL GLASS so i could really enjoy the nuances of my kenwood chardonnay along with it' just loud enough for the patrons near you to hear.

fwiw, i have always preferred vietnam palace to vietnam myself as well. good stuff.

cath, i was totally gonna point you to this thread so you could... uh... commiserate? is that the word i'm looking for? but i hadn't gotten around to it yet. glad to see you came across it.

ok when are you hoping to open again? because i'm jonesing conveyor sushi now.

spoon? we don't need no steenking spoon. don't you know about squeezing the cup?

good luck, paul, and thanks in advance for sharing.

you know, he's been saying that since before we first went there over three years ago, and i don't believe it for a second. i mean, think about the amount of control he has there, and how much cash money he's making every single night (since after all, he's booked from now till whenever). why change a thing? it's way cool just as is. edit: oh, another thing--i've had dinner at studiokitchen three times (though not real recently), and every single time i learn something new i can use in cooking. from the slow-cooking of the duck breast to render the fat while not overcooking it, to using the starch in corn itself (rather than corn starch) to thicken the cream sauce, to.... i'm not sure which part of your dinner there is making me think about things, but it is. i think shola's willlingness to spend most of the evening talking about techniques to amateur cooking nerds like me is one of the best parts of studiokitchen.

i'm thinkin that sounds like a plan--especially for zep's, which sounds really interesting. as an aside, soujough is ... what's the term when you google something and only one site comes up? it's one of them. me and the mrs can drive, capaneus, if you're in town. good way to start my birthday month.

now now, let's not be TOO specific. those of us from philadelphia and surrounding areas love us some pork roll too.

ah... i admit it was the capers i was looking for--the ones you have in the 9th st store in a tub for self-service by all the other stuff in the front. thanks. i'll introduce myself if i see you--i haven't these last few times i've been there. i think i know who you are from the pics that have been posted here.

today, we tried: -strawberry tequila -- tasted like strawberries. good ones, but i was expecting more of a peppery tequila kick. -yogurt -- this was AWESOME. so yogurty, sweet but sour. excellent -black truffle -- ok this one was a little too weird for me and then we finally settled on the cherimoya and the starfruit/lime. the cherimoya was light and floral and slightly custardy, like the fruit. the starfruit/lime was acidic as expected, but again the tropical aromas of the starfruit were a highlight. damn that was some good stuff.

since this thread kinda became the 'odd not-quite-a-hoagie' thread, i'm bumping it up because i had an interesting sandwich today at salumeria--lima beans and aged provolone. yeah, lima beans. i thought it was weird too when i saw it on the special board, but then i had an image of fava beans with oil and mint and shaved pecorino, and thought it might be something like that--early limas, a fresh spring kinda sandwich. well, it wasn't--it was gigantic cooked dried limas, which were then marinated in oil and vinegar with some sweet peppers. and piles of aged provolone--maybe a little too much cheese, even, and i'm not one to say that usually. and the house dressing of course. the guy who owns it (or just has worked there forever--balding, grey hair, kinda brusque but nice. i assumed he was the owner but maybe he's not), recommended not putting anything else on it other than that, so we didn't. anyway, it was excellent. something totally different than the usual sandwiches you get around town. not for atkins dieters obviously--a little starch with your starch, sir?--but really tasty. recommended if you're in the mood for a change. i don't know if they have it on a regular basis, but if they do it's going to have an occasional place in my sandwich rotation.

lisa, i have two questions: 1. a couple weeks ago in pronto on 9th st, i saw those LU cookies called 'la bastagne', which are my wife's favorite. are you gonna have them in the new store? or i should say, do you guys still carry them at all? 2. what about salt-packed capers and anchovies? they weren't available today--are there plans to have them up here, or are they going to remain only in south philadelphia? just curious--i'm only posting publicly because why not, other people might be looking for this stuff too.

today at the terminal, iovine bros had squash blossoms, individually packaged in plastic, 2 for a dollar.

i wouldn't bet on this, though. the restaurant has been booked solid through most of the run of dali, so it's best to have a reservation if possible. also, i don't know if it's staying open that late-- here is the information about the dining options at the museum itself.

i'm pretty sure jack's firehouse will serve you that early. rembrandt's has good wood-oven pizza, and since it's a bar they basically serve all day. i'm pretty sure brigid's serves all day too, although don't quote me on that. for basic salty greasy diner food and giant salads there's always little pete's in the philadelphian. london has a takeout sandwichy shoppy type place next door to it now. if they don't serve all day you could always eat in the bar in london, since they do there.

tai lake: fresh whole steamed or fried fish. clams in black bean sauce.

hm, they didn't do their soup like that for us today. that sauce was crazy. talk about sticky! it was like molasses. tasty though.

we just ordered sang kee takeout for lunch in my office. two things to report: 1. we got two kinds of dumplings: vegetarian and the watercress dumplings stuffed with shrimp and pork. while i still maintain that the mini chicken potstickers that we got a couple weeks ago aren't that great, these things were awesome. 2. we got general tso's chicken, and they packaged the chicken (which is indeed as philadining described above) and broccoli in a container and gave us a separate container of the sauce, so that it didn't get all goopy. how cool is that? of course the chicken wasn't crisp anyway because it was kind of steaming in the container, but in principle i love it.