Bigger isnt Always Better....

Lorenzo & Sons

305 South Street

Philadelphia, PA 19147

www.lorenzoandsons.com/ 

I woke up early for the USA/Russia hockey game during the Olympics and began drinking with a few friends at a bar near my house. After the game and ensuing celebration was over, I needed to put some food in my belly to soak up all the booze. I hadn’t tried Lorenzo and Sons Pizza yet since they had reopened, so I figured it was a good time to give it a shot. 

There was no line which was nice, and my slice was ready in mere minutes. But they didn't ask if I wanted it to go or stay, and wound up giving it to me to eat in, so I did just that. The slice is huge!

One pint for Lorenzo and Sons Pizza. I don't really know what all the fuss is about. I guess it's more the fact that it's a Philly landmark, the hours of operation and the sheer size of the slices than the actual quality of the pizza. The crust was nice, but the cheese to sauce ratio wasn't very good. There was far too much cheese and not enough sauce. It was good to try it, but I certainly wouldn't wait in line for it. The line can be ridiculously long sometimes. As I said its worth a try just for history sakes and to say you have had it, but its not really somewhere I will find myself going very often. Cheers!

Prefixe Failures...

Twenty Manning

261 South 20th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103

www.twentymanning.com/

I received a gift card to Twenty Manning for my birthday, so my fiancé and I decided to give it a try on Friday evening. It happened to be Valentine's Day, which we don’t celebrate, but we went out anyway. They had a prefix menu of course as most places do for that evening, and a lot of the options sounded pretty tasty. 

The drinks we ordered were pretty good, a mezcal cocktail for me and a bourbon drink for my lady. The meal started off right, but it went downhill quickly from there. It was a four course prefixe menu for 65 dollars. First up was a trio amuse bouche of tuna tartare, an oyster shooter and an avocado mousse. None were particularly satisfying. I liked the tartare best, because of its fresh clean flavors, but it was not seasoned enough. The oyster shooter was far too acidic, and the avocado mousse was just bland. 

For our second course we received a "rack" of lamb and haloumi salad. My rack of lamb was actually one lamb chop with enough English pea purée for an entire rack. The pea puree was good, but there was far too much of it on the plate for the measly amount of lamb that was with it. The lamb chop also lacked a good sear on its exterior. I was severely disappointed by the size and execution of the plates because at 65 dollars per person, I was expecting a lot more. The haloumi was lukewarm and actually kind of difficult to chew. It was really going downhill quickly.

The third courses were the seared tuna and the surf and turf. My tuna was ok, but very bland. That seemed to be a common theme of the night. You would think that these prefix menus for holidays would be easier to execute because the options are limited, but the execution on this particular night was way off. The soba noodles that came with the tuna were also bland. They needed some soy or garlic and ginger or something to else to season them.  It was all very disappointing. I liked the flavor of the steak in the surf and turf, but the shrimp were tough and very overcooked. 

Dessert was a throw away course. There really was not one good bite amongst the three. I really enjoy when you have a few different small bites to choose from on a desserts plate, but this was just poorly executed. The pastries were dry. The best of the three was the raspberry cheesecake, but it wasn't very good in its own right. The raspberry flavor was so faint, you almost couldn’t tell what it was.

One and a half pints for Twenty Manning Grill. We were so very disappointed in our experience here. I really wanted to like this place, but the food and the price were really not up to par. The service and drinks were pretty good, but to be charged 65 dollars per person for the quality and amount of food we got was really disappointing. I hope Audrey Claire is a better experience than this. I would avoid this one. Cheers!

Top Chef Roller Coaster...

The Gaslight

120 Market Street

Philadelphia, PA 19106

www.thegaslightphilly.com/ 

I really enjoyed being here the for Top Chef viewing party. I wasn't sure if they were going to be serving food or not since they werent technically open yet, but I was pretty happy to find out they were. There were all kinds of chefs in the crowd and Jason Cichonski was in the dining room all night talking to guests and hanging out. He seems like a pretty cool guy.

My fiance and I decided to order a few different things off of the small bites and dips section to share as well as a few of the $5 bourbon apple ciders they were offering up during the party. The drinks were awesome. Loved the bourbon touch. I looked at the regular cocktail menu, and it looked awesome, albeit a little weirdly named. They had some pretty unique drinks but the names were just super weird, like they were trying to be really cool and hip but taking it a little too far.

On to the food. We ordered the charred eggplant salsa, half order of Thai peanut wings, rueben rolls and onion rings. We loved the eggplant salsa and the three types of housemade chips that came with it, tortilla, rice crackers and pita. We didnt really think the rice crackers really went together with the eggplant salsa very well, but the pita chips were really good. 

The wings were pretty bad. I really didn’t like the peanut sauce taste. It just tasted like peanut butter slathered over wings, which as you can imagine isn’t really appetizing. The wings were also cold when the came out, which is never great either. When I think Thai flavors, I always look for the kick of spice and garlic and I was really missing it.

I loved the rueben rolls and the Russian dipping sauce it came with. The exterior was perfectly crunchy, but it was pretty greasy though, but the inside was where the magic was. Chopped corned beef, mixed with the perfect amount of swiss cheese and enough sauerkraut to taste it, but not be overpowered by it. I would order these again in a heart beat, and just hope they weren’t so greasy this time.

The onions, oh my the onion rings. Outstanding! The best onion rings I have had in a long time. I am so sick of the beer battered mess you find elsewhere. These were breaded and fried perfectly crispy, then drizzled with a creamy yuzu aioli. And get this, chopped long hots on them as well to give them a bit of a spice whallop. Absolutely fantastic.

They had a really nice selection of canned beers on special too for the show. We decided to order a dessert halfway through the show to share. The desserts were seasonal puddings served in sugar cookie cups, what a cool concept. They were a cool concept in theory, but the execution just wasn’t there. We ordered the banana pudding with peanut butter drizzle. It didn’t have enough banana flavor, and the cup was very difficult to break into pieces and eat with the pudding. I also think it needed more peanut butter sauce. There just wasn’t enough for my taste.

The service needs a lot of work. It was definitely pretty slow, but it’s new and wasn’t even officially open yet so I hope it will get worked out.

Two pints for the Gaslight. They really need to sure up the service and make some tweaks to the menu in order to get things smoothed out and make it all come together nicely. Theres a lot of potential here, but it remains to be seen if it all comes together. Give it a shot and see what you think. Cheers!

Fit for a Maharajah...

Tashan

777 South Broad Street

Philadelphia, PA 19147

www.mytashan.com/ 

For the second week of restaurant week, I decided to take my fiancé out to a place that we had wanted to try for a while, Tashan. They offered a pretty good deal, 4 courses instead of the usual three for the 35 dollar charge.  Its beautifully decorated inside,  and had a very chic and modern feel to it. We brought my fiance's friend from work with us, and we saw some open tables when we were standing waiting to be seated. We wound up waiting a little while to be seated which I thought was strange considering there were a couple open four seat tables, but eventually we were seated. We ordered a few beers and looked over the menu. There were plenty of options for everyone as there usually is with Indian cuisine. Over 50 percent of Indians are vegetarians, so there is usually plenty to chose from in that department. I was a little surprised to see a beef dish on the menu, but that clearly is a bit of the Americanization of the menu. 

 

Our waiter was a bit weird, and he made himself pretty invisible at times, which really took away from the meal for us. After he took our order, he said that the chef would be sending out an amuse bouche of lobster bisque for our first course, but unfortunately that never came. Our first courses were the Gol Gappa, a dish of durum wheat puffs, spiced potato and chickpea, with mint-cilantro water and the Malai Kofta Lollypops, Panko-crusted potato lollypops, paneer cheese, tomato-cashew sauce. I thought both were nicely executed.  The crunchy exterior of the lollypops held the heat into the filling keeping it warm the entire time we were eating it. I loved the creamy sauce underneath of it as well, However I do think the potato was under seasoned  I really liked the gol gappa as well. The wheat puff was very crunchy and the filling was very tasty. It was seasoned perfectly and the mint cilarntro water put a nice bit of freshness into the dish. 

Next up was the second courses of the Gobhi Manchurian, chickpea and rice flour-breaded cauliflower covered in red chili-garlic sauce, and the Paneer Lababdar, Garam masala-Kashmere cheese with paprika, fenugreek onion and tomato sauce. I have had paneer in many ways in Indian restaurants, but never as a big block of cheese. Usually it is cut into smaller pieces, and after having it this way, I definitely prefer it smaller. It seems to be more tender that way. I enjoyed the flavor of the sauce though.  The gobhi was the best bite of the evening for me. It was cooked perfectly, had a really nice crust, and the sauce that covered it had some killer heat to it. It left my mouth tingling for quite some time. 

Our next course was the masala lobster and the bharwan baingan. Unfortunately my fiancé devoured hers,  so I never had the chance to try it, but she said it was delicious. My masala lobster had nice flavor, but unfortunately it was a little tough. I did appreciate the fact that they even offered lobster on their restaurant week menu, but the execution just wasn’t there.

Our waiter disappeared for a while in between our main courses and dessert. I know the molten cake probably took a few minutes to prepare, but he was gone for close to a half hour, without even checking in on us. I hate that, and the girls weren’t happy about it either.  Eventually he came out with our desserts and the espresso I ordered, and I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor of the crème brulee. While you don’t think of crème brulee as an Indian dessert, but the combination of the flavors of gulab jamun really brought it home. It's such a traditional Indian dessert, that it made the dessert extremely familiar, even though it was nontraditional. It was sweet and milky, and the crystallized sugar on top was a really nice bit of texture. The spiced molten chocolate cake however was a bit of a miss for me. While the execution of the cake was spot on, with a perfect molten center, the spices in the cake overpowered it all. I like a bit of spice or savory touch to desserts, but this was far too heavy-handed to be successful.

Three pints for Tashan. Most of the food was pretty tasty, and I am sure some of the more traditional dishes would be very good as well. I had a problem with the service, but I know that that can always be corrected. I will definitely make a return visit at some point.

Actually we did make a return visit a little while ago, and I have to say my recommendation still stands. Go for the food, but the service is really poor. It just doesnt match the upscale nature of the restaurant and higher quality of the food. Its definitely worth a visit for something different, so check it out and let me know what you think! Cheers!