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Notes from the Weekend: October 3
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: October 3
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. 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
Esther Martin: EM
Nicole Rossi: NR
Friday afternoon: After snapping some photos of Isabel (it opened tonight), kicked around Fairmount for a sec and ended up at London Grill (2301 Fairmount Ave.) to kill bagel/lox and a pint of owner Terry McNally's "Peach Pit Porter," brewed with Stoudt's to celebrate the restaurant's recent 25th anniversary. Don't worry, no cyanide-laden peach pits were actually used in the brewing process, but it does have a peculiar, trail mix-y kind of feel you don't get in most porters of its ilk. —DL
Friday I was out in Media, and it had been a while since I’d gone to Linvilla Orchards (137 W. Knowlton Road). I've been craving peach ice cream all summer, so stopping there made sense. It’s changed a lot since the barn burned down, but the ice cream is the same; I got a scoop each of peach and pumpkin and sat by the petting zoo in a haze of nostalgia. I also did a round of the farm stores and picked up squash, apples, hot peppers, pumpkin butter, baked goods (apple fritters, pumpkin bread) and impulse-bought some herbs — mint, basil, rosemary, and lavender. —EM
Another busy Friday at the office, and I only had time to eat a couple Ritz crackers that I'd grabbed on my way out the door in the morning. Left around 2 and headed to Chestnut Hill for a friend's wedding at Elkins Estate. Gorgeous day for an outdoor wedding and an even more gorgeous location. Food and drink didn't disappoint, either — risotto balls, lamb lollipops, pierogies, grilled cheese, an "Asian station," cupcakes and Champagne had us celebrating all the way back to the hotel. Cheers to the happy couple, enjoy Spain! —NR
Wanted to surprise the BF before he came home from work Friday night, so I made tacos. Decided to switch things up a little and use a mix of sausage and meatloaf mix, plus cumin, jalapenos and lots of chili powder. Topped that off with my rendition of sofrito (basically Latin mirepoix) and lots of cheese. It took less than 30 minutes to cook and there were tons of leftovers. —JL
One of the best meals I've eaten in a long time at Fond (1617 E. Passyunk Ave.) Friday night. Most all of this late-summer menu is still intact. Favorites of mine were the crispy sweetbreads with mint harissa (!); a squab special, served with foie sauce, root veg purée and lentils (and, as "Best of Philly" server Steve Schiavo put it, a "a side of Lipitor"); and Jessie Prawlucki's unbelievable pistachio tart with bruléed figs and vanilla bean caramel semifreddo, THE best dessert I've eaten this year. Hearing the zoning paperwork is posted up at her Belle Cakery ... —DL
A bubbling cauldron of bison chili had the whole house smelling like coffee and cumin Friday night. I used grass-fed ground bison from Lancaster and my signature mole spice blend (minus peanuts, which I was out of) to make this lean, mean stew. Best part? It cooks in less than an hour. We'll have the recipe on Meal Ticket later this week. After chili-making, heading up to Grey Lodge Pub (6235 Frankford Ave.) for a few pints of Weyerbacher. The bar was celebrating Oktoberfest (I assume), with lots of German food specials (see super-crunchy wiener schnitzel) and a roaming accordion player just back from Munich. —AE
Andrew wanted to see Moneyball on Friday night. The Riverview is just off Front Street so we couldn’t pass up the chance to eat at The Ugly American (1100 S. Front St.). Started with their crispy wings smothered in hot sauce, followed by Prime Belvedere Steak with potatoes, sautéed spinach, and mushroom steak sauce for me, chicken 'n' biscuits for Andrew. I was hoping for some sticky toffee pudding but no luck. Moneyball was pretty good, all 10 of us in the theater enjoyed it. —EM
It's got the look of insidious Four Loko, but Allagash's Coolship Red sure as hell don't taste like it. The spontaneously fermented raspberry lambic is part of the Maine brewery's series produced with/named after the shallow pan used to cool wort prior to the advent of modern refrigeration. The friendly and slightly funky sour, which has just a touch of fruit character (berries influence the hue more than anything else), is not available for sale — some very nice person got us a bottle in the mail, thank you! — but let's hope that changes. —DL
Woke up Saturday morning in Chestnut Hill in a room full of snoozers and bottles of half-drunk bubbly and scotch. Recounted the evening at Trolley Car Diner (7619 Germantown Ave.) over a disappointing brunch. Server took 20 minutes to approach our table and another 30 to get our drinks; after an hour and a half we were finally presented (without apology) our mediocre, I'm-not-even-hungry-anymore omelettes, home fries, potato cakes and breakfast sandwiches. Letdown. —NR
After recouping back in the city with coffee Italian chocolate gelato from Capogiro (119 S. 13th St.), I got together with my cousins for a night of Pinot Noir, dirty martinis and snacking — butternut squash ricotta crostinis; hummus, feta, kalamata, red pepper dip; black bean and corn salsa; and Keebler fudge cookies after we ate everything else. —NR
My mom finally came down to visit with my coffee pot in hand — since then, life has been fantastic. Started off Saturday morning with a hot cup, a couple of crackers and some light cookbook reading before heading off to work. —JL
Saturday: Hit up the dry run of brunch lunch with eggs at Bistrot La Minette (623 S. Sixth St.), then did a bunch of random errands — picked up flowers, dropped off flowers, picked up Cafe Lutecia (2301 Lombard St.), dropped off Cafe Lutecia, stopped (and waited for a long time) at OCF Coffee House (1745 South St.), picked up/put a dent in a case of Victory Prima Pils and eventually found myself at Wegman's (2100 Route 70 West, Cherry Hill, N.J.), where I spent $3,000 on British candy. —DL
On Saturday night I was stuffed from having Circles (1516 Tasker St.) for lunch (it's not an obsession, it's a weekly ritual), so for dinner Andrew made a light gourmet meal: boiled red potatoes bathed in butter. We ate them out of a giant mixing bowl while watching Weird Science. —EM
Already wrote about the new Parliament burger at Pub & Kitchen (1946 Lombard St.), but peep this pretty lox special we also had during Sunday brunch — awesome pretzel roll from Hudson Bread. —DL
The couch and I were best friends on Sunday, as I snacked on a little homemade concoction of couscous, mint, basil, lemon, walnut and dried cranberry. Ended the day with a novel in bed and Gordon Ramsay screaming bloody entertaining phrases on Kitchen Nightmares. Had my own nightmare as a result. —NR
It was back to the soup stove on Sunday: Tackled half of a snowman-sized butternut squash for curried butternut-apple soup that turned out really well. "You should make this for Thanksgiving," C said halfway through her bowl. Done! Now if only I can find a way to keep the gingersnap crumbs on top from getting soggy. Tips welcome in the comments. —AE
I've been cooking a lot of dishes out of Nancy Silverton's The Mozza Cookbook lately. They never look as cool as they do in the book but they still taste pretty good. Above is salmon (recipe originally called for sea trout) topped with cabbage sottaceto (balsamic-braised cabbage with whole parsley), all over hearty prosciutto-laden Umbrian lentils. —DL
Sorry to be pedantic but the Elkins Estate is in Elkins Park (Cheltenham Twp), not Chestnut Hill.— BarryG- Spent the weekend in Staunton, Va., for a cattle-ranch wedding (fun!), and discovered this cute little town has some excellent food options. Had dinner Friday night at Staunton Grocery, a relaxed farm-to-table place that'd easily fit in north of the Mason-Dixon. On the menu: sunchokes, shishito peppers, chicken-collard terrine, squash gnocchi, turnip pierogies, concord grape ice cream. Yum! After the wedding Sunday morning we went to a place called Mockingbird for a farmer breakfast -- normal menu items (plus grits and homemade English muffins!) but really nice atmosphere and live blues music. Staunton = highly recommended as a weekend getaway fit for a foodie.— CarolynH
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