HAPPY HOUR HOPPER: The Continental

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HAPPY HOUR HOPPER: The Continental

POSTED: Tuesday, June 15, 2010, 11:22 PM

Filed Under: Booze | Dealage | Happy Hour Hopper

Happy Hour is a place to vent daily frustrations and unwind, a time to reconnect with friends and coworkers you don't mind seeing beyond the boundaries of Cubicle Land. It's is also the ideal time to score a deal on your favorite gustatives and gulpables. For this feature, Team Meal Ticket hops to happy hours across the land and files a report every Tuesday. Let's delve into it at The Continental.

WHERE YOU AT? Come on son, it's The Continental! Stephen Starr's very first restaurant, on the corner of Second and Market, opened in 1995, but it's never featured a happy hour — until last Monday, when they quietly rolled one out. (Perhaps to get some use out of theeir new draft system.) While the long-running martini bar's kitschy, shoutout-to-Shag phosphorescent lounge-lizard thing surely felt fresher 15 years ago (Best Picture: Forrest Gump), the place still hops from noon to night, so they're doing something right. Hell, what is the point of even attempting to describe The Continental when you can just watch this TV commercial?

WHAT'S THE SCENE? Since happy hour here is just seven days old, the scene could be described as "us." There was no one around, really. One or two other folks trickled in while we were finishing up (happy hour's available in the back of the restaurant only, which features abundant bar and booth seating), but we were lone-rangering it for a minute there. Bartender Christine was a total sweetheart and walked us through the deals ...

WHAT'S THE DEAL? ... which are actually pretty exceptional. Weekdays from 5 to 7, they offer $3 beers, $4 wines by the glass, $5 cocktails and $1, $2 and $4 eats. We ordered up a Yards Philly Pale, a glass of white and some sort of mojito/martini hybrid (if we're being real, you're not really gonna find us messing with the mixed drinks, no thank to you a Tang-coated rim), plus four bites — a crispy chicken dumpling and a Viet summer roll (a buck a pop) and sesame cracker-topped ahi tuna tartare and lobster mac (two bucks a pop). Christine made it clear from the outset that the prices directly reflect the portion sizes — each of the eats, classified as "tapas bites" here, came in precious little soup spoons. These dishes aren't going to win any commendations for originality (one local chef we know is fond of referring to this style of grub as "white boy Asian food"), but we always haul out props where props are due: Everything tasted fresh as hell and we could see ourselves dropping five or so bucks a couple spoons every so often. Strong work. Happy hour for two, with multiple drinks and multiple bites, rang in at under $20.

Tweets that mention HAPPY HOUR HOPPER: The Continental :: Meal Ticket :: Food Blog :: Philadelphia City Paper -- Topsy.com

Posted 2010-06-15 19:02:50

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Philly City Paper, Meal Ticket. Meal Ticket said: HAPPY HOUR HOPPER is back, this week at The Continental (yes, that Continental): http://bit.ly/abg1Hs [...]

poncho

Posted 2010-06-15 21:01:22

Thank you for making me realize that commercial exists.

Posted by Drew Lazor @ 11:22 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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Founded in October 2008, Meal Ticket is a City Paper blog about food, drink and assorted other things that make you go mmm. We do recipes, interviews, restaurant news, commentary and much more. We don't do restaurant reviews here — those are handled in print, mostly by our critic (and Meal Ticket contributor) Adam Erace. Got a tip, question, thought or concern? Just want to say hello? Please shoot a note to caroline@citypaper.net.

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