POSTED: Monday, August 2, 2010, 9:55 PM
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 eatinÂ’ time, Friday to Sunday. Consider this a place for good deals, great dishes, wicked cocktails, recipe triumphs (and tragedies), bizarro conversations and more. WeÂ’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.)
Rachel Burgos: RB
Adam Erace: AE
Drew Lazor: DL
Anthony Sica: AS
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| Photo | Drew Lazor |
Fam visited from the great state of Maryland on Friday afternoon, so we hit up
Oyster House (1516 Sansom St.) to take advantage of the quite-cheap midday menu (offered 2:30-5 p.m. on weekdays and 3-5 p.m. on Saturdays). Plowed through three dozen oysters, the OH Burger and that so-Philly fried oyster/chicken salad combo. Beer-drinking pops even sipped something out of a martini glass.
—DL
Friday: After some time up in the gym, workin' on my fitness, did the "healthy" thing and ate a white pizza with artichoke hearts, roasted pepper and prosciutto. And a spinach stromboli. Working in green things.
—AS
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| Photo | Adam Erace |
Hit the bar at just-crowned Best of Philly pasta winner
Le Virtù (1927 E. Passyunk Ave.) on Friday for what I'd planned to be a light dinner, but turned into be a three-course affair involving as many wines. Caprese with grilled artichokes. Punchy tagliolini with lots of lemon zest and prosciutto. Limoncello tiramisu. Have you peeped their garden lately?
Mural Arts is almost finished covering the neighboring building's wall in a depiction of Abruzzese peasant life.
—AE
Friday, had dinner at my friend's house, a meal that included these delightful little mini chicken cordon bleu "Any'tizers" (courtesy of Acme's frozen section) followed by delivery of
Phoebe's BBQ (2214 South St.). I had a pulled pork sandwich, and we split a side sampler of mashed potatoes, mac 'n' cheese, and sneaky spicy greens. It was awesome, though the sandwich was so good I wish we were in a backyard down south instead of an apartment in Bella Vista. Later on we hit up
Friendly Lounge at Eighth and Washington, where we enjoyed some drinks, an oddly eclectic jukebox, and absolutely no Friday-night bar crowd.
—RB
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| Photo | Drew Lazor |
Dropped something like 70 bucks on two food books at B&N —
The Deluxe Food Lovers' Companion (I have the non-deluxe one, but this edition is so seductive!) and
Memories of Philippine Kitchens, a gorgeous historical document/memoir/cookbook from the owners of NYC's celebrated
Cendrillon. Put them in a bag with a bottle of Tempranillo. And then the bag broke and smashed on the sidewalk and sticky red wine got all up in the pages of the books I'd owned for about 90 seconds. This
Balthazar canelé from
Di Bruno's made me feel better.
—DL
Saturday: Spent the day moving stuff into a new apartment, which necessitated
Arizona Arnold Palmers and frozen popsicles. Had a very spicy dinner at
Devil's Den (11th and Ellsworth) thanks to orders of hot wings and the diablo mussels. I loveloveLOVE that those mussels are done up with massive hunks of bacon and my fave herb, cilantro. Cooled my mouth off with a
Yards Brawler.
—RB
Trying to use up some scallions, I tried my hand at making
homemade burnt scallion mayo. If there is nothing better than homemade mayo, there is nothing worse than
bad homemade mayo. It broke after about 10 minutes and remains a disastrous oil slick in my fridge. I most certainly had some proportions off. (It tasted good, though — for 5 minutes.) Is there a way to save a broken emulsification?
—AS
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| Photo | Drew Lazor |
Grubbed at
Koo Zee Doo (613 N. Second St.) Saturday night — everything was amazing. (I once heard the food here described as "fucked-up good," and I couldn't agree more.) The biggest hits this time were the caldeirada de bacalhau, firm-but-flaky salt cod filets served with stewy zucchini and olives; and the lamb, flavored with lots of C things (caradamom, coriander, cinnamon) and braised to an almost-pot roast-like tender that had us drooling like we'd suffered a collective concussion.
—DL
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| Photo | Adam Erace |
Saturday: Popped into
Adsum (700 S. Fifth St.) for a quickie brunch of pancakes studded with Maine blueberries (no love for Jerz?) blanketed in pistachio-bourbon butter I want to eat off a spoon. Later, trekked to Allentown for a wedding and was glad I hit
Chick-Fil-A for a spicy chicken sandwich between the wedding and reception. Counter dude tried to be stingy with the Polynesian sauce. He did not know who he was messing with.
—AE
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| Photo | Drew Lazor |
Tucked away in a tiny closet of a corner room at the
Art Museum lies a cool little exhibit on
drinking vessels from 17th- and 18th-century Europe. My favorite object were these bear-themed stone booze jugs, thought to have been used by spectators watching the cruel, unusual and thankfully now-illegal "sport" of bear-baiting. Drinking out of a bear-shaped canteen while watching a chained-up bear get attacked by dogs. Rather morose, right?
—DL
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| Photo | Rachel Burgos |
Sunday, ate a late though wonderful brunch at
Mixto (12th and Pine). Started off with cafe con leche in a much-appreciated oversize coffee mug before getting the "Gallo Pinto," which included Bistec Encebollado, aka Puerto Rican-style steak and onions. It came with black beans and white rice sauteed with red and green bell peppers and scallions, two sunnyside-up eggs, an amazingly greasy block of fried cheese, some maduros (sweet plantains)and ripe avocado. A+ meal that kept me full all day.
—RB
Down the the shore, narrowly escaped the mob at Margate's
Hot Bagels with my life and a half-doz cran-orange, everything and multigrain. Dinner offshore at former
Borgata chef
Luke Palladino's Luke Palladino, where the highlight was agnolotti stuffed with sottocenere in a silky swoony foie cognac sauce.
—AE
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| Photo | Drew Lazor |
Delivery from
Ekta (250 E. Girard Ave.) is the best way to spend a Sunday night hiding out. An order of kadai chicken arrived as kadai paneer, but we were far too hungry to try and rectify the situation. Cheese, chicken, chicken, cheese, whatever. Garlic naan was so garlicky I think my breath could still dent metal today.
—DL
Sunday, I made the highlight of my weekend, a
raw sweet corn and cashew soup from a
Food and Wine recipe. Best thing I made all week and I didn't even have to light the stove.
—AS
