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Menu Time
On Tuesday, Greg Vernick, his wife Julie and GM Ryan Mulholland opened Vernick Food & Drink (2031 Walnut St.), the well-traveled chef's long-planned solo joint after years cooking all over the world for Jean-Georges Vongerichten and more recently at NYC's Toqueville. See our March 20 post for more background on the concept, food Vernick characterizes as "radically simple" — examples he cooked up for us the other day included his tuna with soy-laced tomato compote, charred spinach and leek toast, whole roasted organic Amish chicken and whole roasted "pocketbook-cut" dorade. Those last three items are a few examples of dishes Vernick is preparing in his Wood Stone oven, which he rocks around 550 degrees in the tucked-away open kitchen of the restaurant's ground floor. There's a chef's counter and room for walk-ins back here; heading back toward the street you've got the bar, featuring beer, wine and cocktail selections curated by Mulholland. Diners with reservations will mostly kick it in the restaurant's bright, clean-lined second-floor dining room.
Opening food and drink menus for Vernick are after the jump (click to enlarge). Right now they're open Tuesday to Sunday from 4:30 to 11.
Peaceful little Lansdowne is on the food come-up as of late — already home to the excellent BYO Sycamore (14 S. Lansdowne Ave.), the annual farmers market in the nearby DelCo suburb is close to launch, as is the second restaurant from the Sycamore team Adam Erace noted in February. (Hearing the name NoBL, as in north of Baltimore and Lansdowne avenues, as a possible moniker.) And here's another new arrival to the party: Argana Moroccan Cuisine, inhabiting the old diner space actually at the corner of Lansdowne and Baltimore. The friendly joint (also tree-themed, shoutout to the arboreal trend), open for lunch and dinner, is cooking a straight-ahead selection of Moroccan classics — lamb, chicken and kefta tagines, couscous, seafood pastilla, etc. — in a fam-friendly BYO atmosphere. Full menu after the jump (click to enlarge). Hours: Sun.-Thu., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m.
The old Dairy Queen on South, right next to Manny Brown's on the 500 block, is now home to a location of the N.Y. Bagel Cafe and Deli chain. Operating long hours (6 a.m. to 9ish on weekdays, with a 7 a.m. start and later evening hours on weekends), the shop, open since last week, offers a hunky selection of bagels and sandwiches with eggs and Boar's Head meats, plus some salads, pastry items and whatnot. Their full menu is after the jump (click to enlarge).
About a month back, Cafe Chismosa (900 N. Fourth St.) replaced Almanac Market at Fourth and Poplar. Chef/owner Jugo Stevcic is running Chismosa as a café in the a.m., with eggy sandwiches/dishes, seasonal scones and One Village Coffee. By lunch/dinner, it becomes a Latin-inspired BYO operation, with tortas (the "El Cerdo," with carnitas, Granny Smith apple, queso blanco and an apple/lemon gravy for dipping), quesadillas and simple ceviches. Here's the full menu (PDF). For what it's worth: En espanol, Chismosa is slang for a prolific female smack-talker, so ready your best neighborhood gossip to share with Stevcic as he fixes your smoked scallop and quinoa avocado salad. Hours are Tuesday to Saturday from 8 to 8 and Sunday from 9 to 3 (closed Mondays).
Photo: Cafe Chismosa on Facebook
Sowe Bar & Kitchen (22nd and Carpenter), the Divan replacement we first mentioned in February, opens to the public this Wednesday, April 25, at 4 p.m. Here's a look at the neighborhood bistro's dinner, drinks, bar menu and desserts (PDF) — liking the sound of the ricotta gnudi with English peas and morels and the pork belly pastrami sandwich.
There's a serious oven cranking up Andorra way — Pizzeria DiMeo's, located in the shopping center at Henry and Ridge (8500 Henry Ave.), is pie-ing up the hills with father/son team Pino and Antimo DiMeo wielding the peels.
Pino has owned/operated a number of casual by-the-slice pizza parlors since landing in the area from Italy in 1988, but this location is the DiMeo clan's first to truly dedicate itself to the Neapolitan approach, something I learned plenty about when writing this 2010 story on Philly's pizza culture. Pino's hometown is strict about the starting ingredients of its dough — double-zero flour, yeast and water only (don't you dare put olive oil in there!) — and the shop is taking it even further, importing tomatoes, mozzarella and even bottled agua from Italy for their stuff. (It's a heated point of contention among pizzaioli, but Antimo swears up and down the H2O makes a huge difference.) They're plating them by the minute-and-a-half in a very clearly labeled 900-degree oven that burns oak.
The last time we visited Paloma (763 S. Eighth St.), the vivid haute Mexican in Bella Vista, the Phillies were struggling against the Giants in the 2010 NCLS. And that's the problem, according to Barbara Cohan-Saavedra, who co-owns the Northeast Philly transplant with chef/husband, Adán. "We've been packed on Saturdays, less so on Fridays and slow during the week," she reports. Those all-too-common sluggish weekdays are the reason for the restaurant's Tuesday-through-Thursday prix-fixe, where $30 buys three courses of Michoacan-born Saavedra's alta cocina. Choose from five apps (don't sleep on his caesar, arranged in vertical romaine tower ringed in hibiscus petals), six entrées and three desserts from Cohan-Saavedra's pastry repertoire. Full menu after the jump.
- Matyson (37 S. 19th St.) is starting brunch service this Sunday, April 22. Ben Puchowitz is stepping aside for the day and allowing Adam Willner and Cheri Fairall to take the reins. Fairall is handling all front-of-house business while Willner, who was most recently a sous chef at The Sidecar (2201 Christian St.), is running the kitchen. Many of the dishes on the menu, which Willner calls a "celebration of the egg, so to speak," use eggs and meat Green Meadow Farm. Keeping in line with dinner service, brunch is also BYO; they'll have mixers on hand to make mimosas and Bloodys, as well as a special mix that will change each weekend. Dishes range from $9 to $12 with sides for $3. Mixes will run you about $8 for a carafe that serves two. Full menu is here (PDF).
- After rolling out lunch service two weeks ago, Matt Levin and Square Peg (929 Walnut St.) will begin brunch hours tomorrow, April 21. The includes dishes like housemade scrapple hash with shredded potatoes topped with fried eggs, roasted long hots and onions; and bananas foster French toast pegs with banana slices and coffee caramel sauce. Dishes range from $4 to $13.50. The Peg's got you covered for booze — their mint julep menu features five different juleps (!) for $8 each. Traditional drinks are available, too, as well as twists on classics, like the Bacon Mary (bacon-infused Laphroaig 10-year, tomato juice, Worcestershire, lemon and orange juices, molasses and a secret spice blend). The full lunch menu will be also available during brunch service, which runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
Avram Hornik of Four Corners Management first talked to us about his restoration of NoLibs' venerated jazz club Ortlieb's (847 N. Third St.) in July 2011 — nine months later and the old girl's ready for tunes once more. (It'd been vacant for two years prior.) Officially open at 5 p.m. tonight, the new-look Ortlieb's doesn't have much of a new look at all; it's still got the crimson-lit barroom vibe, centralized stage and old-timers' bar, but plush red-vinyl banquettes in lieu of tableclothed two-tops have freed up the room considerably.
Huge coup for vegetation-minded Center Citizens: Former Horizons GM Nicole Marquis opened her vegan fast-food joint Hip City Veg (127 S. 18th St., 215-278-7605) in the old Pad Thai Shack yesterday. Steering clear of overt vegan propaganda and preachitude, Marquis' aim with Hip City is to provide a "100 percent plant-based" experience "familiar to meat eaters, without sacrificing affordability or taste." Her chef, Lauren Hooks, is knocking out a menu (see it here in PDF format) with populist appeal — think the "Ziggy" burger, a meatless riff on the Big Mac (yes, with "special sauce"), a crispy "chick'n" sandwich that plays off that popular fast-food option, and salads of the Caribbean, Asian and Mediterranean persuasions, all made with local ingredients. (Those bananas don't count.) That thoughtful approach extends into realms like packaging (compostable) and delivery (by bicycle, Spring Garden to Washington north to south and Front to the bridge east to west).
Hip City Veg has been slammed since opening its doors (here's a real-time shot of the lunch line!), but generous hours should help assuage the demand — they serve daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
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