|
|
|
Notes from the Weekend: February 18
This weekend there were plenty of beers and some suburban adventures.
Notes from the Weekend: February 18
Notes from the Weekend is a feature that sees the members of Team Meal Ticket compiling all the food/drink highlights uncovered during prime eatin' time, Friday to Sunday. We'd love to hear all about YOUR weekend eating adventures in the comments. Go for it! (View past NFTW installments at citypaper.net/notes.)
Caroline Russock: CR
Emily Kovach: EK
When your weekend starts with happy hour at Vernick followed by sparkling wine class at Tria Fermentation School, a few glasses of BYO wine at Lee Fow Fook and then a Pissed Jeans show, well, you know it's going to be a good one. At Vernick I sipped a Seymour (Rittenhouse rye, Campari, Carpano Antica and apricot) and ordered the always awesome crab toast. At Tria there were glasses of furmint, lambrusco and sparkling Riesling and at Underground arts, well, there was definitely whiskey.—CR
On the stroll home from work on Friday, giddy with that beginning-of-the-weekend energy, I popped into the Green Line Cafe on Baltimore Ave. to say hi to a couple friends and wish the store a happy 10th birthday. The place was crowded, a DJ was set up in the corner, and Weckerly's was dishing out free ice cream next to a table laden with birthday cake and complimentary coffee. So I inhaled a pile of sugar and caffeine in five minutes flat, and was kind of tingly and wired for the next few hours. After a quick stop at Fiume for a friend's birthday (more cake!!), Ry and I went downtown for dinner and the Pissed Jeans record release show. After a modest wait, spent with pints at Prohibition Taproom, we were seated at a table in Bufad, the new wood fired pizza joint on the corner of 13th and Spring Garden. We shared a nice little antipasto plate (the white wine braised butternut squash was a standout), a mushroom pizza and a marinara pizza with clams. So nice to know there are decent eats for pre-Underground Arts and Union Transfer engagements in the future.—EK
On Saturday I rallied and headed out to the King of Prussia mall and then to dinner in the suburbs that was, um, quite an experience. A place that advertises Japanese, tapas and sushi doesn't sound too promising, and predictably, it wasn't. If someone could please tell me what a charcuterie board is doing on an Asian small plates menu I'd really appreciate it. Back to the world of urban civilization there were pints of Kenzinger at Bar and then countless PRBs at Making Time while watching Parquet Courts.—CR
"I think sandwiches are my calling," Ryan announced on Saturday afternoon, as he plated a giant egg salad BLT hoagie that he'd been prepping while I was at the gym. Egg salad is one of my favorite things, and this sandwich was incredible! Expertly constructed on a fresh seeded Metro baguette and made with all organic everything, it was miles ahead of anything we could order out - even from our beloved Chickie's. The BELT kept us full until much later, when we stopped for dinner on the way to my mom's house for at a Middle Eastern place, Ali Baba, on Main Street in Newark, Delaware. Hummus with ground beef, tzatziki, fattoush salad, and a tender Moroccan chicken roasted in a cumin harissa sauce were all really wonderful. Bottles of craft beer were only $3, too! Sometimes you gotta love a random restaurant in your weird home town.—EK
Going for my go-to hair of the dog remedy i.e. two margaritas, chips and something that involves plenty of cheese, I made my way up to Cantina Dos Segundos (gotta switch it up sometimes, amiright?) for chicken flautas with beans and rice and over easy eggs. Mexican breakfast totally did the trick and I went back home and took a good long nap before grabbing a few beers at Fountain Porter (man, I kind of am in love with that place) and then up to Johnny Brenda's for Far Out Fangtooth, and a possibly ill-advised okay-just-one-more at the El Bar.—CR
Sunday, during a shopping trip in the wilds of suburbia, I stopped with my mom at the Newark Farmer's Market, a huge international food depot. Along with dirt cheap meats, seafood, fruits, vegetables, spices and bulk goods, this place has ingredients for cuisines from all over the world - sort of like the entire Italian Market and all the Asian grocery stores on Washington Ave. crammed into one bizarre indoor space. Tucked away in a corner of the produce area, I was especially delighted to see an entire refrigerator devoted to kimchi. We loaded up the cart with mountains of produce, multiple kinds of hot sauce, little nests of dried noodles, and a bunch of other stuff. Needless to say, our kitchen is very, very well stocked for this week's cooking adventures.—EK
Hey, some of us spent 4.5 years of college in that weird hometown! Ali Baba is very legit though. Is Margherita Pizza still there?— le sigh
- barstool scientist
- Booze
- Brew Revue
- Chef Salad
- Closings
- Coffee
- Contests
- Dealage
- Dirty Dishes
- Don't Front
- Eat This Immediately
- Field Trip
- Food and Art
- Food and Holidays
- Food and Movies
- Food and Music
- Food and Politics
- Food and Sports
- Food and Web
- Food Blogs
- Food Books
- Food Events
- Food News
- Food TV
- Gifted
- Happy Hour Hopper
- How-To
- In Print
- Interview
- Meal Ticket
- Menu Time
- Not So Quickfire
- Notes from the Weekend
- On Wheels
- Openings
- Patio Drinking
- Philly Beer Week 2010
- Photos
- Private Chef POV
- Product Placement
- Recipes
- Snack Time
- Stiff Drank
- SUPPER
- Tea
- Testing
- Ticket Stubs
- Top Chef
- Vegan
- Vegetarian
- Video
- Weekly Candy
- Weird Regional Foods
- We're Here to Help
- Where'd We Eat?
- Drew Lazor's Ill-Advised Rant Factory
- Pregame
- Ill-Advised Ranting
- The Week Without Meat
- Philly Beer Week 2009
- Real Big
- Where'd I Eat Last Night?
- Top Chef Masters
- The Good Word
- Next Iron Chef
- Arterial Terrorism
- Food and Radio
