It's All About the Food

Nearly twenty years ago, my sister took me to dinner at Upstares at Varalli, because it was across the street from her hotel. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, as she was and is never in town. I'm fairly certain it was a Tuesday.

I also remember clearly where we sat (windows along Locust Street), what I ate (linguine or fettuccine) and most of all, what we discussed: should I start seeing this new guy I'd met? She gave me the best advice ever: yes, date him.

He and I eventually moved to an apartment around the corner and ate at Upstares regularly. We took my father there when we had tickets for Messiah and the Nutcracker; they always made sure we were out in time to make it across the street to the Academy of Music. We took friends who were delighted to discover that Italian food went beyond red sauce. After moving to the burbs, we would occasionally return with out-of-town guests.

While hunting ever more desperately for a place for my fortieth birthday, I finally remembered Upstares, and its downstairs sister Sotto Varalli. Yes, they could fit 25 to 30 of us in a private room and feed us a three-course meal.

The menu started with rocket salad or their field greens salad. Sensibly, most everyone picked the rocket salad, which had the most amazing, large ripe strawberries. These were better than the grocery store carries in June. I had the lobster ravioli, Tobi had the steak, and that guy I started dating had the linguine. We finished with enormous portions of chocolate pyramid or tiramisu (trite, but still excellent). The weakest note was the coffee, but was more than compensated for by the excellent wine selections — I threw myself on the staffs' mercy, and they selected the wonderful Zefiro Prosseco with the appetizers, and the Terlano Pino Bianco and Red Mud Shiraz with dinner. Yes, I had at least a glass of each.

Will I go again? Will I have another birthday?

Posted by SusieJ at 09:05 PM | Permalink

Whenever I'm downtown at night, I like to try a new restaurant because there is always a new place I haven't tried, and if I want to eat the same-old, same-old I can stay at home. Last night it was Miran at 2034 Chestnut after a massage at Total Serenity at 2108 Walnut. The atmosphere is "take out," but he food is better than that.

Miran's a BYOB, and, because I don't usually have a B tucked in my bag, I had the hot tea, which was probably Hyeonmi cha, Korean roasted brown rice tea. It was a wonderful antidote to January in Philly.

I started with the pork and kimchee steamed dumplings, then had the squid bokum &emdash; squid and veggies in a hot-sweet sauce. The dumpling filling and squid might have benefited from a minute less time cooking; the dumplings were not as juicy as I like, and the squid a bit more chewy. However, the flavor was good.

Most dinner entrees are served with "rice and side dishes," meaning short-grained rice and four or five small bowls of kimchee and a small bowl of iceberg lettuce, a slice of a tired tomato, covered in Russian dressing.

Service was casual (the waitress wore jeans and a McNabb jersey &emdash; I though the Eagles were out of consideration?), efficient (I was in and out in half an hour) and friendly (we both like su do ku). As I was finishing dinner about 6:30, the dining room started to fill up and my table was cleared immediately to seat the customers who had just walked in.

Squid bokum has become my favorite dish at Korean restaurants. As happy as I am that I can find something so good (and familiar) wherever I eat, it's disturbing to see Korean cuisine shoe-horned into American expectations of "these are the 20 dishes that $COUNTRY eats." That should have gone out of style with chop suey. If you wanted to define American food, you'd be hard pressed to limit it to 20 dishes. Of course, steak-house menus don't reflect that, do they?

Will I go back? Yes, Miran does at-table barbecue, and I'm sure my husband and son would love it.

Posted by SusieJ at 03:06 PM | Permalink

It wasn't supposed to be another foodie weekend in New York, really. The plan was for the boys to see the Phillies trounce the Mets, and for Anne and I to visit the Neue Gallerie and its cafe. But we'd spent a couple hours at Dean and DeLuca, Sur la Table, and H&M, and a Steuben Day parade in Central Park had the Gallerie's Austrian cafe backed up to a 40-minute wait for a table at 2 p.m., so we turned back to Demarchelier just a block away at 50 E. 86th St.

Generally, I don't eat French because I can't afford it (I'm more the hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurant kind), can't pronounce it and don't have the patience to cook it. I may need to change this policy.

We wanted to try as much as possible, and didn't want to spend $20 (each) on a lunch entree, so we each had two appetizers. Anne began with a salad of field greens, and I had the country pate. This was followed by steak tartare (Anne) and a salad of endive, apples and roquefort (myself). To drink, Anne had Bass (one of three beers on tap) and I had a glass of chablis, at our waiter's suggestion after throwing myself on his mercy. We skipped dessert but had Earl Grey (Anne) and coffee.

With tax and tip it was a whopping $75. It was a lovely, leisurely treat, and quite a wonderful find. And we had the pleasure of helping the nice Spanish couple at the next table find a hotel. It was the first time a cell phone was ever justified at the table.

Will I go back? Probably not, but mostly because I live in Philadelphia, not Manhattan.

Posted by SusieJ at 09:53 PM | Permalink

The plan was to meet friend Sarah for Saturday brunch at White Dog in UCity. True to form, every time we go to brunch there, we are too early. On this occasion, an entire day too early — White Dog only does brunch on Sundays.

So, we punted, and went to the Bucks County Coffee just down Sansom Street.

Their menu was limited to pre-made items — no breakfast sandwiches or soups — but then, we were the only patrons at 10 a.m., and there was no later influx of Drexel and Penn undergrads that I could see. (As a former Drexel undergrad, I know they'd just be eating Cap'n Crunch out of the box.)

Pre-made items are from LeBus, and included muffins, croissants, wraps and sandwiches. I played it safe with a croissant that was buttery and probably delivered that morning. Sarah had a toasted bagel with two packages of cream cheese. Jake had a chocolate pretzel, because he'd had yogurt and a banana before leaving the house. Jorj also had a bagel.

My cafe au lait was warm and milky. Jorj had a chai latte. Jake had an Odwalla smoothie. Much more of a coffee connoisseur, Sarah had no complaints about her regular coffee.

Service was prompt and friendly enough.

Would I go back? It's not particularly convenient or breakfast oriented, and we can get a better breakfast elsewhere. But if I wanted a cup of coffee in UCity, I wouldn't avoid it.

Posted by SusieJ at 05:38 PM | Permalink

Last century, when we lived downtown, Dock Street Brewpub at 18th and the Parkway was a favorite if infrequent destination. The brew was varied, fresh and local (brewed down at Dock Street), and the food what is now standard brewpub fare, but at the time seemed new and innovative (and might have been). Dock Street's closing a few years ago was just another sign of the end of the 90's.

During the last snowstorm, we were at the Franklin Institute and, having seen that a new pub was in the old space, gleefully trekked down to the Public House for dinner and a trip to memory lane. The snowstorm was just beginning, so the bar and restaurant were quite deserted for a weekend night, something that could be either good or bad.

Turns out: bad.

Even with only a quarter of the tables filled, it still took an hour from the time we ordered until the food tepidly arrived. I had the grilled tuna sandwich, my husband the grilled chicken sandwich, our friends the calamari. We tried to order the hummus appetizer platter for the baby, but they were out of hummus (they couldn't find a can of chickpeas?) and settled for buttermilk chicken tenders.

The calamari was over-battered and the tuna sandwich was tepid. Both the chicken sandwhich and tenders were well-cooked, not underdone, not dry.

Against all logic and evidence, my husband ordered the bread pudding; I had a coffee to keep him company. Of course, the coffee came out first. Not only was it extremely long in arriving, it was dry as a bone. My only guess is the bread pudding was unmade and the chef threw it together, skipping the egg custard, in an effort to get it to the table before last call.

Would I go back? Not unless I was with a group of friends who absolutely could not walk another step without fainting from hunger. I could always have a salad.

Posted by SusieJ at 08:16 PM | Permalink