Saturday, December 24, 2011

American Sardine Bar

ASB front door decorated for the holidays!
We checked this place out a few weeks after they opened, (12/16) hopping that whatever kinks had been worked out.
They were busy (but didn't look crazy), they didn't have an open table, so we sat at the bar.
It took one of the three bartenders so long to notice us (even with cash pushed out in front of us) that we forgot what we wanted to order and had to glance at the board for a reminder!

Ordering food was another wait after we got our drinks, even though we had told the bartender that we wanted to order, he told us we had to wait for the kitchen. Eventually we ordered the Krab Kake, brussel sprouts and onion rings. All of which we had heard rave reviews about!
1st disappointment
Soggy, greasy onion rings. Dripping grease. GROSS.
This problem is easily solved with higher heat and a minute to drain. So we will be trying them again because they had potential.
Saving grace - great spicy dipping sauce.
2nd disappointment
Soggy Brussel sprouts. Like mush, no integrity left to them. :( Again easily fixed. Will try again.
Saving grace - Good chilies mixed in. Really loved the idea

I wont list the Krab Kake as a disappointment, because, come on its fake crab, how great could it be?
But basically its a tuna fish sandwich on a fancy roll, except there's no real seafood in it. So why is it $12??! Will not be ordering this again. So I guess it should be listed as the 3rd disappointment!

Overall we still expect great things from this place. We're especially excited about a rotating menu.
We love the location and admire the balls these guys have to open up shop in this area...we hope they last!
Great beer prices.
Good start. Needs perfecting. Will be back.

Friday, December 23, 2011

A new year, a new pup!

Yesterday we rescued a pup from operation ava! She is our 1st dog, her name is Bella, she is 5yrs old. That's all. :)
Oh, and we made homemade matzo ball soup.



Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Woza!

I didn't think we had anything to eat for dinner tonight, but I was able to pull together something great!
An omelette with leftovers!
Ham from dinner last week. Sauteed zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms & onions from a dinner last week & some ends of whole grain bread from le buss.
It was delish! I love making old things new again. :)


Friday, December 2, 2011

If you haven't been to S & H kebob house..

You must go! And you should go on a Friday. Live music, belly dancing, what more could you want on a Friday night? Belly dancing with swords you say? Well, ok there acutally is belly dancing with swords, believe it or not!
And of course great authentic food, paired with friendly, knowledgable staff..this place is a win!
We highly recommend the lamb dumplings, but everything we've had has been terrific. Don't forget to save room for dessert & coffee!


1/2 price sushi?!

Seriously, we found some lox that was marked down, and decided to purchase it. What was wrong with us?!
But we're SO happy we did, we were able to make two meals from this $10 package of fish, which I'm still very pleased we purchased!
I've attached a pic of our sushi bowl, salmon, rice & fresh veggies, yum!


Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Dinners of days past..

As we sit in Penn Station waiting for our final train home, I thought I'd share some pics of meals we've made in the past.

1) jerk chicken - made in the slow cooker.
2) farm fresh veggie pasta.
3) lamb sausage with grilled onions & fresh salad.
4 tilapia, herbed couscous & salad

Ok that's all for now, this is making me hungry, and as I said, we're in Penn Station & oddly enough there's nothing good enough to eat open...nite.





Saturday, November 26, 2011

Maine turkeys!

We're heading home from our Thanksgiving in Maine. Dinner was great, of course we over ate. Family was crazy, but it wouldn't be as much fun if they weren't!
This years movie was the Muppets! There is currently a debate as to how bad it actually was...I think it was pretty bad, but my brother says I'm too judgemental & it wasn't that bad. I guess I excected a big muppet show, but it was this movie where they broke out into song about whatever was happening...
I digress...this year I decided to try a "Thanksgiving Benedict" for breakfast the morning after. It's a pancake of stuffing browned on both sides, topped w turkey & an egg everything smothered in gravy! It was awesome, if I do say so myself. I had to modify it slightly, I wasn't allowed to use turkey or the hommade gravy I made, since my grandmother thought my recipe sounded "disgusting" (see I told you, crazy! We weren't allowed to have turkey sandwichs in the middle of the night either. Cray-cray. We did it anyways) so u substituted turkey with bacon & got some store bought gravy...it was still good! I suggest you try it! I did end up sopping up the excess gravy & yoke w a dinner biscut from the night before.

Happy thanksgiving all, hope yours was great!



Thursday, August 18, 2011

Doh!

I know I screwed up again! I said I'd write each day this week and I didn't write yesterday. I'm sorry! But it's not my fault! See, Wednesdays are Center City Sips night in the summer here and yesterday was my friend Jane's last Sip, (She's moving to Wisconsin Saturday) so I had to meet her out...and one thing led to another...
So last night we started at Devil's Alley then to Raven Lounge then to Ladder 15 and finally to Jay's Sushi for some much needed food. So as you can see by the time I got home...I passed out. (and was late to work today!) What I remember from Jay's (we've been there plenty of times) is its good fresh sushi for a really great price.

Today I did get to have some of Valanni's deep fried oreo desert. It was good, of course. But not a great as I had hoped my first fried oreo would be...Its kinda an odd picture, and it doesn't look great, but it tasted good!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Reading Terminal Mar-YUM!

Today I didn't eat/make anything fabulous, so I will write about all we ate yesterday.
Nicole did go to Audrey Claire tonight, she said it was good, but didn't rave...I didn't go with her, so that's all I know.
Yesterday we stopped at RTM for produce for the week...ended up having lunch.
First, Hershels for a corned beef ruben. The bread was great and toasty, the meat was melt in your mouth soft, and salty with some fantastic sour cabbage and a great pickle I couldn't resist a bite or two before I remembered I should take a pic to share!
Hershel's corned beef ruben
After some 'window shopping' I spied Flying Monkey, I remember reading about their smores somewhere and convinced Nicole to share one with me.
Flying Monkey Smore
While it was awesome (are there bad smores?!) it was super messy, the chocolate was good enough (cold in the center), the marshmallow could have been toasted more (add that toasty flavor to the whole thing!), the 'graham cracker' wasn't cracker like at all, a soft taste less, brown patty. But like I said, are there really any bad smores...perhaps for $4, there are?

Monday, August 15, 2011

Return!

I feel quite terrible that I haven't kept up with this...
Life I guess just takes over. 
I'm going to try and make this a daily ritual, so this week I'm giving myself 15 minutes each day to write something...if it starts to become too 'dear diary' ish, I'll change it to every other day, but for this week, to try and create a habit of writing, I'm going to write something each night.

I don't know why I stopped writing in the first place. I was playing soccer and rugby and I suppose it just took up too much of my time. Then I felt bad about not writing and I didn't know where to start, and I was like no one reads this anyways. But I've realized that its pretty therapeutic for me to write, even if it is about my dinner! :)

I've reached my 15 minute limit tonight...
real quick: today we went to Hershel's Deli, Flying Monkey and Erwan. All were excellent! 

Friday, March 18, 2011

Saturday, March 5, 2011

PYT

we ventured out to northern liberties!
so glad we did, the burgers and shakes lived up to their expectations!
the establishment was quite dirty, in need of a good scrub.
what we ate:
black bean soup - excellent! nice broth, good spice, and you get a mini potato roll!
homemade bacon cheeseburger perogies with wiz!
lamb burger - yum! cooked perfectly, great topping, an all around win!
philly cheesesteak burger - burger patty topped with philly cheesesteak, wiz, and carmelized onion dressing on a toothy pretzel roll made specifically for them! Indulgence to the max maybe too much so!
espresso shake and cereal shake, both very good, reminiscent of childhood.
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Perch Pub

great table side views of broad street!
Excellent use the fresh ingredients.
Very theater conscious, server asked what time our show was. food came out fast.
great small bites menu good beer selection.
a nice calm atmosphere on broad street.
what we ate:
started with nachos - good chips, could use more meat, great fresh salsa and guac. cheese sauce left a lot to be desired.
baja tacos - excellent fish, crispy cabbage, good corn tortillas
french burger - light brioche bun, buttery cheese and savory caramelized onions. not the best burger meat slightly greasy. onion rings looked amazing but left a lot to be desired, kind of soft not really crispy, easy fix cook 'em in hotter oil.
we definitely go back for happy hour and small bites.
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

R2L AWESOME!


We had lunch today at R2L it was amazing!
Everything from the decor, to the view, to the service...it was all perfect.

I had a super crazy hectic day at work and arrived 10 minutes late and extremely frazzled.
Our server (I'm super embarrassed I don't remember her name) was great at calming me and by the time we had the first course I was relaxed and not worried about work at all.

We had: chopped salad, winter soup, salmon, chopped steak, a chocolate dessert, and a sesame dessert.
Everything was perfect, even the pretzel bread with dijon cream cheese spread was excellent.

The soup was thick and hardy, filled with veggies. The salmon and steak were cooked perfectly.

I really can't wait to go back.

Bar-BOOO-zo

Our meal was so bad at Barbuzzo, I don't even want to write about it.

They need to find a way to protect their customers, which they cram in like sardines, from the outside elements. Our food was cold and so were we throughout the entire meal.

Sincerely disappointed, it seems as if Marcie & Co. doesn't take customers comfort into account at all. I've eaten at 3 of her restaurants and they're all the same, small tables, smaller chairs, and even smaller space between tables.

And seriously, host/hostess...do you understand your title?! For gods sake if there is a coat check available let your guests know!

In The Heights!

Last Thursday we went to see In The Heights at the Academy of Music...it was AWESOME!!!
Our seats SUCKED, if you are going to see a show at the A of M do not sit on the side of the stage, we could only see 3/4 of the stage because of the sound system, which kept cutting out. :(
But these artists were great and sounded better without the mics!
So anyways, I've been singing the songs ever since...do not pass up the opportunity to see this show!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Pizzeria Stella

We've found more good pizza in Philly!
While this only makes a grand total of 2 pizzeria's in Phily which are good. (Slice & Stella) We're happy to keep searching!

Stella's had a $25 special the night we went, so we got to try 4 different pizzas & 2 different apps! Kristen our server, was fantastically pleasant, casual and helpful. By far one of the best servers we've had in this town.

We had the sheep's milk ricotta and the beet salad. Both were good. We love beet, the temperature difference between the ricotta and the bread was great, could have used a bit of salt or some kind of seasoning.

We had the Mushroom, Pancetta, Tartuffo, and San Daniele pizzas.
The Mushroom was good, lots of oregano, ham was slightly smokey, not salty at all.
The Pancetta was everyones #1 favorite, a lil' salty, a lil' bitter, it was well rounded goodness.
The Tartuffo, while providing table side entertainment (they break the yolk table side), was super rich, salty and basically overwhelming.
The San Daniele was basically a ham sandwich. It was crazy. While cool that it was pizza that tasted like a sandwich, there really wasn't anything else cool about it.

All that followed by gelato! 5 flavors to choose from...all were good! ;)

Great location, nice ambiance, we weren't sitting on top of the next table. It was a great all around dinner.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Davio's

We went for restaurant week, which we were happy about, but the waitress (Alice) clearly wasn't.
The food was good, aside from our waitress, the service was great. The atmosphere, while a large room, it was quite boring and forgettable.
As soon as our waitress found out we were there for restaurant week, her tone completely changed and she pushed us to order immediately. Actually saying to us "lets go".
We started with a soup and a salad: The soup was a bit watered down, the salad was salty. Our main course was salmon and scallops, both were good. The dessert was a sampler of 3 items: a peanut butter cream thing, a tiramisu-ish gel thing, and a hazelnut thing. The hazelnut thing was amazing! The others...blech.
While it was nice to be eating in a big room (so many restaurants in center city cram you into tiny places), the entire experience was only OK. Probably won't be back.

Icey Tuesday

This is Nicole's little guy Ty. He insisted on laying with me this morning, I threw him away 3 times before giving up! I was working from our bed because my office had a 2hr delay because of all the ice! He's ridiculous, I had to snap a photo.
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Monday, January 17, 2011

MLK DAY

I was super lazy today, not sure why. I guess because I could be. I didn't get outta bed until 1pm! And for those of you who don't know me that is something I just never do. When I did finally get up, I made my way to the market (this has become my job since Nicole is overnight every Monday.) where I passed a box for French onion soup & thought I bet that's not hard, I can do that. I pulled up a recipe on my phone, picked up a couple more items & hurried home, just the thought of this hot cheesey soup was making me hungry already!
While making this soup was not hard, I am an impatient person & it took a lot of patience, but it was all worth it in the end. Only regret, should have spent the extra money on the better cheese. :)
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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Varga happiness

We got lucky tonight & were able to meet for dinner at Varga Bar.
We decided to taste a few items; brussel sprouts (bc they're Nicole's fav) special polenta and special ravioli.
The brussel sprouts were awesome!
Crunchy, salty, tart, melt in your mouth goodness.

Awesome brussel sprouts
The wild mushroom polenta was hot & soft inside with a nice thin crunchy outside.
Wild mushroom polenta
The ravioli tied with the brussel sprouts as my favorite. The light earthy, cinnamon/nutmeg-ish sauce paired perfectly with the winter squash & lobster. The ravioli themselves were very nice, thin pasta light fluffy filling.
Ravoli with winter squash and lobster
I liked the food and the atmosphere better than Adsum!
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Saturday, January 8, 2011