Man Eat Food

I like this photo so much that I’ll start this review by giving props to its creator, James Muspratt. He’s a graduate student at Yale and has some great design and photography work online. Check out his site.

The thing I love about this photo is that it shows the back alley entrance (or exit) to one of the fanciest restaurants in the United States. It demonstrates that even a venerable institution such as Le-Bec Fin has something to hide.

What they’ve been hiding recently, according to the scuttlebutt around town, is a growing unpopularity and creeping irrelevance. So the owner, Georges Perrier, took action, remodeling the stuffy restaurant into a (slightly) dressed down, a la carte dining room.

Having not had the opportunity (i.e. the money) to try Le-Bec before this blockbuster re-imagining, I was a bit apprehensive to be among the first patrons of the new, mainstream Fin. And as if proving my intuition to be correct, my experience there was a decidedly mixed bag.

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It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally updated the list of my favorite Philadelphia restaurants.

Since I’m bad at decisions and love alliteration, ten has become fifteen. And why “final?” Well, that’s another story entirely.

The short version is that I’ve moved out of Philadelphia. Maybe I’ll get to the long version eventually, but for now, I will be bringing you the latest food news, restaurant reviews and random opinions from beautiful northern New Jersey.

I still have a few more Philly stories to push out before I switch over completely. I hope you enjoy the new list and these last Philly posts as much as I loved living and eating in the City of Brotherly Love.

Fluffy, subtly sweet and always delicious, pancakes are one of life’s simplest pleasures.

But lately, it seems that everywhere I turn, some ambitious chef or restaurant is trying to overly complicate the already-perfect-as-is pancake.

It started innocently, as these things do, with a few berries, some unique syrup flavors and maybe a chocolate chip or two. And then, all of a sudden - bam! - we’ve got nuts in the batter, mountains of powdered sugar, and not a dollop of good old fashioned butter in sight!

This madness must end.

Of course, I’m too much of a hypocrite to lead the charge, what with my eyes glazing at every mention of a “pancake special” at brunch. In fact, it was my saying “yes” to two such specials in recent weeks that instigated this post in the first place.

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I’ve been waiting for a serious attempt at high-end Indian food since I moved to Philadelphia four years ago. Bindi, from the people behind one my favorites, Lolita, has ended that wait.

The first thing you should know about Bindi is that it’s not authentic Indian. Just as Lolita heightens and contemporarizes Mexican spices and flavors, Bindi takes the same approach to Indian tastes. In other words, leave your  chicken tikka craving at home.

Again like Lolita, Bindi offers pitchers of drink mixers. These can be paired with either rum or vodka (as opposed to tequila for Lolita’s margarita mixers) and taste so phenomenally good that they are a legitimate danger to you and your loved ones. We ordered a pitcher of the Nimbu-Pani (Indian style pomegranate-ginger lemonade); I doubled the suggested dose of vodka and still couldn’t taste the alcohol. As I said, dangerous.

The food - that’s a different story. But before we get to that mixed bag, I feel forced to add a disclaimer: Because we went here over a month ago and the menu had just changed (and is not yet updated online), food details may be a little sketchy in this review. Bear with me.

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Unlike the night before, I had made reservations for graduation dinner months in advance. The location: Rae, a chic, contemporary new restaurant in the chic, contemporary new Cira Centre.

Occupying about a third of the ground floor of this busy skyscraper, Rae seems to be designed for the hip, rich after-work crowd.

Though not exactly a parental utopia in terms of atmosphere, our group was more than pleasantly surprised by Rae’s quality of food. In short, dinner was spectacular.

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I’m bad at making reservations. Especially on weekends.

So even though I knew for months that my parents were coming for UPenn graduation weekend (where my lovely and talented wife officially became a doctor of veterinary medicine), I had not made reservations for their first night in town.

As anyone from Philadelphia can tell you, this is a big mistake. Restaurants are booked solid throughout that weekend as proud parents wine and dine their graduating progeny… and themselves.

Fortunately, this mistake was easily rectified with a last-minute reservation at Caribou Cafe. I had heard great things about this place but could never muster up the enthusiasm to give it a try, especially with so many restaurants ahead of it on my “need to try” list.

I’m pleased to report that only one visit to Caribou completely cured me of that enthusiasm problem and I’m well on my way to recovery.

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Let’s ignore the fact that it’s been more than a month since the wife and I returned from the Florida Keys. When I look at these pictures, I’m already back there.

We had a ton of great food during our time on the islands and as you might expect, most of it was happily swimming along less than 24 hours previous.

The Island Fish Company

Just down the street from our vacation rental was an awesome little place unimaginatively named the Island Fish Co. We were treated to a great little table on the water (bayside) and basked in the quintessential Keys meal.

I had one of the specials: freshly caught hogfish with tomato, asparagus and a tangy bechamel sauce (pictured above). Even more delicious was my wife’s fish-of-the-day choice: simply prepared grilled mako shark (to your right).

Both came with yellow rice and mixed veggies. Both were perfectly prepared. And both were so tasty that I forgot to mention our appetizer: crab cakes.

While I didn’t get a good picture of them, I can still remember every moist, flavorful morsel. You’d think I’d never had a good crab cake before. And I would probably admit you’re right.

I don’t count myself as a crab cake connoisseur, mostly because I’ve had some dry, tasteless cakes in my time. But this one appetizer saved the whole dish for me. I will be having crab cakes again, but only near a coast.

Southernmost Beach Cafe

A few days later, we found ourselves in the land of beach bums, wild roosters and drunk tourists: Key West.

Right next to the Southernmost House (where we met up with friends and lounged by the pool for a day - highly recommended), is the Southernmost Hotel. And part of the Southernmost Hotel is the Southernmost Beach Cafe.

There’s nothing like a fresh fish sandwich. And when you’re in the Keys in the spring and summer, there’s a good chance that the fish in the middle is mahi (a.k.a. mahi-mahi and dolphin).

The Cafe grilled the fish simply, slapped it down on a fresh bun slathered with a mayo-based pink spread, and added some perfectly crisp fries. You can’t get much better than that.

My wife, however, would beg to differ. Although she ordered the same fish, it was placed in a more healthy environment - among the greens of a fresh salad.

Among the ingredients in attendance were apples, grapes, croutons, a tangy vinaigrette and plenty of lightly fried mahi goodness. It was one of the few lunches where we were simultaneously satisfied by our own food and jealous of each other’s.

Good stuff.

Kelly’s Caribbean Bar, Restaurant and Brewery

Maybe it was post-sunset ennui or the less-than-diligent service. Or maybe it was just too difficult to follow the perfect lunch. Whatever this issue, Kelly’s Caribbean just didn’t strike the right chord.

One excuse I can’t use was the “dining room.” Set among beautiful flora and fauna, the outdoor garden dining area was an amazing way to eat al fresco.

We started with shrimp cocktail, mostly as an excuse to try the famously well-advertised Key West “pinks.” They certainly were enormous, but unfortunately, fairly tasteless. They were also too chewy, leaving my wife to deny her third shrimp. Not a great sign.

To combat fish fatigue, I went with jerk chicken (darkly photographed below). Although it came with a tasty mango chunk sauce, the dish was only decent. My wife also ordered a chicken dish, although I can’t remember a thing about it. Also not a great sign.

The food may have been forgettable, but the interminable wait for the check (after only one cup of coffee and one slice of key lime pie) was the stuff of legend. We beat a hasty exit shortly after finding the waitress gabbing it up on a cell phone near the kitchen.

We were done with Key West. And it, apparently, was done with us.

The geniuses at the Key West Key Lime Pie Company came up with this beauty of a frozen treat and it’s the best thing since key lime pie on a plate.

Honestly, I’m not sure how you could go wrong with this process. Covering already delicious desserts in chocolate and freezing them on a stick just seems like the right thing to do.

I usually try to avoid food carts: those mobile metal eateries that litter city streets despite said cities having about a bajillion other places to eat.

Excuse me while I generalize, but I find them to be depressing, dirty and just plain superfluous food entities that prey on hurried and uncreative business people. In other words, most of us.

But sometimes, there’s a story. A story which floats around your office like a bad odor. A story that eventually makes it to your cubicle despite it starting in another department. It’s a story about The Cart. For my office, it’s known by an additional, crucial word: garlic.

THE GARLIC CART

According to the story, which had now taken on mythical proportions (at least in my mind), the garlic cart was an institution. The owner/proprietor sets up shop around 10:30 a.m. and caters only to an in-the-know lunch crowd, some of whom wait on line for upwards of a half hour.

What does this wizard create? Probably the tastiest, strangest and most garlic-filled sandwich in all of Philadelphia.

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That greyish slab of meat you’re looking at is not a pork chop. It’s a tuna steak.

This particular experiment gone wrong was adapted from a Men’s Health recipe for seared swordfish steaks. I foolishly thought that if I replaced the expensive swordfish steaks with the affordable (i.e. previously frozen) tuna steaks, everything would be fine. Did I mention how foolish this was?

I did follow the recipe very closely, adding a sprinkle of salt and pepper to each side of the steaks before tossing them in hot oil. After searing them for several minutes, I flipped the steaks and threw the whole skillet in the oven for another 8 - 10 minutes.

When removed from the oven, I was disappointed that the fish did not look as professionally “crusted” as I expected. But the real surprise came with the taste test.

After cutting in and sampling a bit, my worst suspicions were confirmed. Not only were they overcooked (not a hint of pink on the inside), but they retained that unpleasant fishy taste.

Like any desperate cook (or politician), I tried to cover up my mistake. There was still some oil in the skillet and I thought it would be a good way to moisten up the meat before turning to the refrigerator and spice rack for additional flavors.

Somehow, I ignored the fact that the skillet had just finished a good 10 minute bake at more than 300 degrees and was therefore extremely hot.

So I grabbed it.

It took a split second for my brain to realize what my hand was doing. But that split second was all it took for the burn to take hold. I like to describe it this way: OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!

Ten minutes under cool water and a good numbing ice pack later, I was finally able to use my left hand to eat some of what I prepared.

The conclusion: my fingers were better cooked than the fish.