mrbigjas

Wot's all this, then? Sounds like what destroyed the Titanic. Or a 1970's cartoon superhero. ← it's a gentian-based german bitter digestif. comes in a little bitty portion-sized bottle that's covered in brown paper. Here's their website.

i stopped by on saturday during the rittenhouse row festival, and it was a mob scene. a few things i saw but didn't buy because the line was too long: 1. fee bros orange bitters and mint bitters 2. underberg! 3. lots of expensive european mineral waters. as i am addicted to expensive european mineral waters, this is a bonus for me.

seems to me a zin might be kinda big and alcoholic to take not knowing what's on the menu. what if the best looking thing turns out to be a nice piece of poached halibut in some kind of light sauce? ok i got nothin, except maybe you could call and ask them to fax or email one to you, or at least give you an idea?

to my knowledge the rule is: if you brought it, you can take it--in fact, i read the actual laws about alcohol in restaurants without a lcense and it kinda surprised me how strict it was about how you couldn't even have open wine in the kitchen for cooking, and other pretty harsh restrictions. apparently no one pays attention to that. but anyway, yeah, if you bring it, you can take it. if you buy it, you can't.

just to clarify: matyson is BYOB, southwark and fork have bars. but there's a liquor store right around the corner from matyson. brasserie perrier is a great suggestion--i knew i was forgetting somewhere obvious. rouge is right along there as well, and has always been solid. i would recommend sansom street oyster house like i do for everyone, but i have a feeling 'old school philly seafood' might not be what they're looking for.

anywhere in center city is good, then, as far as cabs go. places in south philly would also be good. how about an early dinner at matyson? interesting contemporary american. take a cab to 19th & chestnut. stop in the liquor store there and buy a bottle of wine. matyson is on 19th between chestnut and market. another place i went to recently that i really enjoyed is the new-ish southwark--very good food, also contemporary american, and they have a bar. 4th & bainbridge. (i posted about this last week) fork is always reliably good, food-wise, at 3rd & market. they also have a bar.

ok that narrows it down some--now, another question: what time of day? are you talking dinner, a sit down lunch, brunch, late-night?

what do they like? i mean, do they want a full on dining experience, or 'authentic' philly experience? for the latter i always recommend tony luke's--a very quick drive into south philly.

what do they like? i always recommend tony luke's--a very quick drive into south philly.

Dagnabit, I'm hungry now. You bastard, you. ← ha! well, look at it this way: you and i could just go BUY one, rather than having to approximate the experience in our home kitchens. p.s. everyone: don't think that i think what i described up there is definitive. if you have better ideas/modifications/more specific recommendations/reasons i'm wrong, have at it!

here's how i do it (and keep in mind here that this procedure isn't exactly 'authentic' but since you're using a different cut of meat to start with, this approximates the flavor): basically you cut and 'unroll' the pork loin so that you have a flat piece about 1/2 inch thick or so*. then you make an herb/garlic paste with a bunch of garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, maybe some marjoram if you like that. spread that all over the pork loin, and then re-roll it. roast it in a slow-ish oven at about 300-325 or so on a rack over a pan that has some water and/or white wine (this will catch the fat that drips off and make the juice) until it's done. it takes a little longer than you might expect, and you'll probably have to put more water in the pan. *this is where, when they do it for real, they season the shoulder inside when they debone it, before re-tying it OK while it's roasting, clean a bunch of broccoli rabe, blanch it/shock it, and then saute it in olive oil with a bunch of garlic, seasoned with salt (and hot pepper flakes if you like it a little spicy--they do with their spinach at dinic's; i'm not sure they do with the broccoli rabe at tony luke's). set aside. if you can't get broccoli rabe, just do a massive pile of sauteed spinach. so then when the meat is done, let the thing rest for a while, and in the meantime get the pan with the juice in it (which will have all kindsa grease on/in it), and heat that up with any other juice that comes out of the meat while it's resting, and a little more water if you need to--you want a nice greasy flavorful juice. slice the meat thin, return it to the juice and keep it all warm in a chafing dish. then get aged provolone, and slice it. when someone orders a sandwich, put in the provolone, put in the meat with a slotted spoon, don't worry about the fact that you're soaking the roll with the juice, and then top it with some broccoli rabe. put it on waxed paper or deli paper. serve it with a fork. eat it fast--the longer it sits around the more the bread disintegrates. jmcgrath is right about the temp--that's the other main difference between the cuts. since shoulder has so much fat and connective tissue, you have to slow-roast it, and you can take it to a much higher temp than loin. so your loin will remain a little pink, while a real roast pork sandwich is always ... not pink. however, consider that you're serving it sitting in the juice, so it won't hurt the sandwich too much if it dries out a little. how's that for a starter? edited to clarify and to add that last paragraph

awesome. the sign on the old store said friday, but someone else emailed that it was open today, and i'm going to stop by on my way home. and really, gbredben, torture? more like a dream come true.

i would bet it's the other way around. poach till medium-rare and then either sear in a very hot pan to crisp the skin, or possibly broiled/torched.

my dad says he's been eating fiddleheads raw, off the plant, for years. and he's not known for having an iron stomach. last time i made them, we just cleaned them and sauteed them in butter with lemon. no blanching, no nothing. but we live on the east coast of the u.s.--if the food poisoning is only taking place on the west coast, that would explain it.

pickled hot peppers in vinegar. the top has a little hole in it and you shake out the spicy vinegar on things, leaving the hot peppers in the bottle. it's especially good on greens.

Tru dat: generally speaking, there's all kinds of high-flyin' crazy stuff at 12th and Chestnut for the Festival. Buy it, drink it, love it. ← does the poorhouse have nice cellaring facilities? because you people are gonna drive me there right quick. but at least i'll have a metric buttload of wine to drink.

alex, i think you're missing a word in your post and i can't quite figure out how to respond.

good point. i think i'll head over this week.

i always wondered about lidia's. i have one of her cookbooks, and it doesn't have a bad recipe in it, and she's one of the few tv chefs i still watch. but searching around the web turns up a lot of really mediocre reviews. i'm going to be in pittsburgh in mid-june; i hope i'm not disappointed.

hey elie, tonight i made the fried stuffed kibbeh, yogurt tahine dip, zucchini and tomatoes, pita, and cucumber salad--all from your course. it was great. thanks for doing this.

well, we went last night for dining out for life, and had a great time and a great meal. good sign number one: when i ordered my martini 'not too dry' the bartender put in a good glug of vermouth. sweet. good sign number two: sweetbreads on special for an appetizer. of course i got them. they were great--paired with a bread pudding of sorts and a cranberry-based sauce... man oh man others got a delicious porcini fettucine--which was a bit light on the pasta, but that was fine because it meant waaaay more porcini. i got the pork chop that craig laban raved about. it was excellent--maybe a leeeeetle sweet for my tastes, but then again i'm not a sweets lover. and it was MASSIVE. i took half of it home. that can be either good or bad, depending on what you think of giant pork chops. my wife got the halibut with a beet/grapefruit salad, which was good. the salad definitely complemented and even really outshined the relatively simply cooked fish. someone at our table got the shad and enjoyed it, although i didn't taste it. also everything was very professionally and smoothly-run, and really fairly priced as well. good stuff. i'll be back, and probably sooner rather than later, assuming i'll still be able to get a reservation once word really gets out as to how good it is. maybe a restaurant will be able to survive on that corner for a change.

my only suggestion is to make sure that you cool them completely before finishing them in the 375 oil. i usually do this in the refrigerator, spread out on a tray.

you say that like it's a bad thing... but seriously i've eaten a pile of ramps sauteed in bacon grease once a week for the last three weeks and haven't noticed any residual effects. but then again, i do eat a lot of onions, garlic, shallots, scallions on a near-daily basis (nearly everything i make starts with something from that family) so maybe i always smell kinda funky.

you might wanna try bacon fat next time, if you don't have a problem with that sort of thing. a lot of the recipes i've read said that's the tradition.

how about any cocktail with jacquin's! edited to say: for those who live other places, jacquin's is a local liquor maker--you know all those bottles of dekuyper mixers you see in bars? in philadelphia they're often made by jacquin's. creme de menthes, cassis, cacaos, butterscotchs, berry brandies, cheap vodkas, all that kinda stuff....