Old School Feel in Rittenhouse Square

 

Continental Midtown

1801 Chestnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103

http://www.continentalmidtown.com/ 

I wanted to go out for happy hour with my girlfriend and a friend of ours from college because we had not seen her since we graduated last May, so a few weeks ago we headed to the Continental Midtown to have some drinks and some food. I was excited to try this place because of the rooftop bar, but I was a bit disappointed by the prices.

I respect Steven Starr a lot because of what he has done in Philadelphia for the food scene, but I cannot believe that there was no kind of happy hour pricing for the drinks and food on the day that we went. At four o’clock in the afternoon you would expect to at least have some sort of reduction in prices of the food and drinks. However, everything was full price, so I wound up paying a lot for food and drinks that I did not really feel was worth it.

I had two drinks, the Singapore Sling and the Sloe Gin Fizz. Both were simply ok, and because I do not really know what the two drinks are supposed to taste like, I’m not even sure that the second drink that I got was what I ordered. They were ok, but definitely not worth the price that I paid for them. The girls really enjoyed their drinks, so maybe I just ordered the wrong drinks.

We ordered the cheesesteak eggrolls and the Korean pork tacos to split between the three of us as well. The food was of much better quality than the drinks, as I enjoyed both things that we ordered. The cheesesteak eggrolls were fried perfectly, and the meat and cheese filling them up were absolutely fantastic. To top it all off, they were served with sriracha ketchup, and I loved every delicious drop of that combination. The Korean pork tacos were wonderful as well. They had an amazing tenderness to them, and the barbeque sauce that the pork was in added a touch of sweetness that rounded the dish out nicely.

I really enjoyed the time we spent at the Continental Midtown and I would not hesitate to go back. The menu is so diverse, and I love eating small plates style, so I would definitely like to eat dinner or lunch there. I know I will be back now that my girlfriend has moved to Rittenhouse Square. You should try it too! Cheers!

Abomination at the Beach

The Sea Shell

10 South Atlantic Avenue

Beach Haven, NJ 08008

www.seashelllbi.com/ 

Earlier this summer, I had one of the most awful restaurant experiences of my entire life. It was truly abysmal, and I was embarrassed that I had even thought that the restaurant would offer the group of people that I went with a good meal. That restaurant was the Sea Shell Resort and Beach Club in Beach Haven, New Jersey on Long Beach Island.

I went with my girlfriend, my cousin and his wife and a group of their friends that were down visiting. It was a disaster from the moment we walked in the door. It was clear that there was a problem when we walked in and were told there would be a 30 minute wait while there were tons of open tables around the restaurant.

Now I understand that you do not want to overload your servers, especially if you are understaffed, so I gave the restaurant the benefit of the doubt. We walked over to the bar and enjoyed a few beers while we waited. After an hour, we still had not been seated and no one had come to update us on anything, so my cousin walked over to talk to the hostess, and they finally sat us at tables that were open since we got there. After we sat down, we ordered some drinks, which after an unusually long wait, proceeded to be dropped by the waitress onto my cousin and friend’s feet. I understand that it happens sometimes too, but she clearly didn’t know what she was doing because she put half the tray on the table and then pulled the drinks from the side that was sitting on the table, which clearly meant the tray was going to crash down onto the floor. She was clearly embarrassed and probably made our experience worse because she did not want to come back around our table any more after the incident. She was rarely around the table for the rest of the evening.

I looked around while we were waiting for our food, and I was appalled at what I saw. They would not clean off the tables of people that had left unless they needed that table to seat new customers that were coming in. One table was full of dirty dishes the entire time we were eating. Talk about piss-poor service!

We waited entirely too long for our food. After we had ordered, most of us having ordered sandwiches, myself a burger, we waited an additional hour for the food to come out. Not only did we wait far too long for our food, but the food was complete crap. I ordered my burger to come out medium, and it came out far past well done. The same went for someone else that ordered a burger. I took a few bites because I was starving, but I had to stop eating because it was so bad.  

My cousin, who normally does not make a fuss about things like this was pissed and asked to speak to the manager. There was no manager on the premises. But a hostess with an attitude came out to talk to my cousin, and then proceeded to argue with him about what he had complained about. It was completely infuriating to watch her try to prove him wrong, when clearly she should have been doing whatever she could to make us feel better about the awful experience we had just had.

Every aspect of the way this restaurant was run on that particular evening was horrendous. The service was terrible, the food was awful, and the management, or lack there of was atrocious. Stay away from the Sea Shell Restaurant at all costs, trust me. Cheers!

If Only All Libraries Had Steak...

The Library II

306 Route 73 South

Marlton, NJ 08053
www.librarytwo.com/ 

The Library II is one of the best restaurants in South Jersey and in my opinion is one of the best value for money restaurant in South Jersey as well. They offer the best steak for the best prices around, and I really have never been disappointed in this restaurant in the 23 years that I have been going there. My family and I happened to go on a Friday night, and as soon as we got inside, we saw my best friend’s parents sitting at the bar. We wound up eating with them for a meal full of laughs and fun.

The Library II not only has fantastically grilled steaks and fish, but they offer one of the best salad bars that I have ever been to in my life. The salad bar offers both Caesar salad, and ice berg lettuce. There are probably about 50 different condiments for the salads, ranging from ham to cucumbers, pasta salad, peas, carrots, cheese, and about 7 kinds of dressing. They also offer a section to cut your own cheese and bread to eat with your salad as well. I could eat the salad bar as an entire meal.

I got my usual salad and all my favorite fix-ins with a nice slice of bread and a large hunk of cheese. Of course I enjoyed every bite. You can make your perfect salad, however you like it, and enjoy that before you go to order your steak. At the Library II, you do not order your main course at your table. You walk up to a window where the butcher slices your steak directly off the loin after you tell him the amount that you would like. I ordered a 10 oz New York sirloin and a side of garlic mashed potatoes to split with the table.

The steaks at the Library II, and any great steak for that matter, are the type of steaks that do not need any kind of sauce or enhancements to eat them with. No steak sauce, no butter, no au poivre, no béarnaise, no nothing. This steak just cuts like butter and tastes magnificently of pure beef flavor. The garlic mashed potatoes that we had were incredibly delectable. They had so much garlic flavor, and an amazingly creamy texture. 

I was feeling some key lime pie for dessert so I ordered a piece, remembering that they had a pretty good one. It was a good slice of pie, not too big, and the tartness of the key lime was cleansing and refreshing to my palate after an amazing steak dinner.

The Library II is phenomenal in all aspects. The food is fantastic, the bar is great, and the service is friendly and knowledgeable. For my money, it is one of the top 10 best restaurants in South Jersey, so if you get the chance, check it out! Cheers!

Another Fine Italian Restaurant in Puerto Rico

Il Postino

1104 Magdalena Avenida

San Juan Puerto Rico, 00908

Sorry again for no pictures on this one. I was really bad about carrying my phone with me to dinner because I knew no one was going to be calling me and I kind of wanted to shut myself off from everyone and everything relating to my life at home. 

On the final night of my nine day trip to Puerto Rico, I ventured out with my girlfriend’s family to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. I don’t remember being in the best of moods, but I can’t really remember why I wasn’t, so it must not have been that important. I wasn’t really looking forward to dinner as much as I usually was, but we ventured out and I made a decision about what to eat as soon as I got there. I saw that they offered a spicy sauced penne pasta with eggplant and chicken, so I immediately decided on that.

Il Postino offers indoor and outdoor seating. We sat outside, and it was a beautiful night, so we really lucked out. We ordered garlic knots for the table and we enjoyed them while we waited for our meals. They were buttery, garlicky, and piping hot. I really enjoyed them, and I enjoyed them even more when our main course came out and I could sop up the extra sauce with garlic knots. MMM!

I was so incredibly pleased with my pasta selection. I get aggravated when I go out and order a fra diavlo sauce or an arribiata sauce and it does not come out spicy when it is supposed to be. This sauce was just as spicy as advertised and I loved every second of it. My mouth was burning the whole time I was eating, but I didn’t care one bit. The pasta was cooked perfectly al dente, and the eggplant and chicken were phenomenal. The whole dish was cohesive and flavorful to the very last bite.

Il Postino is definitely worth a visit if you go to Puerto Rico. Not only do they do great pasta, but I have heard that their pizza is one of the best around. Give it a try if you want a hearty and delicious Italian meal in Puerto Rico. Cheers!

Better Art than Food

Brio

1165 Pinero Avenida

San Juan, PR 00920

http://www.briopr.com/ 

I had a really tough time writing this review because I could not rack my brain to remember what I had to eat at Brio in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I know that this may look bad on me, but I really feel that it is a sign about how bad the meal was for me to forget what I ate. I have never forgotten what I ate so easily before, so I do apologize, but it definitely relates to the quality of the meal.

My girlfriend and I went to Brio with her dad and the his colleague from the Intercontinental San Juan for a monthly meeting of an organization that they both belong to. The layout of the restaurant was interesting, an art gallery upstairs, and a restaurant downstairs, but that was the only good thing about my entire experience at Brio. I know that I had a Caesar salad that was simply ok. The salad dressing didn’t have a whole lot of flavor, so that usually makes me lose interest. Also there were large shavings of parmesan cheese that were far too large to be used on top of a salad.

I know that I had a churrasco steak for my main course and it was bit overcooked. Overall the steak was ok, but overcooking such a thin and tender piece of meat is an absolute crime to me. The chimichurri sauce was one of the worst I have ever had. It had a few stems in it and the sauce wasn’t very cohesive. My girlfriends salmon was atrociously overcooked, so that made me really see how poor the kitchen staff was.

We had some form of dessert, but I only remember taking a bite or two and stopping because it was pretty bad. 

My girlfriend’s dad and his colleague both said that the food all tasted as if it came from a box. Nothing seemed to be fresh and nothing seemed to be made from scratch. I do not really understand the point of having a restaurant if you are not going to make it seem like you care and put in the time and effort to make it worthwhile. Stay away from Brio; there are much better places to eat in Puerto Rico. Cheers!

Classy Like an Iron Chef

Budatai

1056 Ashford Avenue

Condado, PR 00907

www.budatai.com/ 

I know that I have mentioned my obsession with cooking shows before, but during my recent trip to Puerto Rico, I actually got to enjoy the fruits of some of the people that I have watched on TV. I love the fact that I can do this sometimes, and I really love the restaurant in Puerto Rico that I have now dined at twice. Chef Roberto Trevino was a contestant on the Next Iron Chef during the season that Iron Chef Garces was the eventual winner, and I was rooting for Trevino the entire time he was on the season before he was told he would not be the next iron chef. My girlfriend actually told him that in a slightly groupie like moment we had when we met him last December. Haha. He is doing some really fantastic things with fusion cuisines in Puerto Rico, but the crown jewel of his empire is his Asian/Latin fusion restaurant called Budatai.

Budatai is a little dark, and sometimes I feel very rude flashing my camera taking pictures, so I cannot really do the food justice because the pictures came out crappy, but it really is a fantastic place to eat. I will post the pictures anyway, but you might not be able to see much. The service both times I have been there was fantastic, although the waiter this time around was a weirdo and kept asking us if we were having a good time because we looked sad. I enjoyed a watermelon carpirinha while we perused the menu. We started our meal off by sharing pork profiteroles, I ordered the salmon with brown butter béarnaise with a quinoa stuffed pepper for my main course and for dessert we shared the apple pastry with vanilla ice cream.

While we waited for our meal, we enjoyed some cockatails. My watermelon carpirinha, was amazing! The watermelon was so fresh and the carpirinha taste wasn’t overpowered.

I was blown away by the pork profiteroles. They were ridiculously delicious and just an insane combination. Who would ever have thought to combine pork belly and salted caramel? It was perfection in every sense of the word and I would order it again and again.

My salmon may not have been as good as the profiteroles, but it was a really well executed dish. The quinoa stuffed peppers were a bit of let down. That may be my fault for expecting more heat from the peppers, but I wish that they would have been a lot spicier. However, the salmon was perfectly cooked, and the brown butter béarnaise was phenomenal. It was creamy and luscious, and it made me want to lick my plate clean.

The dessert was simply ok. The apple pastry was cooked nicely, but the apples weren’t particularly sweet or flavorful. The vanilla ice cream on top was a nice touch, however: it was not enough for me to fall in love with the dish. I am still waiting to be impressed by a dessert at Budatai. I haven’t been yet, but I know how talented a chef the owner is, so I am hoping I find a good one next time.

Budatai is one of my favorite restaurants anywhere. It’s a little hipster and trendy feeling, but it really executes everything it attempts perfectly.. The concept behind the restaurant is amazing, Latin/Asian fusion, and the chef/owner, Chef Roberto Trevino, is killing it in the kitchen. He has begun to build an empire in San Juan, and I suggest that everyone gets down to Puerto Rico as soon as possible to get in to one of his restaurants! Cheers!

French Food in the Old City

St. Germain

156 Sol St
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico 00901

http://www.stgermainpr.com/live/ 

Before I took my trip to Puerto Rico, my girlfriend had been telling me about this French restaurant in old San Juan that her parents visit frequently for crepes that they only serve on Sundays. I was very interested to try this place because I had never had savory crepes before and I was very excited to see how they compare to the sweet crepes I had tasted before.

As I mentioned before, Sundays is the only day that you can find crepes at St. Germain. St. Germain is as close to a French restaurant as you can find in Puerto Rico, and they are really doing some fantastic things. I went to St. Germain with my girlfriend, her sister, her niece and her father. They had a few different options for the savory side of things, but I wound up choosing the shrimp and pineapple creole crepe. It came served with a side salad. The shrimp were some of the best that I had ever had. They paired perfectly with the tartness of the pineapple. They were cooked perfectly and really soaked up the savory, salty flavor of the creole sauce. The crepes were incredibly well done. They were super thin, almost paper thin, and tasted every bit as good as the best pancake I have ever had. 

Not to be outdone, the sweet end of the deal was just as good as the savory side. I ordered a crepe filled with nutella and bananas and topped with vanilla ice cream to share with my girlfriend. We devoured the whole thing quite quickly. It was so sweet and delicious!

I have a whole new understanding of crepes after my visit to St. Germain, and I look forward to trying them in Paris one day! With any luck, that will happen sooner rather than later. If you get the chance and travel to Puerto Rico, don’t miss this gem in the heart of Old San Juan. They are open all week long, and they run their specials for crepes on Sundays. They apparently have an amazing menu for the rest of the week as well. Cheers!

Spanish Flair in San Juan

La Bodeguita

Intercontinental Hotel

San Juan, PR 00921

www.icsanjuanresort.com/ 

 La Bodeguita is a relatively new addition to the Intercontinental Hotel. It was not there when I visited in December 2009, but it opened after I left and it is really an awesome idea. It is built in the style of a Spanish barista shop and it offers coffee, wines by the glass, and select menu items. They specialize in sandwiches, which are what I enjoyed on a few separate occasions. The two sandwiches that I enjoyed were the Cuban sandwich, and the grilled chicken sandwich with caramelized onions.

The Cuban was really well done. Although the service is a bit slow at La Bodeguita sometimes, when the Cuban came out I was very happy with it. It was crunchy like a Cuban sandwich should be, not to mention the ham, cheese, mustard, and pickles combination that was as perfect as ever. Cuban sandwiches just may be my favorite sandwich of all time next to the cheeseburger, and La Bodeguita made quite a good one. I also enjoyed the grilled chicken sandwich that I had the next time I ate at La Bodeguita. It was nothing mind blowing or life changing, but the chicken was cooked perfectly, the onions were wonderfully caramelized, and the bread was a fantastic match for the sandwich.

I really enjoyed the two times that I ate at La Bodeguita. My girlfriend’s father is the GM of the hotel and La Bodeguita is his baby. He remodeled the hotel to include La Bodeguita after he arrived. I think he did a really fantastic job with it, and it is certain to keep visitors happy each and every time that they visit. Definitely give it a try if you visit the Intercontinental Hotel in San Juan! Cheers!

Italian in Latin Territory

Alfredo’s

Intercontinental Hotel

San Juan, PR 00921

www.icsanjuanresort.com/ 

Another one of the restaurants in the Intercontinental Hotel in San Juan where I recently stayed is called Alfredo’s. It has all kinds of pictures on the wall with famous people and the original owner, so it is highly esteemed to a lot of people. I love Alfredo’s, but they definitely have a bit of a problem with consistency. We ate there quite a few times, having room service, dinner, lunch and breakfast there, so I will try to keep my analysis as short as possible.

The first time that we ate at Alfredo’s was my first night in San Juan. We had gone down to the restaurant, but had to return to the hotel room because my girlfriend’s niece had knocked over a glass of water, scared herself, and wouldn’t stop crying. They sent up our food to the room, and I am not sure if it is due to the fact that it was supposed to be served in the restaurant or not, but it definitely was not up to the usual standard of Alfredo’s. I had lamb and risotto. The star of the dish was the risotto, creamy and cooked perfectly. The lamb was a bit under done, and had no seared crust on the outside. It was not the best meal I have had from Alfredo’s but it was still a nice meal nonetheless. 

 The desserts were okay at best as well. As I said, it could have just been do to the fact that we had to have them send our food up to the room, but the panna cotta was warm and not very tasty. The tiramisu was very bland and also tasted as if it had been sitting out for a while before it was served.

The following day we ate brunch at Alfredo’s because they have an amazing breakfast set up. They offer a buffet, as well as an omelet station, toasting station, waffle station, and many more items. The man behind the famous omelets, Jorge, is a master craftsman. His omelets are incredible, and his memory is as good as his ability to make omelets. I had not been to the hotel in a year and a half, and he remembered me like I was a close friend. Everything on the buffet is fresh and well prepared. The breakfast meats, the breakfast potatoes, the smoked salmon, and the pastries are all fantastic. I would definitely recommend going to their Sunday brunch if you get a chance.

The final time that I would like to recount is the second to last day that I was in Puerto Rico when we had lunch outside of Alfredo. I had a dish that I have absolutely fallen in love with, and I cannot wait to try it at more and more places. I know people from Puerto Rico may be offended by this comment, but the mofongo at Alfredo’s is outstanding. Mofongo is a traditional Puerto Rican dish of fried plantains made into a cone shape and served stuffed with some sort of meat in a creole sauce. I ordered the skirt steak mofongo and I was absolutely blown away. I love fried plantains in all forms, but intermixing them with tasty beef in a slightly sweet and spicy creole sauce was absolutely fantastic. I’m sure there might be more authentic places to get mofongo, and hopefully I will get to try them sometime, but for now I will keep the memory of Alfredo’s mofongo locked up in my mind. 

If you ever get the chance to visit Puerto Rico, particularly San Juan, I would recommend the Intercontinental Hotel and its many dining options to everyone. Everything is affordable and very nice, and the hospitality of the workers is unmatched. Definitely give Alfredo's a try if you are ever visiting San Juan. Cheers!

Beach Front Dining in San Juan

Ciao Mediterranean Cafe

Intercontinental Hotel

San Juan, PR 00921

http://www.icsanjuanresort.com/

In June I spent nine days in San Juan, Puerto Rico with my girlfriend’s family. Her parents live in the Intercontinental Hotel in Isla Verde because her dad is the general manager of the hotel and the director of operations for the Caribbean region for Intercontinental. We did a majority of our eating in places at the hotel, so my next few entries will be reviews of my food adventures in Puerto Rico, so I hope you enjoy!

I have stayed with my girlfriend’s family in Puerto Rico once before, so it was nothing new to me to go down to Ciao Mediterranean Café on the beach at the hotel and have lunch on the day that I arrived. My girlfriend, her sister, her baby daughter and I went down and enjoyed lunch at Ciao. I had been there a few times before, and I would be there a few more times as the week went along. Ciao is my favorite place to eat at the Intercontinental because I feel that they produce the best food at the hotel.

The first day when we had lunch, I ordered the Ensalada Puertoriquena con atun (Puerto Rican Salad with tuna). I had thought that the tuna would have been a tuna steak, but I actually enjoyed the tuna salad with the rest of the salad very much. The salad was very different from what I usually like in my salads, but it was really well done. The salad included hearts of palm, pineapple, tomato, lettuce, ham and onion, and the dressing was a citrusy vinaigrette of some sort. All of the different elements of the salad were great in their own right, but they mixed together in different bites so well.

Another night we all enjoyed dinner at Ciao. I had been craving pizza, and Ciao has very good pizza, so we ordered pizzas to share with my girlfriend and her sister. We ordered the chicken bacon ranch pizza and a special pizza called Bruno’s pizza, which was topped with fresh mozzeralla, fresh tomatoes, and fresh basil. Both pizzas were fantastic.

On yet another occasion, we enjoyed dinner at Ciao with my girlfriend’s immediate family, as well as her aunt and uncle that were visiting from Colombia. I had been having a craving for churrasco steak, which is a type of steak dish that is well known in Latin American countries, so I ordered it, and I was not disappointed. Churrasco is a skirt steak that is grilled and served with a chimichurri sauce, a sauce made from garlic, basil, and oil. The steak was completely charred on the outside, but perfectly tender on the inside. I used each and every bit of the wonderful chimichurri with each and every bite of the crunchy, flavorful steak.

If you ever get the chance to visit Puerto Rico, particularly San Juan, I would recommend the Intercontinental Hotel and its many dining options to everyone. Everything is affordable and very nice, and the hospitality of the workers is unmatched. Definitely give Ciao a try if you are ever visiting San Juan. Cheers!