Sovereign Plates

Pennsport's cheekily themed eatery reminds us how much ass we kick.

by Elisa Ludwig

Michael T. Regan OH, DEER: Chef David Gilberg's venison chili, served with a chunk of Indian spoon bread. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

The Ugly American's name pretty much sums up the shameful sentiments we're feeling a lot these days. Insert LCD Soundsystem soundtrack, Michael Moore film and Canadian flag for camouflage here.

The South Front Street restaurant is in the building that was until recently home to the Italian restaurant La Vigna. Its low-lit interior houses a well-appointed bar and a casual but stylish dining room (white tablecloths and brown paper) with the two spaces flowing seamlessly into each other. The artwork — collages of license plates shaped as both flags and the map of the U.S. — could be a red-state/blue-state commentary or a salute to American car culture, depending on whom you ask.

Whatever your political persuasion (we learned during one visit that the people behind us were definitely pro-Richardson), the Ugly American experience is ultimately more of a tongue-in-cheek celebration than a send-up, with a thoughtful list of exclusively domestic microbrews and wines and an inventive menu spinning new takes on regional cuisines. There's nary a Toby Keith song to be found on the iPod playlists, and we can all be thankful for that.

Bar fare is served until midnight, but unless you specifically ask, you could miss it — depending on where you sit and when you arrive, you may not be offered this menu at all. Which would be a shame, because there are some choice dishes unavailable among the regular dinner items, like the Ugly American Garbage Plate, a riff on the trademarked specialty of Nick Tahou's restaurant in Rochester, N.Y.

Two beef patties strewn with raw red onion slices sit atop a mound of macaroni salad, next to another mound of hand-cut skin-on fries and cups of hot mustard and ketchup. It's like the meal you'd have at a backyard barbecue, only it's on actual dinnerware.

Thankfully, no matter where you sit, you'll have access to homemade biscuits that, quite simply, rock. With their sugar dusting and tissue-thin flakes of crust giving way to the warm pull of chewy dough and an added slather of provided honey butter, they make a most memorable breadbasket.

The dinner menu has its own temptations. Whereas another chef might follow the USA concept to its kitschiest conclusions (cotton candy confit? frankfurter foam?), David Gilberg keeps the irony in check — and his food wholesome and appealing.

Venison chili, a red-hued slurry of tender cubes of meat and cranberry beans, spills over a wedge of Indian spoon bread. What might have been a ho-hum endive/apple salad is given a sophisticated twist, with braised endive, warm wedges of roasted apple and brown-speckled cauliflower. A poblano pepper stuffed with lobster and creamy leeks bites back with a twinge of spice, while its creamy sauce clings to lacy clusters of frisée.

Despite its winking name, the American Cheese Plate favors artisanal products over factory-processed ones. An oblong tray comes lined with toast points and hunks of aged Gouda, aged cheddar, a sharp piquant blue, ash-layered Humboldt Fog and another goat cheese wrapped in a maple leaf. (These last two are a bit redundant, but really, can there ever be too many creamy smoky goat cheeses?) Walnut pralines, mustard and cranberry chutney are thrown in for mixing and matching.

The American Cassoulet is, true to its nationality, a gratin of pure excess. But a cap of oven-browned breadcrumbs, two kinds of local sausages, luxuriant chunks of pork belly and meltingly tender collards and black-eyed peas make it a thoroughly convincing slant on the Gallic original.

A meaty monkfish filet with spaghetti squash is doused in a creamy pale gold carbonara with chunks of lardons clinging to the "pasta." Spaghetti squash shows up again in the vegetarian spaghetti and meatballs. This time, it's tangled up with zucchini and carrot ribbons in a black truffle sauce and nested around two dusky globes of chopped mushrooms that are haunting, earthy and just a bit crumbly.

A couple of entrées could use some fine-tuning. The roast chicken, served with cippolini onions and a toothsome wild rice quinoa pilaf, is picture perfect with golden-crisped skin and plump meat, but the lemon rosemary sauce is inconsequential; it's "just chicken," as a companion put it, when it could have been much more. A massive porterhouse pork chop with an apple glaze held great promise, but cooked to the chef's recommendation (medium), any succulent juiciness had long evaporated.

But these are small quibbles in the face of dessert, made by David Gilberg's wife, Carla Gilberg (she of the amazing biscuits). A silky root beer pudding, with what another companion identified as the exact flavor of a Dum-Dum, is arrayed with a selection of home-baked cookies. Lemon pudding cake is a cloud on the tongue dissolving into sweet foaminess. And a cakey brownie in a brownie sundae is dressed up with roasted banana sauce and that most American of flavors, peanut butter, in a surprisingly vivid ice cream.

Not ugly at all. In fact, pretty damn hot.

(e_ludwig@citypaper.net)

The Ugly American

1100 S. Front St., 215-336-1100, uglyamericanphilly.com

Hours: Mon.-Sat., 5 p.m.-2 a.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.- 2 a.m.

Appetizers, $8-$15; Entrées, $16-$23

Reservations recommended.

Wheelchair accessible.