katbert

I was walking by 36th & Walnut and spotted a solo tent of Amish produce- I randomly bought cherries and some corn. And the corn is perfect. No starchiness, no old fiberiness, it pops off the cob with that kind of snap like those big orange roe on sushi. (I can't remember what these are called. Flying fish are the little red ones. I'm too lazy to google image. Sorry.) The right amount of sweetness and flavor and mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. 50cents/ear, which I think is expensive, but worth every penny this time around. They were packing up to leave when I was there, around 4pm, so I don't know when they're usually there and I couldn't find anything definitive on the Penn website, but yay for the Local Food Thing.

on Sunday had the lychee, Lancaster peach, grapefruit w/ campari, two different cherries. I recently made a lychee sorbet from fresh lychees (from the Italian market *shrug*) and the flavor was the same, but I need to figure out how they get their texture quite so creamy. I think I'm back onto gelato this summer, I'd managed to stop for a while.

I have always found it just impossible to get a table for 4 at Koch's, no matter the time of year.... ← I didn't say annnnnnnnnnnything about tables or reservations. =P hey Lisa, there's a thread about shrink wrapped cheese in the General Food Topics that I'd like to hear what Dibrunos says about it. (Sorry about the sentence construction.)

Django, closed now through July 21st. Koch's Deli is "gone fishing" most of August.

Remember the lychee thread? I had about a pound of lychees from the Italian Market (weird, huh.) that were ok but not terrific to eat out of hand (some were sweet, others not quite sweet enough) sitting around in the fridge. I blended up the peeled seeded lychees and mashed it through a sieve to get most of the fibrous bits out, added a 1:1 sugar:water for about 3 cups total and froze it in a Donvier that I just picked up from a friend (who had discovered that she had 3 icecream makers in her house). End result: good texture, good flavor, a tad too sweet, and it looks like a white sorbet, ummm see: PatrickS's photo, and photoshop out in your head the lemon flecks. Mmm, clone stamp tool.

Do you consider the fries at Grace Tavern to be shoestring? B/c the last time I was there, the fries were the same size as the ones we had at Monk's (i know, same ownership etc), sort of shoestring cross section but shorter than the length of a potato, but they were crispy and fabulous. That was what I was expecting from Monk's. Good Dog's freshcut sweet potato+regular fries are yummy flavorful b/c of the considerable salt and the sweet potatoes, but while they're always fresh/burning hot, they're never particularly crispy. Also the small/large fry sizes seem to have vanished off the menu; there's now only a $5 generous cereal bowl size. Don't order more than one order at the table at a time. And speaking of fry sizes, I had no idea that McDonald's had discontinued its supersize sizing. ha. Apologies for highjacking this thread into french fries.

I was disheartened by Monk's fries on Tuesday. I should qualify that by saying that I like my fries burning hot, fresh from the deep fryer, crispy on the outside, and powdery or not on the inside. Form factor is mostly not an issue, I'll take shoestring, steak fries, crinkle. One exception is waffle cut, because I think those fries can be too large for me to eat comfortably. While I think good fries are usually fresh cut, twice fried, and in between the shoestring/steak fry sizes (the consistently best fries that I've ever had were from Vleminckx Sausmeesters), single fried from the freezer can sometimes definitely be better. Anyway, Tuesday's fries at Monk's were super hot but limp. I wonder if the oil wasn't hot enough. I would write more about fries b/c I've had Good Dog's fries twice this week also but Sandra Day O'Connor is resigning and aghhhhh.

One of my beer drinking friends is in town and we usually go to someplace like Monk's, Nodding Head, Grace T., Bridgid's (sp?), Good Dog, that sort of thing. Has anything new & notable on the beer pub front opened up in the last year? I haven't been paying attention.

Technically, it's Honey's Sit 'n Eat and note that they don't take reservations and will sometimes start up a waitlist a la Morning Glory. We continued the trend of messed up service last weekend (~1pm, all tables were full when we were seated); our waitress brought out four plates and gave two to our table and two to another set of four. In fact, all the plates belonged to one set of diners. By the time they figured out the swappage, everyone with food had started on their plates, and both our pair of missing plates and the other table's missing plates took another solid 15min to get out of the kitchen. Our waitress was pretty annoyed/frustrated/uninformative when figuring out what happened, and later during the meal somewhat apolegetic for the mixup. They did take comp us something, which we appreciated. Foodwise, the challah french toast was done well and I hope they start adding some interesting toppings/fillers. The biscuits were fresh out of the oven (HOT) and great with the mystery pinkish preserves on the table. I was disappointed with the latke because it wasn't a freshly fried pancake, instead a wedge of shredded potato cut out of a pan that was baked/broiled til crunchy on top, although everyone else at the table liked them. The omelette w/ lox looked good, the sausage patties were thick hamburger like and very good, the ?buttermilk pancakes are indeed giant and I liked being able to order 1/2/3 pancakes. I would definitely go back, although if I saw/heard the amped up violinist playing covers again, I might go to Standard Tap that morning instead.

Went to Café Sud today and tried three of the specials: andouille+chorizo+potato hash w/ 2 eggs, apples sauteed w/ calvados+sage sausage stuffed french toast, chocolate+sweet cheese stuffed french toast (each was ~$11). The french toast is more ovally and flatter than Sabrina's stuffed FT (which is pretty much my gold standard for FT) and the portion size is much more reasonable (ie smaller than enormo) but I think it's executed better than at Sabrina's- the bread was a little crispy from the grill, the savoury filling was more interesting than the usual sugariness, and the usual sugariness chocolate filling was an unctuous silky chocolatiness, a little like molten ganache, but not too sweet. The hash showed up as a mix of browned sausage, sweet red peppers, and perfectly crispy outside/tender inside potatoes alongside the eggs and some buttered toast. Some people might not be too happy that the hash seemed to be sitting in what seemed to be a small pool of sausagey oil, but I likes me them calories, so it didn't bother me. Service was super sweet, and there were a few outdoor tables and the front window was open. Relatively small space, so check before you go with a big group.

And First Fridays until 9pm. The pastry cream for the banana or coconut cream pie has vanilla bean flecks in it and the crust for the coconut cream pie contains toasted coconut too. mmmmmm. kt

Sabrina's, but go before 10am if you want immediate seating. Of course, the Italian market is always good for a stroll and they'll call you on your cell phone when your table opens up. It's the same mix of breakfast/lunch as Sunday. mmm, home fries.

Thanks for the detailed report, glad you enjoyed the beautiful weekend- everything's just starting to bloom outside. Penn's Archaeology & Anthropology Museum doesn't get enough attention and it's a fabulous collection + space. (everyone should go. Mummies.)

Melograno is open for Sunday brunch also- I'm not sure if they've always done this or if I just noticed b/c I was walking by yesterday. Thanks for all the suggestions, I've added some new places to my list of places to try. We're still a little bit fixated on Sabrina's- the wait list was already going by 9:30 on Sat. but it wasn't long yet (special FT=french apple orange stuffed french toast w/ ?currants?). I think our new policy is if we can't get there before 9:45am we have to go somewhere else. Now that it's warmer out we can go back to Carmen's. Also stopped by Sarcone's and noticed that they sell bags of breadcrumbs. WRT chinese bakeries, I've been frequenting SaintHonere's because their egg tarts have the multilayer flaky crusts vs the cookie crust ones at KCs. It's worth the heart stopping shortening/hydrogenated fat ingestion.

the south philly nifty fifty's b/c where else can I get fluorescent bright soda and crazy yum milkshakes without a car. The french fry potato shooter machine was cool too. Aww, milkshakes. And chocolate egg creams.

We spent two hours on the waitlist for Sabrina's this morning and I wanted to see what other options ppl can suggest for lowkey breakfast/brunchiness, other than the places I already know about (MoGlo (same wait thing as Sabrina's but less managed and a smaller menu), Carmen's (bad for >4ppl or in winter), 10th St Pourhouse (love it), Reading Terminal (mm, apple dumpling), Rx, Lacroix, the Ants Pants Cafe, Fitzwater Cafe, Ten Stone, Standard Tap (other ppl like the baked eggs, but I don't like egg yolk), Blue in Green). Places I would like to hear about along with any other suggestions: Cafe Lift, whether or not the Salt & Pepper byo ever started doing brunch, Cafe Sud, the Butcher's Cafe that catches a lot of overflow from Sabrina's (we wonder if it's any good but we're always either going to Sabrina's or coming from Sarcone's pizza (today they had a rosemary white pizza)) Today's special french toast at Sabrina's was a rocky road w/ creamcheese, chocolate, nuts, maybe marshmallows? eck, but the pancakes involved pears, ginger, brown sugar, some kind of nuts... I had a half order of the caramelized banana stuffed french toast+home fries, fabulous.

I have a sort of basic question: how does everyone determine when their fried chicken is done? Do you take a piece out and stab it w/ the food thermometer or are you using a set amount of time after which you take it out? I'm also trying to decide if I want to shallow fry in my current cast iron frying pan or if I should get a deeper pot (it just seems intuitively safer).

I *heart* Tartes and go pretty much every First Friday when they're open late (usually until 9pm). She (Teresa Walls?) usually has a fabulous chocolate hazelnut mousse mini cake, the mini pale yellow key lime pie is a lovely tart/sweet combination, a fruit combo tart (blueberry peach, apricot blueberry, pear+?+almond), the mini banana cream pie has a very thick vanilla bean flecked custard in a classic graham crumb crust with a thick layer of fresh whipped cream and a few caramelized bananas on top. There are some cookies and muffin/cupcakes also but since I can make those I go for the other mini cakes. mmmm. I'll try to post some pictures the next time I go.

Well, you're not going to see Django, Matyson or Marigold on opentable.com, are you? Aside from that, the very fact of their success is what annoys some - because it is often undeserved, and is syphoning dining dollars away from worthier kitchens. ← I don't know what it takes for a restaurant to sign up with opentable. I am an eater, not an owner. other small restaurants are represented. Vetri, my favorite of all time, is there. why not the others? ← I'd suggest that Vetri's price point is quite a bit higher than most of the other small restaurants and also that some owners like their written/call in reservation system and don't want to bother adding in another source of reservations. Most people on egullet probably use & like computers a lot, some restaurant management probably does also, but less than this particular self selecting population. I don't mind that the smaller restaurants I like aren't on opentable or totally on the radar of the crowds b/c it means I can still get in without major planning; I'm happy for Django's sustained success but would be happier if I could get weekend reservations without a month's notice.

It might help if you try to describe places that you like or that you think mom/gm would like- eg Morimoto is a trendy black pants modern kind of styling vs LBF is more old school fancy we're undoming all your plates at the same time atmosphere. I'm pretty sure that there are pix of pod & morimoto & LBF up on the web for an idea of what to expect, but it's hard to know what people will like more if you don't know any preferences. If you go through Andrew's post planning what he's going to eat before he leaves PHL in a few months here it gives you an idea of the range. So if you can make it clearer what kinds of food experiences you're looking for it will help ppl here make better suggestions for you. Despite that, I suggest Sabrina's Cafe for breakfast/brunch any day. They had a raspberry lime white chocolate stuffed french toast w/ berries+frangelica sauce this weekend.

Friday: a Leonidas praline from Ghent. Ok, actually 3. yesterday: raspberry lime white chocolate stuffed french toast w/ berries + frangelica sauce. So far I haven't eaten anything today yet except a Lindt chocolate.

One of the things that there seems to be much less of in the US is the open air markets- PHL's Reading Terminal Market and the Italian Market are similar. In Amsterdam, the Albert Cuyp Market that runs for several blocks including cheese stands filled w/ wheels upon wheels of cheese, occasional frites carts, the seasonal raw herring+onion stands, and the fresh stroopwafel stand. mmm stroopwaffels. And in Vienna, the Naschmarkt with mini restaurants on one side and more beautiful fruit/veggie/bread/deli marketiness on the opposite side. Two blocks of food shopping fun, walkable although not super close to the center of town. Mmm, boar salami.

I don't know how they do it there, but it's probably similar to this Alton Brown recipe. Cheese contributes significantly to decrease my heart healthiness. But oh so good.

In Philadelphia, food trucks are common on the street and most vendors tend not to have running water. In some trucks, food and money are handled indiscriminately (especially with trucks that do sandwiches where the roll needs to be sliced), while other trucks tend to have less hands on involvement (such as the chinese food or crepe trucks where most ingredients are preprepped and gets scooped into a cooking basket or wok w/ utensils ). I only know of one truck where the primary vendor uses gloves, and he's very careful not to handle money, but gloves are very rare here. I know people who have or think they have gotten sick off food from trucks but the popularity/convenience of food trucks keeps them going. I get annoyed when people who are sick or recently sick share germs, but that's not a vendor issue.

Trader Joe's in PHL recently brought in a white cheddar flavour for their Hawaiian style potato chips that are addictive like crack. Favorite generic chip flavour: sour cream & onion. Favorite dippy side for thicker, or waffle cut potato chips that I make regularly is cream cheese with scallions, cayenne, worcestershire, salt & pepper (sour cream is too liquidy, i like the solider texture of the cream cheese). Favorite potato chip experience: gorging in Hawaii on Hawaiian style potato chips with poke (I think it was salmon); it was like chips & salsa but sashimi instead of tomatoes. Worst potato chip experience: ex-bf's gift of a jigsaw puzzle of potato chips. Not tasty, not aesthetically pleasing. (A really good gift for me would actually be potato chips.) Still waiting to try: potato chips made w/ lard. I would like for fresh potato chips to be more common and also for chips in general to be cheaper. Also on the wishlist for the acrylamide to be less carcinogenic. Thanks!