717 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
My favorite time of the year came around in September…Center City Restaurant Week! Since it was being offered for two weeks, my girlfriend and I decided on trying two new places and saving the mountains of restaurant gift cards I had stockpiled for later in the fall. While I love restaurant week sometimes, there are always drawbacks. The restaurants are always packed, the servers are always irritable because the restaurants are so packed, and the choices are limited so it really doesn’t give you a full idea of what the restaurant can really do. That being said I think that for the prices that are being offered, it is a great opportunity to try a new place.
During the first week of Restaurant week, my girlfriend and I went to Union Trust Steak House in Olde City. I was really excited to try this place because I had heard good things about it and it is in an awesome location. When we first walked in and sat at the bar we were in awe of the set-up. Union Trust is in a building that used to be a bank, so the ceilings are higher than clouds and the incredible decorations inside made us feel mesmerized.
The dinner started with an assortment of breads and pretzels served with mustard for dipping. They were all delicious in their own right, but I was pretty partial to the pretzels. I mean can you really find many things better than a soft Philly pretzel? With the restaurant week deal offered, we could order an appetizer, a main dish, and a dessert for $35 and it also came with two sides. My girlfriend and I each ordered different things so that we could share everything, so we ordered the Kobe beef Carpaccio, colossal shrimp cocktail, cod, the coffee crusted filet with truffle butter, fingerling potatoes Lyonnais style, haricot vert, creamed corn, creamsicle cheesecake, and espresso cake.
The colossal shrimp cocktail was good, but I don’t know that I would have called it colossal. There were only three shrimp on it, and while they were big, I did not feel that it was as colossal as they were advertised to be. The cocktail sauce was the best thing about that appetizer in my opinion. The Kobe beef Carpaccio was good as well, but the salad on top was fumbled and messy and I didn’t really think it was needed at all in the dish to be honest. The beef was incredibly tender though, and the vinaigrette on top of it added a nice bit of citrus finish to it.
When our main courses came out, I was much happier with the plates that we had in front of us. The steak was very tender, albeit a bit overdone for my taste, but as I have mentioned before my girlfriend likes her meat really dead. Haha. The coffee crust was delicious, but the real star of the show was the truffle butter. It added an element of richness that could not be found in the meat alone. The cod was also really wonderful. It was a little bit salty, but the fish was cooked to perfection and the sauce that it was drizzled with was to die for.
The sides were perfect accompaniments for the most part. I really enjoyed the haricot verts and the lyonnaise style potatoes were delectable. The potatoes were roasted and full of flavor, and the haricot verts were super crunchy.
Dessert was a bit of a let down as well. It wasn’t bad, but it really wasn’t great either. I also felt like the “creamsicle” cheesecake was not really how it was described. It was basically a piece of normal cheesecake with a scoop of blood orange sorbet on the side, which in no way shape or form should be considered creamsicle cheesecake. The espresso cake was very good. It was what saved the dessert portion of the meal for us.
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