Archive for the 'Reviews' Category

Adam Erace Reviews Brü Craft & Wurst

Posted by Sam Bloch on May 20th, 2013

bru-mixed-meats-wurst-plate

Adam Erace goes with the mixed meats and wurst platter at Brü Craft & Wurst for $48, and enjoys almost all the kitchen has to offer.

Like I nearly did under the onslaught of food. Gose in hand (tepid, with a sputtering fizz), the Drury Street breeze fanning me like a boxer’s cornerman, I prepared for the arrival of the hulking $48 mixed-meats-&-wursts platter, which [chef Matt] Buehler describes as “basically the whole menu.” The carnivore carnival sees a dam of pointy, crispy, skin-on fries, the juicy, edgy, whey-fermented kraut (whose secret accelerator I’m stealing for home) and potato-apple latkes constructed for a slew of proteins. There were sausages both housemade (fresh pork greened with marjoram and chive, liverwurst) and from seminal Fox Chase butcher Reiker’s (veal-and-pork weisswurst, a smoky Hungarian-style link), plus pork meatballs, falling-apart braised bacon blocks, curls of pink Westphalian ham and a slab of melting braised pork rib whose tangy glaze was inspired by, according to Buehler, Chinese sweet-and-sour sauce. Not hardcore like Brauhaus, indeed.

But don’t let Buehler’s self-deprecation fool you. This veteran of Striped Bass, Oceanaire, Kraftwork and Bar Ferdinand has sunk more care and energy into this menu that he probably needs to. Those French fries? Brü would be within its rights to use frozen. They don’t, and they’re some of the best in town. The lightly funky liverwurst, poached like a terrine, sliced and seared until dark and crunchy, brought to mind a more finessed scrapple, veined with ground bacon and pork liver.

Brü, Brö [City Paper]
Brü Craft & Wurst [Official Site]

LaBan Pours Out the Praise for Fitler Dining Room

Posted by Sam Bloch on May 20th, 2013

Craig LaBan visits Fitler Dining Room, the newest restaurant from the team from Pub & Kitchen and Avalon’s Diving Horse, and comes away impressed.

There should be no complaints, though, about Marzinsky, whose Philly debut as a head chef has been one of the year’s biggest revelations. His butter-poached oysters are such an elegant modern riff on stew that they’d make his muse, M.F.K. Fisher, consider the oyster anew. Ever-so-lightly poached, they’re placed atop brioche croutons with a fine dice of potato, fennel and celery root, then lavished with a froth of rich chowder cream poured tableside. His raw Beausoleil oysters, on the other hand, are transformed with just a few jewels of smoked trout roe and ginger mignonette, each gulp a three-part fade from tang, to smoke, then brine.

A clever new technique for gnocchi results in ethereal puffs of meltaway potato dumplings. But it is the elegant contrast of textures and vivid colors – snappy toasted hazelnuts, tender earthy snails, tart pickled snips of pink ramp, and a pale green gloss of Chartreuse butter – that makes the dish so memorable.

Three Bells – Excellent

Fitler Dining Room [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Fitler Dining Room [Official Site]

Ansill’s Triumphant Return to Philadelphia at Bar Ferdinand

Posted by Foobooz on May 13th, 2013

bar-ferdinand-david-ansill-480x320

Craig LaBan bestows an enthusiastic two bells on David Ansill’s version of Bar Ferdinand.

The fennel-crusted tuna, essentially Spanish-inspired sashimi draped over haricot verts, caper berries, kalamata olive vinaigrette, boquerone anchovies, saffron-tomato conserva, and shaved bottarga (“a little smoked tuna dust!” says Ansill), pushed piquance to the edge of boldness without sliding over. His citrusy, sous-vide-cooked octopus was meltingly tender. A simple crab “croqueta,” almost fluffy with sweet meat beside a crunchy nest of shaved fennel and citrus, showed classic elegance.

A crock of crispy noodle fideos tossed with sherry cream and wild mushrooms brought focused, earthy vegetarian flavors. But Ansill’s talent for alt-meats is also on joyful display. Aside from the shoestring shreds of fried pig ears with purple mustard, there were juicy squares of pork belly with a bacon-sherry reduction, and pork cheeks, brined overnight, then sublimely braised in tomato brava sauce sparked with ginger.

Two Bells – Very Good

From Jamaica to Northern Liberties [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Bar Ferdinand [Official Site]

Adam Erace Swoons for Pizzeria Beddia

Posted by Foobooz on May 9th, 2013

Adam Erace’s knees buckle over the pizzas that Joe Beddia is putting out at his Pizzeria Beddia on Girard Avenue.

Only two or three pies are offered nightly, including the mainstay red No.1 pie, with its fresh and dried mozzarella, Old Gold (a local aged Gouda whose sharpness stands in for Parm) and deeply crimson, crushed-Jersey-tomato base. “I thought, ‘What’s the most Italian thing I could do?’ And it was to use tomatoes from New Jersey instead of ones from Pompeii,” Beddia says. House-picked Serrano chilies are a nice touch for acid and heat.

The No. 2 is Beddia’s white, a canvas of rich local cream and mozzarella accessorized seasonally. I got ramps, kale, bacon — and tinfoil to take home the extra. As I left I got a heartfelt thanks from Beddia, who bids each customerarrivaderci. He almost glows with gratitude. We should be the ones thanking him.

Pizzeria Beddie Serves Pies Knee-Weakeningly Good [City Paper]
Pizzeria Beddia [Official Site]

The Revisit: Zavino

Posted by Trey Popp on May 3rd, 2013

A server who gets her customers laughing has them right where she wants them, but the bartender at Zavino had an unfair advantage on a recent Monday afternoon.

“Would you like a table?” she asked as I strolled in.

“Maybe I’ll just sit at the bar,” I said.

“Okay,” she replied brightly, filling a water glass as I parked my backside. “There’s just one thing you should know. Our pizza oven isn’t working. So everything from here down”—she held her hand across the middle of the menu—“isn’t available at the moment.”

“You had me at isn’t working,” I answered—or would have, if my wit were quicker. As it’s not, I chuckled, took in an explanation about weird wiring that occasionally knocks the za out of Zavino, and ordered what I’d come for in the first place. Because truth be told, the pizza at Zavino doesn’t really work for me no matter how hot the oven is—but the pasta is another story entirely.

Read the rest of this entry »

Where We’re Eating: Kanella, Still Compelling

Posted by Alex Tewfik on May 2nd, 2013

Kanella, the endearingly small, five-year-old Cyprian BYO sits at the corner of 10th and Spruce, containing wicker chairs, wooden tables, and exposed brick walls graced with copper cookware. Anything more would be a disservice to the chef. Food is the focus here, and there’s a certain necessitarianism to Konstantinos Pitsillides’s cooking—an effortless persuasion that this sort of cuisine should only be prepared by him, that there is exactly one way to compose each dish, and that Pitsillides is the only chef in the world doing it correctly. Soak your bread in the brightly spiced yogurt sauce that accompanies the lamb dumplings, and let his famed “katsiki” stew’s layers of flavor unwind for a lifetime. His food is convincing, his talent is compelling, and his restaurant is still worth a visit. Or a hundred.

Kanella
1001 Spruce Street
215-922-1773

Photo by Frances Olson

First appeared in the May, 2013 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

Where We’re Eating: The Pub, a Bona Fide Classic

Posted by Victor Fiorillo on May 1st, 2013

pub-pennsauken

The phrase “They don’t make them like they used to” was pretty much invented for places like the Pub, the quirky Tudor-style restaurant that sits about five minutes from the Camden side of the Ben Franklin Bridge. The employees are unionized. The steaks and chops are cooked indoors on charcoal (which is only legal because the restaurant was grandfathered in). There’s a big salad bar, with a peerless Caesar. They only take reservations for parties of 10 or more. And dinner for two—with charred steaks, baked potatoes, cocktails and a round of wine—will set you back less than $100. There’s a reason you’ll wait two hours for a table on a Saturday night. The Pub is a bona fide classic.

The Pub
7600 Kaighns Avenue, Pennsauken
856-665-6440.

First appeared in the May, 2013 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

Red Owl Tavern Stumbles Out of the Gate

Posted by Foobooz on April 29th, 2013

red-owl-charcuterie-courtney-apple

Red Owl Tavern couldn’t put it all together for Trey Popp as the restaurant in the Hotel Monaco was the definition of hit-or-miss.

Such was the pattern: a few things to like in a dish, and then something else that marred it. Luscious house-made pastrami sandwiched in flaccid “grilled naan” without char. Exquisitely cooked sheepshead snapper over an underseasoned cassoulet. A dynamite linguica sausage—arranged on awkwardly oversized toast bites. A deep liquor list but completely forgettable cocktails. Even the beet pasta I loved at Square 1682 was gummy here. And service was a roll of the dice: swift and candid one night, clueless and interminable another.

One Star – Fair

Philadelphia Restaurant Review: Culinary Fumbles at Red Owl Tavern [Philadelphia magazine]
Red Owl Tavern [Official Site]

Photo by Courtney Apple

With Sophia’s, Christopher Lee Has Returned to Philly. Kinda

Posted by Foobooz on April 29th, 2013

sophias-sliders-jason-varney

Trey Popp reviews Sophia’s, the East Passyunk restaurant of Philadelphia’s prodigal son, Christopher Lee. What he finds is that Lee is only kind of involved.

My dinners—all of them—were incoherent and error-prone. Dishes clashed rather than complementing one another. Most of the “fun”-sounding ones were flat and boring. Carelessness afflicted too many others. Brussels sprouts were overcooked (really half-carbonized). Ice creams came in pools of their own melt. There’s a lovely apple coffee cake from Fond’s Jessie Prawlucki—but one night it turned up fridge-cold, in a kiln-hot bowl, after an inexplicably long wait.

Sophia’s spent its first month tinkering with a menu the restaurant abruptly discarded. It’s hard to imagine this second take will last much longer. And who knows? A third stab could be the charm. But for Christopher Lee to resurrect the hopes some people had for his return to Philadelphia, he’ll need to do something to reverse the impression that he’s really just phoning it in.

One Star – Fair

Philadelphia Restaurant Review: Phoning It In at Sophia’s [Philadelphia magazine]
Sophia’s [Official Site]

Village Whiskey Burger Does Not Live Up to Hype

Posted by Victor Fiorillo on April 16th, 2013

It’s taken four years, but I finally made it into Village Whiskey last night. Jose Garces’ much-ballyhooed 20th Street spot has been on my list since its opening in 2009 (and I did have a problematic drink at the Revel location last year), but my aversion to lines, crowds and hostess Nazis has kept me away. Read the rest of this entry »

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