Monday, November 17, 2014

Top Chef Roller Coaster...



The Gaslight
120 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106

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!

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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
I am a food lover living in Philadelphia.

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