An Iron Chef Worthy Meal

Amada

217 Chestnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19106

I think that restaurant week is one of the greatest inventions of all time. I do not only feel that way because of my passion for food, but rather because I think it is something that everyone can enjoy. I do not like to miss going out for restaurant week because it is such a good deal. Usually 3 to 5 courses will run you $35, and while the selection is usually limited, there is typically enough things to choose from to satisfy anyone’s tastes. My girlfriend, who is my usual dining out partner is away visiting her sister, so I had to find other people who wanted to go out to dinner with me on a Tuesday night. My cousin and his wife are always willing to go out, so we made a reservation for Amada.

I have been to a few of Iron Chef Garces’ restaurants: Village Whiskey, Distrito, and Chifa. However, I was very much looking forward to Amada. I have heard nothing but good things about it, and I know that it has been extremely popular for the last five years. Tapas has become one of my favorite eating styles, so I was pretty excited to get to the city this past Tuesday.

The restaurant was packed, which was not surprising, and probably also the reason we got seated after our reservation time. My cousin, his wife and I decided to order something different for each dish so that we could get a good feel for the menu. The way that the menu was set up we could each order two first courses, two second courses, and one dessert. We ordered the following fourteen dishes:

- cana de cabra (goats milk cheese with fig and cherry marmalade)

- aged manchego with truffled lavender honey

- melon con jamon (melon with ham)

- chorizo pamplona with caperberries, cornichons, and french Dijon

- gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp)

- croquetas de jamon (ham croquettes)

- costillas de ternera coca (beef shortrib flatbread with horseradish, parmesan, and bacon)

- the madre e hijo (chicken breast with truffles and a fried egg)

- calamari a la plancha (grilled calamari)

- patatas al ajillo (fish and chips)

- chorizo brochettes

- gambas con garbanzos (shrimp flatbread with fresh herbs, chorizo, and garbanzo puree)

- crema catalana (caramelized vanilla custard, blood orange and winter melon)

- dobos torta (flourless chocolate sponge, nutella caramel & bittersweet chocolate ice cream

I know that is a lot of dishes, so I will do my best to keep this short and sweet.

The first things that came out were the two cheese plates. Both were small, but large enough for us all to share. Both were served with sliced granny smith apples as well. The cana de cabra was very good. Creamy, smooth and tangy,. The cheese was perfect to spread on the small pieces of bread served with it. The real key to the dish was the fig and cherry marmalade. It was tart and fruity; I wish I could buy it bottled and spread it on my morning toast. The other cheese plate, the aged manchego was also very good. Manchego is a Spanish cheese that has a good bite to it, and is pretty similar to parmigiano reggiano. The lavender honey that was served with it was a very interesting contrast to traditional honey. Each serving had a huge lavender taste; definitely something I will never forget.

The next two dishes that came out were the melon con jamon and the chorizo pamplona. The melon con jamon was some sort of cantaloupe like melon on the inside wrapped in Serrano ham with a sherry and yogurt reduction. The melon was sweet, the ham was salty and smoky, and the yogurt reduction added a nice bit of cream to balance the whole dish out perfectly. The chorizo pamplona was thin slices of chorizo, that seemed to be pan fried, and served with bread, caperberries, tiny homemade pickles, and French dijon. I would never in my life have thought to put French dijon on chorizo, but it was amazing. The dijon had quite a kick and melded together to create a great balance of flavor with the smokey chorizo.

A few of the other dishes came out in the mean time. The croquetas de jamon, the madre e hijo, and the gambas al ajillo. All three were very good dishes, with the croquetas being the highlight of the meal for me. They were really fantastic; fried to perfection and still the inside maintained the perfect consistency. They were creamy and silky, but I could still taste ham at the forefront. If you decide to go to Amada I will tell you that this is a must order dish. The chicken and fried egg dish was very well done. The chicken was salty and melted in my mouth, and it was the perfect thing to mop up the yolk of the fried egg with. Finally, the gambas al ajillo were also very good. They were very tender and full of the garlic flavor. They paired perfectly with the toasts they were served with. 

We very much enjoyed the two flatbreads we ordered. The shrimp flatbread was like a small oval shaped pizza. The sauce was delightful, the cheese was superb, and the crunch of the bread mixed with the tenderness of the shrimp in a way that I did not know was possible. The short rib flatbread was great as well. Short ribs are a wonderful addition to any dish, and all of the flavors in this dish combined to make one cohesive, successful whole. The crunchiness of the bread was the perfect contrast to all of the flavors and textures on the top of the crust. 

The final three main course dishes were the calamari a la plancha, the chorizo brochettes, and fish and chips with the patatas al ajillo. The calamari was tender and succulent to the very last bite. It was citrusy and held each bite tasted wonderfully. The chorizo was cooked perfectly. I like a bit more kick to my chorizo usually, but it was still a tasty little morsel. The patatas al ajillo or the Spanish version of fish and chips was very good. The fish was wonderfully crispy on the outside, perfectly cooked in the middle, and the potatoes underneath were scrumptious. They were garlicky and delicious.

Finally it came to the dessert; the flourless chocolate torta, and the vanilla crema. Both were delectable. The custard was smooth, delicate, and light, but it still packed a lot of flavor. It was topped with a touch of cinnamon and a caramalized sugar tweel that I found extremely interesting. The chocolate torta was rich and creamy, and the ice cream brightened up the whole dish.

I loved Amada and cannot wait to go back when it is not restaurant week, to see if the experience is the same. If you like tapas, I think you should try it. If you like Jose Garces, I think you should try it. If you like food, then you should definitely try it because you will not find too many places that serve this good of food!

Half Price Pizza...that's Amore!

Forno

28 Church Road

Maple Shade, NJ 08052

I realized the other night while writing this blog entry that I have been eating at a lot of good restaurants lately. They are not the type of places that everyone eats at because they are not the cheapest places to have a meal at. However, this post is for the working man that may not like to go out to fancier restaurants or places you might pay a pretty penny to eat at. On Mondays, at a pizza place near my work called Forno, you can get half price slices of pizza. The guys that I work with go every week, but this was the first week that I decided to go.

This place is pretty full at lunch time on Mondays because they offer such a great deal. I ordered a slice of plain and a slice of buffalo chicken pizza. Anytime I can order buffalo chicken pizza I take advantage of that opportunity because I love buffalo chicken anything. They offer many different kinds of pizza at Forno, all of which looked very good.

The waitress brought our pizza to the table in a very timely fashion, which was great because I only get an hour for lunch. The first thing I did was cover my cheese pizza slice in crushed red pepper. When I bit into the slice; I was thoroughly impressed. I once heard Guy Fieri of the Food Network say “Pizza is one of those things that if you do it right it is amazing, and if you mess it up its still pretty good”, or something to that effect. I would definitely agree with him, and in this instance, Forno did a great job with their pizza.

The cheese pizza was my first bite. The cheese was melted to perfection, and there was a healthy amount of sauce beneath it. The crust was thin and crunchy, the perfect contrast to the gooiness of the cheese. The crushed red pepper that I added was just the right addition to give each bite a bit of tang.

The buffalo chicken was also pretty on point. I like my buffalo chicken pizza a bit spicier, but overall it was good. There was a good amount of chicken that was spread out evenly over the slice, and there was enough buffalo sauce on it to make every bite flavorful and tasty.

Needless to say, I will definitely be going back to Forno on Mondays with the guys from now on. I do not know too many places out there where you can get a good, satisfying meal for only $2.51 (I ordered a glass for water, it would be a bit more if you wanted something else to drink). Hopefully you can get to Forno sometime when you are looking to save some money or if you are just looking for some good pizza! When you get there, give me a shout and let me know how it was!! 

Asian Steak and Potatoes

The ChopHouse

4 Lakeview Drive

Gibbsboro, NJ 08026

This past Sunday night, my family and I had dinner plans to go to one of my favorite steak houses in the area, the ChopHouse in Gibbsboro, NJ. We usually all get together at my house for Sunday home cooked dinner, but this week was my cousin and cousin in law’s birthdays, so we decided to go out to dinner as a group instead.

For those of you that do not know, the ChopHouse is a traditional steak house with a large bar, and tables in the bar area as well an adjoining dining room. They also have a room downstairs that can be rented out for private parties. The main dining room is very cool. If you sit near the windows you can look out onto the river, which during the winter when it is frozen with snow on top, is a very pretty sight. The steak house has a very traditional feel and décor, but something that is very unique is the way that the kitchen looked. From the dining room you could see into the kitchen a bit, and I always think that is cool because it gives people that are interested in food like myself more to think about.

Once we were seated, I took a look at the menu, which I have seen a few times before, and I was lost as per usual. They offer a prix fixe menu available on Sundays, which had some great options, but I wound up ordering a la carte. They had lobster bisque on special, which I ordered as I almost always do when it is available. We also ordered a spicy buffalo calamari salad for the table to split. For my main course I decided on Kobe beef short ribs over wasabi mashed potatoes.

The meal started in a phenomenal manner. The lobster bisque was creamy and flavorful, exactly what I was looking for. I personally like big chunks of seafood in my bisque, which I normally only get when I make it, but it was still very good the way the ChopHouse served it. The lobster was diced up small, but the stock was full of lobster flavor, and the cream was a perfect pairing for the lobster in the soup. I cannot think of too many things that go better than lobster and cream. They finished the soup off with fresh chives that were a nice bit of crunch added to the few bites that I ate them in. I wound up sopping the soup up with bread, and my family asked me intently, “did you like that?” as they laughed.

The spicy buffalo calamari salad that we ordered for the table was a very interesting and different salad than I am used to. The calamari was in large rings, fried to perfection, and then tossed with spicy buffalo sauce. It was spread over the top of the salad with housemade blue cheese dressing. I am not a big blue cheese fan because I think it is very overpowering in most instances, but this dressing was fantastic. It was creamy, with just enough blue cheese to give it a nice bit of zing. The creaminess of the dressing balanced out the spiciness perfectly.

When the main courses arrived, I knew that I had made the right decision about my meal. I had never had Kobe beef of any kind before, and I figured that it would be even better in this dish since short ribs are slow cooked. Kobe beef is already a tender meat, so slow cooking it makes it even more tender. The short ribs were covered in a hoisin sauce, which is like an Asian barbeque sauce. 

The short ribs were so tender that when I tried to move them from the top of the potatoes, they fell apart. The hoisin sauce was the perfect sauce for the short ribs. It was sweet, but not too sweet, salty, and had a nice bite to it. The ribs melted in my mouth and paired well together with the wasabi mashed potatoes. The potatoes were in a world of their own. I have had wasabi mashed before, but never like this. They were still the color that mashed potatoes are, which was weird because they are usually the bright green color of wasabi. They may not have looked like wasabi mashed, but they definitely tasted like it. Each bite was full of fresh wasabi flavor, so that every time I took a bite, it was an explosion of flavor to every inch of my palate. The idea behind this dish of applying Asian flavors to American classics is exactly the kind of thing that makes me a foodie. Mixing cultures to create something new is one of the coolest things about food and its endless possibilities.

I happened to try my aunt’s crabcake as well, and it was very well done. Full of fresh crab and breading, neither was too far in the forefront, but rather they melded perfectly together to leave every bite buttery, rich, and luscious. I was not a fan of the blue cheese mashed potatoes that they served with one of the steak entrees that I tried. The mashed potatoes were completely masked by the flavor of the blue cheese, and I really did not enjoy it. It tasted like I was chewing on mold.

When you order a la carte from the ChopHouse you are served complimentary creamed spinach and mashed potatoes. Both were very good. The creamed spinach was creamy, salty, and delicious. The mashed potatoes were chunky yet smooth; so yummy! When you go don’t worry about ordering sides, since these will come no matter what and they are very good.

When it came time to order dessert I was torn yet again. I really wanted the Ghiradelli brownie sundae, but my cousin and his wife ordered it, so I ordered the key lime pie so that I could try two different things. The key lime pie was magnificent. I am a huge key lime pie fan, and was surprised to see it on the menu in the dead of winter, but was very happy that it was. They serve it with a graham cracker crust, and top it with crushed pistachios. I thought that the pistachios were really unnecessary; they did not really add anything to the dish. They lacked flavor and the crust already added enough of a crunch. I also was not a fan of the home made whipped cream. Maybe it is just because I had the homemade Schlag at Peter Luger in New York and nothing will ever be that good, but the whipped cream had no sweetness or thickness. The pie itself was awesome. It had the ideal sweetness to tartness ratio. The best key lime pies, to me anyway, are always very tart.

The Ghirardelli brownie sundae was also very good. It was very rich as a brownie sundae should be, and full of flavor. The vanilla ice cream cut through the richness very nicely.

It is hard to believe that this restaurant is of the same group as PJ Welihans. There is nothing wrong with PJ’s, but the food there is nowhere near the caliber that comes out of the kitchen at the ChopHouse. I know that one is upscale and one is pub food, but the pub food at PJ’s isn’t very well done for pub food, and the steak house fare at the ChopHouse is near perfection. Well that is all I got for this time. When you want a nice meal, maybe a romantic night for two, or a special occasion, make a reservation at the ChopHouse and let me know what you think!

Burgers, Wings and Beers, Oh My!

The Ugly Moose

443 Shurs Lane

Manayunk, PA

On Saturday afternoon my cousin, his wife, my brother and I went into Manayunk to get some wings, beers, and watch some playoff football. Obviously we were not the happiest football fans in the world since the Eagles lost last weekend, but we still enjoyed watching the Ravens and Steelers slug it out. We decided on the Ugly Moose, which my cousin and his wife had eaten at once or twice while his wife lived in Manayunk a few years ago. They told us that the burgers were good, but that they had never tried the wings, so we took a gamble and decided to try it out.

They had a pretty cool list of beers on tap, most of them I had never heard of, and I love that about a bar. It was fairly dark inside, with a couple big TVs and very few people. They had a wood burning heater that I thought was pretty cool, but very got when I got too close. And I cannot forget that being named the Ugly Moose, they of course has a moose head on the wall. I was not surprised by the amount of people however because we went at about 3:45 in the afternoon.

I started off the afternoon with a beer called Palm. It was a very smooth beer, and it was everything that I look for in my favorite beers. It was perfectly carbonated and had a smooth aftertaste that was not very hoppy. I tend to lose interest in beers when I feel like I just had raw hops in my mouth. It was a bronze color, which I usually prefer to lighter beers. They served it in a special glass that was much like a courvoisier glass and that only enhanced the experience.

When we ordered our food, we decided to get a large order of Moose wings. They were basted and slow roasted, and then flash fried to order. By standard they are served with medium heat sauce, blue cheese, and celery, but you can increase the spice of the sauce if you prefer. I love spicy stuff, usually the hotter the better, but to accommodate my cousin’s wife, we all just ordered the same large plate of medium wings. When we finally got them, the bartender had forgotten our food order originally but made up for it by giving us 3 free rounds of drinks, we were all pleasantly surprised. The wings were superb! They did not have much sauce on the outside, but instead they must have been dry rubbed before they were slow roasted. I could definitely feel the heat from the cayenne pepper, the black pepper, and perhaps a bit of chili powder. They had the perfect amount of heat, and the wings were a very good size. We finished them up rather quickly, and we had just finished when they brought us the burgers that we had ordered.

I had ordered the Big Sky Burger, which was a ½ lb of choice steer, topped with cheddar and jack cheeses, applewood smoked bacon, onion, and lettuce and I finished it off with some ketchup and grey poupon. The burger was very good, the perfect thing to eat after a good amount of wings already down. It was a pretty standard cheeseburger, perfectly chargrilled, covered in gooey cheese and crisp lettuce and onion. The things that really made this burger unique were the bun and the bacon.

I have had a lot of bad experiences with bacon cheeseburgers because many restaurants that I have been to do no cook the bacon properly. It needs to be extremely crisp so that it adds an element of crunch, saltiness, and smoke, and boy did the Ugly Moose nail it. The bun was perfect as well, but it was completely unlike anything I had ever seen on a burger before. It was a buttery French roll, large enough to support the burger, and tasty enough to compliment it, but not take away from the burger taste. It was sweet and delicious. A dish I would order again and again.

The Ugly Moose was really my kind of place. I like to eat all kinds of different things, but a restaurant can always win over my heart with a great beer list and a great burger. The Ugly Moose nailed both, and I recommend you get out there and give it a shot!

A Holiday Celebration a Few Weeks Late

La Locanda

1220 White Horse Road

Voorhees, NJ 08049

I am sorry in advance for the length of this post, but I absolutely am in love with this restaurant. I have been there a few times. This Friday night my family and I had plans with close family friends to have dinner there because we did not get to have our usual get-together before Christmas. La Locanda is our usual restaurant for our end of the year get-together as it is a favorite of both of our families. It is hands down the best restaurant that I have been to in terms of food. It is a small Italian restaurant owned by a man from Italy named Luigi that has many Italian staff members as well. It is a BYOB, but they will serve you limoncello after the end of your meal. It does not get much more authentic than La Locanda. It is reminiscent of an Italian restaurant set in the hills of Italy

Our meal started off in a haze of appetizers. There were 13 of us at the table so we ordered quite a few appetizers, two of each, and shared them around the table. We started with broccoli rabe that was sautéed in garlic, olive oil, and served with homemade sausages. The broccoli rabe was seasoned perfectly, and the garlic and olive oil were a match made in heaven for this plate. The broccoli rabe was tender, flavorful, and it tasted exactly the way it should when it is prepared in the authentic Italian fashion. The sausage was also fantastic. It was cooked perfectly and complemented the broccoli rabe well.

We also ordered the fried calamari with hot pepper, lemon, and marinara sauce. I love fried calamari in most restaurants, and the fried calamari there is at the top of a short list of places that do it very, very well. The calamari had just enough breading on the outside to complement the tender, flavorful octopus on the inside. Drizzling a bit of lemon juice over the top of these crunchy little morsels was a fantastic addition before the perfection was completed by dunking the calamri into the house made marinara sauce.  

For the first time at La Locanda, I tried the grilled octopus appetizer, and I would eat this as an entrée if I could. One of the people I was with told me that he has eaten at hundreds of Italian restaurants, and he has never tasted anything like it in his life. Knowing the man, I take that statement very seriously and I would agree with him even though I have not tried it anywhere else. The octopus was super tender, and it tasted so amazing. It was charred on the outside, but still very tender on the inside. The texture was great because it was not rubbery like it can be in other forms. The lemon juice and the olive oil enhanced the flavor to new heights.

Grilled artichokes with lemon, olive oil, and garlic is a special appetizer that is not usually listed on the menu, but is typically available to order. The baby artichokes were scrumptious. They were completely charred on the outside, and they were covered in the perfect amount of lemon juice that left them immensely citrusy, which I found amazing.

La Locanda offers brick oven pizza that I had for the very first time in my most recent visit. We ordered the Laceno pizza, which incidentally is named after the old name of the restaurant. The pizza is topped with arugula, diced tomatoes, and fresh shaved parmigiano reggiano. These flavors meld together perfectly on the crispy, thin crust.

I had ordered the Caesar salad previous to learning that the rest of the table had ordered a mountain of appetizers, so I was a bit more full than I would have liked when I ate it. Regardless, I ate the entire salad because it was magnificent. The dressing was absolutely fantastic. It was the perfect balance of cream and citrus, in a way that I had never tasted before. It had the perfect amount of croutons and shaved parmigiano reggiano on top, and the fresh cracked black pepper rounded of the entire combination nicely. 

Thankfully La Locanda is a traditional Italian restaurant and serves the meal in many different courses, because otherwise I never would have been able to finish my meal. The next course was a handmade cavatelli pasta with a creamy tomato sauce. The pasta was rich and flavorful, and the sauce was delicious. It was the kind of sauce made me want to dunk my bread into over and over again until there was no sauce left!

Finally our entrees came out, (I wasn’t complaining, it just took a while because we had so many courses served to us). Last time I had been to La Locanda I had wanted to order the dish that I ordered this time, but I was distracted by a special item. This time I did not allow myself to be distracted and I ordered the papardelle telefono. Papardelle is a wide, rustic style pasta. Like all of the pastas at La Locanda, it is made by hand somewhere in Italy and then flown in to the States. The remainder of the ingredients in the papardelle telefono were meatballs in a housemade marinara sauce with melted mozzarella cheese on top. The meatballs had so much flavor! You could taste the garlic and basil in them, without having them overpower the taste of the meat itself. The sauce and cheese were a wonderful touch. They completed the dish perfectly and made it one of the best things I have ever eaten!

Naturally I had to taste what the people sitting around me ordered for dinner as well so that I would know if I should order it some time. My friend sitting next to me ordered whole wheat penne with asparagus, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and white wine. This had recently replaced the whole wheat orecchiette that used to be on the La Locanda menu. It was a very good dish. Sundried tomatoes and asparagus always serve great together as a combination. I would surely recommend this dish to anyone.

My brother ordered the veal sorrentina with a side of potato gnocchi. Veal sorrentina is what La Locanda calls their veal parmigiana. I have to tell you that this is the greatest veal parmigiana I have ever tasted in my life! First off, the veal was the size of a large dinner plate, and it was topped with a decent amount of sauce and mozzarella cheese. The veal was breaded in an amazing way. The breading was perfectly coated around the outside of the veal, which left each and every bite crispy and succulent. The veal on the inside of the crust was incredibly tender; it almost melted in my mouth. I have never eaten this as a whole meal, but I can tell you I will most definitely be ordering it for my meal the next time I go to La Locanda. The gnocchi was also great. I find it difficult to eat a lot of gnocchi because it is very heavy and carby usually, but this gnocchi was light and fluffy, and tasted as homemade as any pasta I had ever had.

We moved onward to dessert after some more wine and a long break following the entrée course. I ordered the bananas foster cheesecake. It sounded very original and unique, so I thought I would give it a shot. I was a little skeptical because I do not usually enjoy desserts that have alcohol in them because they usually taste too much like the booze, but this blew me away. You could not taste any alcohol; all you could taste was the banana and the cream! The cheesecake was light, fluffy, rich, and scrumptious. The graham cracker crust on the bottom was the perfect amount of crunch to go with the cheesecake. La Locanda usually serves a homemade ice cream scoop on the side of every dessert, and this night’s flavor did not disappoint. The chocolate scoop was as good as I have ever had. It had small chunks of toffee or nuts in it that were a delightful little treat with each bite.

I also tried my brother’s chocolate mousse cake which was phenomenal. The mouse was creamy, the cake was fluffy, and the whipped cream just made it to die for. I seriously wanted to take the plate from him!

I tried the canolli of my friend sitting to my right and was not disappointed there either. Through my experiences I have found that canollis are usually either very good, or very bad. This was one of the very good variety. It was a huge canolli! The cream was luscious, and the hard crust was a real treat. We washed down our desserts with the limoncello that they offer, which is incredible. As with most of the menu I am sure that it comes from Italy, so there is really no way for it to be better or more authentic.

If you have never been to La Locanda, or never heard of it for that matter, check it out. I am almost certain it will knock your socks off, so get out there and try it!

Huh Famiglia? Oh, Tre Famiglia

Tre Famiglia

403 North Haddon Avenue

Haddonfield, NJ 08033

This Saturday night I went out to dinner with my family to Tre Famiglia in Haddonfield, New Jersey. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this place it is a great little neighborhood gem, an Italian BYOB in Haddonfield, NJ. I would venture to say it is one of the best Italian places I have ever been, and definitely one of the best in South Jersey. The décor is very quaint, old school Italian décor, darkly lit, a very romantic place for couples. I have been here a few times before because my cousin lives down the road and has told me about it, and I have yet to be disappointed. Their menu is very good. They offer many different options from fresh made pastas to old school Italian favorites like chicken parmigiana and twists on classics like sausage a figs with a balsamic drizzle (delicious by the way).

So I went with my aunt and uncle, whom I live with, and my cousin and her fiancé. I was a little less excited about going out to eat than I normally was because my throat was bothering me and it made eating very unenjoyable, something I did not really think was possible until my throat started hurting last week. But my love of food prevailed and I went to dinner at Tre Famiglia anyway because the food and experience are usually so fantastic. We brought two bottles of New Port Great White with us, which is a truly delicious Reisling that you can only get in Rhode Island.

As is the problem with a lot of great restaurants, if you really consider it a problem, the menu has a ton of different choices. These choices offer a lot of diversity for those eaters that either want to try different things, or may be picky eaters that need that wide variety of choices. While this is great, it leads me to have quite a bit of indecision when I look over the menu because each dish offers me something I would like. so many different dishes offer me things that I would like. Just when I thought I had it figured out, the waiter came over to tell us about the specials, and the curveball locked up my knees and I was completely baffled. After a few minutes I gathered my composure and ordered something very interesting that I had never seen or heard of on a menu before.

In the meantime we of course talked and drank some wine, while enjoying the delicious bread and olive oil. The olive oil has all kinds of spices in it which made it extremely delicious. The ones that I could discern were garlic, black pepper, and red pepper.

I wound up ordering a special purple potato soup with lump crabmeat in it for an appetizer. I am a potato soup fanatic, so I will order it in almost any restaurant that offers it, so taking into consideration that I have never had purple potatoes before made that soup a must for me to order. I was not disappointed. The soup was silky smooth, very creamy, and extremely delicious. The chunks of crab that were dispersed throughout were a nice touch as well. I was worried that the texture would get muddled together, but they were very complimentary.

For my main course I had ordered pork Milanese which is a dish that I have seen on the menu in quite a few restaurants before, but I have never actually ordered. Pork Milanese at Tre Famiglia is served breaded, over creamy risotto, topped with baby arugala and shaved Romano cheese. It came out much better than I had expected. The pork was super crispy on the outside, while remaining very moist on the inside. The lemon wedge served with it added so much flavor when squeezed on top of the pork, and the arugala added a nice peppery element to the pork when eaten together. The risotto underneath was super creamy, a dish that I would order all on its own if they offered it. Definitely a winning dish in my book, and something I would recommend to anyone else heading to Tre Famiglia for dinner any time soon. I also tasted the bronzino filet special that they offered which was very good. The fish was delicate, yet firm, and it was extremely well cooked and seasoned.

For dessert I had the chocolate and vanilla tartufo, and I tasted the peanut butter tartufo. Both were excellent. Tartufo is quickly becoming my favorite dessert to order whenever it is offered because it is so delicious and so rare to find on menus in my experience. The contrast between the creaminess of the ice cream and crunch of the hard outside is the best part of the experience of eating tartufo. Everything that I had I would definitely recommend to anyone, while also recommending the sausage and figs appetizer and the apple cake for dessert. I truly do not think that Tre Famiglia has anything that will disappoint even the pickiest of eaters. Get out and try it if you get the chance, and let me know what you think!

What this Phood is all about

Sometimes it’s weird to sit back and think about how you got to a point in your life. For me it’s weird to think about my passion and affection for food, because my life has not always been so influenced by food. As a young kid I was an extremely picky eater. I wouldn’t eat very many different things, and the things that I would eat I would only eat a few bites of. My sister and my mom used to joke with me and tell me that I looked like a Somolian child. I was skinny to the point that it did not look healthy, but as I got older
my tastes changed, and I grew into the adventurous eater I am today. I learned that one of the best ways to experience different cultures other than traveling and spending time in other countries, is through food.

Thinking back on it, it is hard to pinpoint one time in my life that changed my passion to for food, but if I
really had to narrow it down, I would think that it leads back to my first encounter with the Philadelphia cheesesteak. I grew up in southern New Jersey, about 40 minutes from Philadelphia. Naturally growing up I spent a lot of time in Philadelphia at sports games, but particularly Philadelphia Flyers games because I played hockey for many years and I am a huge fan of both the game and the Flyers. The first time that I got a Philadelphia cheesesteak was at a Flyers game, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did not realize at the time that there were places in Philadelphia that specifically specialized in cheesesteaks because like I said I grew up a
picky eater, so how was I to know about the Geno’s and the Pat’s of this world?

Well as I got older and got my driver's license and started going to Flyers games without my parents, I began to hear about my friends going to Geno’s or Pat’s before the games to get cheesesteaks. I of course was very curious, so I did this with my friends before a game once and my life has never been the same. I am an absolute cheesesteak junky as any Philadelphia raised person is. However, my love for the cheesesteak, that being a real Philly cheesesteak, wiz wit of course, led me to want to find all of the hole in the wall places in Philadelphia that people go to get their favorite cheesesteaks. I wanted to go to every place in Philly that people said was the best, so that I could really know where the best cheesesteak was.

Since that time I have made my way to a few different cheesesteak places, about 10 in total, and I still have to say that Jim’s on South Street is number 1 in my book, but my whole life involving food has been dramatically different since that time. Not only have I started eating differently, but I have picked up a desire to cook and try new recipes all the time. I watch food related shows whenever I am watching television. I would say about 75% of the shows I watch are some sort of show on the food network or the travel channel, with my favorites being Iron Chef America, Diners Drive-Ins and Dives, Man Vs. Food, and
Best Thing I Ever Ate. These shows all feed into my desire to find the hole in the wall, off the beaten path places that serve great food for cheap. That has expanded into finding out all that I can about the Philadelphia and South Jersey suburbs food scene seeing as  it has grown so much in the past few years. People like Jose Garces and Stephen Starr have completely revamped the city in terms of dining, and they have made so much more incredible competition in the restaurant business, which only benefits me and the people out there like me that love food.

Almost every day I imagine myself becoming a chef or a food critic or a restaurateur. It has become a passion of mine, almost an obsession, and I am trying to express myself in the best way that I can in the moment by writing about my experiences. Most of my experiences will be eating at restaurants in the area, but from time to time I will throw in something about cooking, or maybe an entry about something cool I learned or watched about food. Hopefully you will find it entertaining, and maybe it will open your eyes to the world I have become so enveloped in. Upcoming entries that I have planned but I am sure more will get added in the meantime: Tre Famiglia, La Locanda, Amada, Tinto, and Le-Bec-Fin. Cheers!