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Notes from the Weekend: November 7
Notes from the Weekend is a Monday feature that sees the members of Team Meal Ticket compiling all the food/drink highlights uncovered during prime eatin' time, Friday to Sunday.
Notes from the Weekend: November 7
Notes from the Weekend is a Monday Tuesday (this week) feature that sees the members of Team Meal Ticket compiling all the food/drink highlights uncovered during prime eatin' time, Friday to Sunday. Consider this a place for good deals, great dishes, wicked cocktails, recipe triumphs (and tragedies), bizarro conversations and more. We're eager to share our notes, but especially excited to read yours.We encourage you to leave notes from YOUR weekend in the comments. Have at it! (View past NFTW installments at citypaper.net/notes.)
Adam Erace: AE
Drew Lazor: DL
Jessica Leung: JL
Nicole Rossi: NR
After work on Friday, busted a move to Quetta Halal butcher shop (500 S. 23rd St.) in hopes of scoring some fresh ground lamb for a chili recipe from Andrew Carmellini's new cookbook, American Flavor. The white-tiled market was super-busy; a number system would have precluding me from having to dead-leg the undergrad dweeb that tried to cut in line. No fresh ground lamb, but there was frozen, which I grabbed before heading back home to start cooking. Scented with garam masala and topped with raita, the chili actually felt, looked and tasted more like a take-out from Tiffin or Ekta. Always a good thing. —AE
Friday night: Dinner at a packed-house 943 (943 S. Ninth St.) in the Italian Market. Couldn't convince anyone to go halfsies on the $60 parillada juani with me (next time, morcilla), so I got my carni-fix elsewhere: chicken, ham and spicy beef empanadas and one big New York strip. The chimichurri'd sweetbreads were killer elite, too. —DL
Headed to Fishtown Friday night for the opening of my friend's show at 2424 Studios. A great success that deserved some celebrating so we rolled over to the super-crowded Atlantis (2442 Frankford Ave.) via motorcycle (note to self: avoid riding in a dress on very chilly nights) for post-show PBC brews. After having one too many beers spilled on my open-toed shoes, I took a cab to Alfa (1709 Walnut St.), where I met up with the girls, drank a few Hendrick's martinis and ate a decent amount of tater tots. —NR
A Saturday double only means one thing: extra espresso. Started my morning off with a trip to Starbucks (254 S. 15th St.) and ordered a venti caramel macchiato with an extra shot. Downed that pretty quickly and moved onto to nibbling on cake scraps, honey-tuile batter and whatever else I could scavenge for in my work kitchen. —JL
Saturday: Shopped for Sunday dinner ingredients at Reading Terminal Market (12th and Arch streets), where all the butcher stands seemed flummoxed by my inquiries for sweetbreads and calves' feet. (I was cooking recipes out of an offal-based book; see below.) I totally get that those are unorthodox things to ask for, but one guy actually went "Sweetbreads? We don't have any kind of bread here, dude." Hahah. Anyways, no thymus (got that from Esposito's) but I did land a gigantic frozen steer's foot, which was close enough for my purposes. Oh and I had a beer and some wangz at the brand-new Molly Malloy's, which looks great. I love when errant fries, onion rings, etc. somehow ingratiate themselves onto wing plates. —DL
My grandpop's been in the hospital for the past two weeks and Saturday was his birthday, so we stopped over for an impromptu pizza party with a thin-crust "Old World" style from City Pizza (100 Snyder Ave.) and an Acme sheet cake. After, celebrated a second birthday, my friend's fiancée's, at Public House (1801 Arch st.), where I reignited an old flame: Ketel One and club. —AE
Still experiencing the motorcycle itch, my friend picked me up Saturday morning for a fast/furious ride (at least that's how it seemed to me) along the Schuylkill. Stopped by Rittenhouse afterward to warm up with La Colombe (130 S. 19th St.) and hot apple cider at the farmers market; later met up with a friend for a margherita at Zavino (112 S. 13th St.). —NR
I dropped by a buddy's post-Oct. 31 costume party dressed as myself on Saturday night. It was Scott Pilgrim vs. The World-themed, the centerpiece of the evening (take note, nerds!) being an amazing League of Evil Exes-themed beer pong tournament — any challenger had to battle his/her way through the league, with each boyfriend's rank corresponding to his number of cups (Boyfriend No. 1 Matthew Patel had one cup, boyfriend No. 2 Lucas Lee had two, etc.). Frequent Meal Ticket commenter LP and I stood in as Boyfriends 5 and 6, Japanese twins Kyle and Ken Katayanagi, which meant we had 11 cups on our side. It wasn't fair. After I got home safely I hacked the aforementioned steer foot in half, which in my incorrect/unprofessional summation roughly equals a calves' foot (it was to gelatinize a stew). —DL
Would you like a muffin pan? I now have seven, after C's Wonderland-themed bridal shower at the Mansion on Main Street (3000 Main St., Voorhees, N.J.) on Sunday afternoon. Fam and friends were incredible generous, coming through in the clutch with a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, Cuisinart food processor, Le Creuset pots and more. Now all I need is a house that fits it all. —AE
Started my Sunday with granola and orange juice; as night fell, the BF and I strolled to Fat Salmon (719 Walnut St.) for our sushi fix. Started off with some pan-fried gyoza and a bowl of udon noodle soup; next was a mix of sushi ranging from tuna and eel to fluke and salmon. When BF was ready to grab the check, I was ready for something sweet — tempura-fried ice cream. —JL
Here we go: These are the Prune-style sweetbreads, fried and served with a butter/caper/vermouth sauce and a side o' bacon, out of food writer Jennifer McLagan's book Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal. They were really really good. The foot ended up topping a Calvados tripe stew that also turned out tremendously. I'll post more about that later. —DL
Saturday night I had friends in from out of town and we wanted something quick and simple, but nice. The natural choice was neighborhood stalwart Sabrina's. However the big S was closed due to an electrical issue... so now I needed to seat 5 at the last minute on a Saturday. Villa Di Roma was packed, so was Dante and Luigi's, even Ralph's was too busy. 943 was too busy. Stopped by Monsu.... yeah right. Even our favorite waiter couldn't help us. So we went in to the one place we passed over four times in our hunt, Nina's Trattoria. I'd always avoided it because the entrees are overpriced, but the time had come to try it.
The service was excellent and we received complimentary grilled romaine in balsamic which was great. We had a bunch of apps for the table all of which were good and everyone enjoyed their entrees. I had the lamb chops which were an 8 out of 10. My friend had the scallops which were also good, my girlfriend had a seafood pasta which we all liked.
In general Nina's was good and we had a great time, it's just not worth what they charge. If they knocked $5 off each entree I think they'd see a pick up in business.
Sunday I treated my friend to a cheesesteak I'd owed him since the 2010 NLCS. (effin' Cody Ross...) I took him to Sarcone's but the steaks came out completely dry with little to no cheese which was a major disappointment.— Marc Steel- Sarcone's makes cheesesteaks?!— BarryG
- Friday was low key with a half cheese/half sausage pizza from the always reliable Tony's (Belgrade and Clearfield) and some beers at home.
Saturday lunch was at Misconduct Tavern. They have been doing housemade hot dogs for some time now and they have never let me down. This time around I went with one spicy pork and one mahi mahi. Both were excellent and what takes them over the top is the fact that they use New England style buttered split top rolls. Also enjoyed a Harpoon Leviathan Imperial Rye and a couple of Yard's Philly Pales.
Sunday was a perfect day to fire up the smoker. So while my wife was at Headhouse picking up some Birchrun Hills cheeses, I was tending to 3 lbs of short ribs and 4 lbs of drums. Beautiful cheese plate for the 1pm games and smoked meat for a depressing Pats/Giants game at 4pm.— Sean Hamel - Friday I met up with some friends at Perch Pub where we housed Ithaca Flower Power IPAs and munched on some short rib nachos and onion rings. I dug the batter for the rings, it had some fresh herb prettiness that was appreciated.
Saturday I decided to make eggs over easy to go with our scrapple and rye toast-I think eggs are inherently evil but I've discovered the joys of dipping toast into the runny yolk. After I demolished mine I gave the egg white to the boyfriend to finish. That night I marinated salmon in a garlic/dijon/fresh dill/shallot mixture and roasted it topped with panko. Turned out delicious.
Sunday was football day so I refused to move-I used the rest of the dill to mix with cream cheese and red onion for some smoked salmon topped bagels. I spent the rest of the day reading and anticipating the Ravens game. Steelers' sadness tastes even more delicious when you have some Long Trail Double Bag to go with it.— JulieC - "Steelers' sadness tastes even more delicious when you have some Long Trail Double Bag to go with it."
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