new BYO-Old City

[18/10]

Notice a new BYO in Old City-called Bistro 7.

Old location of the original Blue In Green (and short lived frozen seafood joint)

anyone been?

[KatieLoeb]

18/10:

Welcome to the PA forum! Glad you could come out to play and looking forward to more astute observations from your corner...

The blurb about Bistro 7 appeared in Michael Klein's Table Talk column last week. Chef Michael O'Halloran is a very talented chef. I had the pleasure of working with him at the White Dog "back in the day", as it's said, when we were both younger and hungrier and hardly the jaded old pros we both are now.

An interesting side note is that Chef O'Halloran gave up a promising fast-track position as a Sous Chef at Fork a few years ago to help run the Back Home Cafe, which is overseen by Project H.O.M.E., an organization that helps the homeless and mentally ill with housing, health care and counseling. The cafe employs the Project H.O.M.E. residents and gives them direction and provides valuable vocational training during their recoveries. It's an awesome organization that doesn't get as much press as some of the larger organizations in town like MANNA, but makes an indelible impact on a few peoples lives at a time. It takes a really special sort of person to do that sort of work, so my hat is off to Chef O'Halloran and I wish him every success in this new endeavor.

Now I just have to figure out which night I'm going over to Bistro 7 to check it out!

[Buckethead]

I have to get over there too. I was at the White Dog recently and it wasn't as good as it was on my previous visit, and the next day I found out why: O'Halloran wasn't there any more. Seems like he and Kevin Klause are starting up a little ex-White Dog enclave over there in old city...

[Buckethead]

Went to Bistro 7 for dinner last night, Saturday 2/26. Some thoughts:

Atmosphere: We were seated at the rearmost table in the place, right next to the bathroom door. So close, in fact, that the toilet was about 10 feet away from us, with a direct line of sight. Not something I want to look at every time another diner goes to the john. The lighting back there was also not good: ambient light in the place is way too dark, but the kitchen was right there, so we were flooded with light from there. We asked to be moved to another table and the server obliged, so no harm done. If you go, ask to sit closer to the front of the restaurant.

The menu changes once a week. At the time of our visit, they had been open for about 3 weeks, I think.

Apps: I had gnocchi and butternut squash, my friend had a salad with heirloom apples and walnuts. The gnocchi were not among the best I've ever had, they could have used more salt, but their texture was right, and the accompanying butternut squash was much better than I was expecting. Overall, not as good as another gnocchi dish I had recently, the venison gnocchi at Verge, but better than most.

Entrees: Duck for me, some flaky white fish for my friend (can't remember what it was, sorry). The duck was a little fattier than I would have liked, but duck is a fatty bird. It was served with a black bean/citrus concoction on top that was really good at first bite, but the acidity of it got to me by the time I was half-done with the duck. Underneath was fried jasmine rice with cashews, which was a much better combination with the duck than the black beans were. I ended up pushing most of the black bean to the side and finishing the duck with the rice. I was a big fan of the chef's duck dish at his previous restaurant, the White Dog Cafe, and this dish was not quite as good as that one.

I only had a little bite of the white fish, which was served atop mashed potatoes. I don't really get excited about white fish as a rule, and this one was no exception. The mashed potatoes were excellent, though.

For dessert, we split the jasmine coconut rice pudding and the cheese plate. The pudding could have used some cardamom or something to spice it up a bit, but it was good. The cheese plate, though, that was spectacular. For $12 we got 4 very nice size portions of cheese that couldn't have cost much less than $10 at the Reading Terminal cheese shop, which is where they came from (we asked). The king of the plate was the Cashel Blue, holy cow was that good.

For a place that's been open less than a month, Bistro 7 is really promising. I'd go back there before I'd go back to Farmicia, a block down the street. I just hope they have the lights turned up by then.

[KatieLoeb]

I have reservations for next weekend for my birthday dinner with a few friends. Looking foward to it.

Buckethead - thanks for the update and seating advice!

[philadining]

LaBan gave Bistro 7 a middling, but encouraging, review in the Inky

It's a shame that so many details seem to still be holding this appealing bistro back, but they're small enough to be easily remedied. With a little more time, it may even grow to become buzz-worthy.

Full review here.

I went once back in early March, and liked it more than LaBan did, but I will acknowledge some of the same issues. A few things we had were truly outstanding, but some of it was almost there, but not quite. And even those dishes were good, it was more a matter of lackluster sides rather than anything actually "bad."

A shortrib app was phenomenal, the intense meat melting into a nice creamy risotto. I really liked the bird itself in the duck entree, but the greens were only OK and the fried rice under it was dry and salty. Similarly, a pork loin was quite delicious, but the red cabbage and sweet potatoes beside it were kind of dull.

Their chocolate pot du creme was fantastic, the apple crisp, only OK.

Katie told of a more solidly satisfying experience right around then.

I'm looking forward to going back, I liked it enough that it's still pretty high on my list, and I agree with LaBan that any problems are small and easily remedied. It's got a really nice vibe, the service was very good, and they have nice glasses for your wine.

Shinyboots blogged abut his visit there recently at Minor Gourmandry (with pics).

[Andrew Fenton]

A shortrib app was phenomenal, the intense meat melting into a nice creamy risotto.

Yeah, this was amazingly good, and blew everything else we tried out of the water. I honestly don't remember what else we tried, but those short ribs were fantastic.

[shacke]

Shinyboots blogged abut his visit there recently at  Minor Gourmandry (with pics).

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Good link to Shinyboots' blog. He's a foodie whiz kid I hear. He wrote of Carmines opening right near my house. Sounds like a "ROAD TRIP"!

Evan

[philadining]

I notice in the online review, there's no bell rating (usually depicted online with stars), nor was there for the previous week's. i don't know if that's an oversight, or some weird web-edition thing - if you want to know how many bells, buy the paper! You'd think if he were dropping the bell ratings there would have been some noise about it. I assume there were bells in the sunday print edition(?)

[Andrew Fenton]

I've noticed the same bells thing in the past. I think (but wouldn't swear to it) that the bells only show up after the review has been on line for a week or two. Why that is, I don't know.