 |
MD: Marie DiFeliciantonio
DL: Drew Lazor
 |
| Photo | Drew Lazor |
 |
| Photo | Drew Lazor |
 |
| Photo | Drew Lazor |
|
|
|
Notes from the Weekend: May 24
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
Notes from the Weekend: May 24
Filed Under: Notes from the Weekend
Thursday: Used the wife and I's weekend visitors as an excuse to go to Beneluxx, wherein we munched sublime chocolate and fondue and sampled all sorts of lovely beers. If such a place as heaven exists, it surely resembles that little bar on Third, no? Friday: Excellent Mexican food at Mi Puebla in the Germantown/Mount Airy/Chestnut Hill section of town. Try it if you're up there. Saturday: Aforementioned visitors meant we went to the Italian Market. They grabbed a steak at Pat's. I went for a sammich at Paesano. I win. Then, many, many beers and Flyers at 12 Steps. Sunday: Friends leave. Wife and I have disappointing Italian while mattress hunting on the Main Line. Have a decidedly better experience at Belgium Cafe later (though, being honest, the wife wasn't a fan of their chicken fingers). I've forgotten how much I love mussels and sour ales.
The single origin espresso at Bodhi Coffee was a perfect precursor to the Headhouse Market (& Market Day Canele). Made with beans sourced from a single farm -- currently a Costa Rican one -- the espresso was flavorful and super crisp, leaving almost zero aftertaste. After downing the perfectly-pulled coffee drink I proclaimed to Bobby, "So clean tasting, I could even kiss someone!"
Friday night ate at Nam Phuong at 11th and Washington. I eat there way too much and every time I go I end up ordering the same thing. Summer Rolls, house special vermicelli and $3 beers. Also important to note- mixed drinks there for $5 that are so strong that you feel like you are drunk after one sip. I recommend the Zombie- made with copious amounts of 151- if you are trying to get loaded on the cheap (duh, all the time). Saturday, drove home to Maryland to have crabs for the first time this season. They did not disappoint. The crab sellers told me it is looking like an excellent year for crabs, so there is more to look forward to this summer. Yay!!! Then had dinner at my parents' house- beef tenderloin kebabs, warm potato salad with goat cheese, sugar snap peas, corn on the cob and green tea ice cream with strawberries. I love Maryland/my parents. Sunday spent the date doing some very, very late in the season Spring Cleaning around the house. Realized in the evening that I had only had coffee and energy drinks to keep me going and ordered a sausage and pepper pizza from La Rosa (so awesome) and devoured it while drinking wine and watching a terrible horror movie in my very clean house. Great weekend!!!!
You know what's awesome after a marathon night of drinking Natty Bo in West Philly? IHOP. Thanks hash browns, I owe you one.
Saturday: Friends had a "housewarming" party for a house they've lived in for two years. Burger season is here. For dessert Chelsea invented something she called a "pie bar" which is basically pie filling atop a flat shortbread crust. I ate a lot of it. Sunday: Dunkin Donuts bagel for breakfast. Should have eaten more pie bar instead. For dinner, a roast chicken and Israeli couscous, which is by far the best kind of couscous.
This was a great weekend for food and drinks. On Thursday, ate the duck heart and morcilla special while working at Kraftwork. On Friday, ate my first oysters ever at the oyster house (became an omnivore just about a year ago) then had this excellent "Everything Tuna" sandwich-- tuna COVERED in everything bagel spices-- at Nodding Head. Ditched the bread and just devoured the tuna and fries. On Saturdy, went with a group of friends + family for an early dinner at Cantina Dos Segundos. The fried plantains appetizer and nachos were both a huge hit with everyone. Turns out this place works well for an affordable night out with a group. Sunday started with excellent coffee and not-excellent croissants at Flying Saucer in Fairmount. Later, we ventured into town and got drinks at Varga-- a Yards TJ, Sly Fox saison, and Victory Pursuit for my companion, and their Miss May and an SF saison for myself. Then, finally, I went to Percy St BBQ for the first time. Everyone enjoyed their meal, even our veg friend who rocked the avocado salad and vegan chili. Everything about the presentation and atmosphere here really complements the food. It's comfortable, airy, and fun. I don't know much about Texas bbq, so maybe it's just me, but I didn't love the buttery cornbread and the cake-y part of the blueberry cobbler. What I did love and keep dreaming about is the banana pudding... incredible consistency and flavor. Needless to say, the meats were all delicious and fell off the bone. We washed everything down with a galloon of Brooklyn Pennant Ale. Summer! It's here.
How does Doron forget ALL of the vegetables we ate this weekend? Arugula and lemon salad, curried cumin carrots, curly kale...yum.
capogiro: strawberry gelato / marshmallow gelato. BOOM. homemade indian food & chocolate ricotta icebox cake for lost. http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/chocolate-ricotta-icebox-cake
FRI / Leftovers, hunched over the kitchen sink, watching the Phils: salsa verde-flodded enchiladas and serious costilla tacos from Los Gallos, two slices of rioctta-dabbed white from nabe newcomer Porter Street pizza. Midnight snack: Quaker oatmeal with Three Springs canned peaches. SAT / Tried Noble v. 2.0, where the food is way better with Brinn Sinnot cooking, but Christian Gaal's cocktails (and the atmo) are still the best things bout the place. Dude makes his own tonic, did you know? Highlight: oysters with pickled melon and ramps. Midnight snack: adulterated virginal Dutch Meadow Dairy raw milk with singularly awesome Honey Smacks. SUN / Hit up Headhouse, where I scooped some Stumptown from Bodhi, an insanely good fig-brie-sausage situation from Renaissance Sausage and some scapes and yellow zucchini from Tom Culton, who's sporting a the makings of a handlebar mustache. Sauteed the squash in duck fat rendered from a Griggstown duck breast pilfered from Green Aisle, added it to Severino capellini with manchego, oregano, garlic chives, roasted onion-and-butternut squash seed oil pesto. Sliced down the duck and fanned it over Green Meadow arugula with a strawberry gastrique. It looked like 1996, but tasted great. Dessert: Batch #2 of local strawberry ice cream. Bangin.
I had a solid regiment of sandwich consumption Thursday and Friday followed by a weekend of cooking at home. Thursday, I checked out the new Jake's sandwich board at 12th and Sansom. Around 1pm, staff there outnumbered customers 5 to 1. I ordered the Mensch. Slow cooked brisket, provolone, fried onions and horseradish sauce. Solid sandwich on great bread. Quality ingredients, inventive sandwiches, and you can get a fried egg on anything. I'll be back. A couple comments: 1. the horseradish sauce was not spicy enough and reminded me of Arby's (which is not a good thing); 2. as a former sandwich architect with many years of experience during high school and college, my mentors taught me to construct a sandwich and apply condiments horizontally, not vertically to maximize the variety of ingredients in each bite - when I got back to my office and unwrapped my fresh sammie from Jake's, most of the cheese and onions stuck to wax paper. It was like the taint of my sandwich got a brazilian wax. I hadn't been to Nodding Heads in a long time, I got worn out on their beer, and somewhat stale menu back in the day. I made a return visit for lunch on Friday. I got the jerk pork sandwich and their IPA. My lunching partner got the duck BLT. Two extremely solid sandwiches! Seems Nodding Head has some solid new fare. My sandwich had plantains and a spicy magno chutney. Really awesome sandwich. I am still not over the moon about their beer...its solid beer and all (always liked the grog and 60 shilling) - but the American in me wants my IPA much colder... The rest of the weekend I dined in after days spent working in the garden and fishing. A case of the Avery variety pack set the tone....
PIE BAR! GIVE ME A PIE BAR
Rascal, I haven't been in Nodding Head in a minute either. Jerk pork sounds really good.
Noble is ridic. love that place.
My dining companion got the jerk pork on Friday and also approved.
Friday: Went to POPE to celebrate Patrick Rapa and Lori Hill's birthdays. Drank, among other things, a Crooked Tree Double IPA, a Six Point Red Tuft ESB, a Heavy Seas Siren Noire Chocolate Stout, a Founders Double Trouble out of the bottle and then we all did shots (because that's the kind of people we are) of something the waitress recommended called a Firefly (which is more or less sweet tea vodka and delicious). Saturday: We bottled the batch of George Hummel-concocted, Home Sweet Homebrew-sourced Rye IPA that'd been fermenting for the last two weeks and celebrated with a small Pizzazz pizza and a small bbq chicken pizza from sLice Sunday: Hit the Headhouse farmers market (asparagus, eggs, bread, cheese, tomatoes, apples), then Home Sweet Homebrew for the ingredients for our next batch of hooch, an American pale ale. Hit the liquor store for a new bottle of sweet vermouth for making boulevardiers and a bottle of brandy for making sidecars. Hit Bella Vista Beer and picked up an amazing sampler case of Furthermore beer (their Knot Stock, Fatty Boombalatty, Proper and Three Feet Deep) and a bottle of Hitachino Nest Lacto Sweet Stout. Hit Whole Foods, then came home and used the grill pan to cook up steak from the grocery store and Culton Organics asparagus, broke out the new gift mandolin to make baked crinkle-cut sweet potato fries/chips, harvested the first three scapes from our eight garlic plants and sauted them up to top the steak before settling in for the series finale of Lost.
Started Friday with happy hour at Tria Wash West, had Rose Pino Noir âneither red nor whiteâ and garlic goat cheese pesto bruchetta. Perfect way to start the weekend. Walked over to dinner at Garces Trading Co. for the chef's tasting shared. So much food for two people! We left with a hefty doggy bag and a bottle of Roja for the road. Saturday we snacked on leftovers from GTC's, then had friend's amazing beer bread and margaritas while watching the Flyers win. Great tacos (finally!) at Headhouse Square on Sunday, then made crabcakes with lottsa lemon and asparagus eaten watching the Lost finale marathon.
Comments (0)
Popular Posts
Search this blog:
Topics:
- 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
