Sometimes You Just Need A Sandwich...

Paesanos II

1017 South 9th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19147

www.paesanosphillystyle.com/ 

I didn’t have plans on a Saturday afternoon and I needed something to do for lunch. I lived within walking distance of the Italian market, so I swung by Paesanos II because I was craving a sandwich. The storefront itself was small, but the menu options were unique and fun. It was packed when I walked in, but the sandwiches seemed to be coming up pretty quick.

I had a tough time choosing what to order, but I finally ordered the arista, a sandwich stuffed with roasted suckling pig, sharp provolone, sautéed broccoli rabe and grilled long hots. 

I loved the size of the sandwich. It wasn't overly humongous like some places sandwiches are, but it was packed to the gills with its filling. The flavor was awesome. The shredded pork was mondo flavorful and the sharpness of the cheese was amazing. I love any sandwich with some long hots on it, so it was pure bliss for me. The key to the sandwich was the bread. It had a crusty exterior and sesame seeds along the outside and the bread held the sandwich together perfectly. With pork sandwiches, the bread can make all of the difference because of the amount of juice associated with the pork.

Three and a half pints for Paesanos II. I loved the sandwich I got this time around and there were a ton of others that caught my eye while I was trying to order. The place is definitely worth a revisit. I'll definitely be checking out the rest of the menu! Let me know what you think! Cheers!

Center City Beauty...

Matyson

37 South 19th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103

www.matyson.com/ 

My fiancé and I went here one night to take in the space and taste the food because it was in the running for spaces for our rehearsal dinner. We we're seated immediately upon arrival at a table in the back near the kitchen. The space is pretty small and very tight, but it's very beautifully decorated and the ambiance is great. I had heard the food was awesome when Ben Puchowitz, now of Cheu Noodle Bar fame, was running the kitchen. I was hoping it was going to be just as good now.

We took our normal plan of action and ordered one appetizer and an entree each and one dessert. Our wine was opened as poured, but unfortunately that was the last time it was touched by our servers. It's probably just a pet peeve of mine, but when I go to a BYOB, I want them to pour the wine for us. I know we didn't buy the wine there obviously, but I'd still like it served. Maybe that's just me being a snob and if it is, my apologies.

Other than that our evening was perfect. We started with the ricotta cavatelli. Amazing! The pasta was incredibly tender and soaked up the duck ragout incredibly well. I loved the kale and the crunchy bits of pistachio were amazing to pair with the richness of the duck. 

For our main courses we ordered the the Australian rack of lamb and New York strip steak. Both of our meats were perfectly cooked. They were complimented amazingly well by delicious greens, veggies and sauces. I especially loved the kick from the jalapeño in the chimichurri sauce on the steak. Everything had really nice seasoning to it, and it was all cooked really well. 

Not to be outdone we had the pine nut tart with apricot preserves and vanilla ice cream for dessert. Wow. So tasty! It was an absolutely beautiful plate and the taste was perfection. The crust of the tart was buttery and held together nicely with the filling so perfect pieces broke off with each dig you too into the dessert. I also really enjoyed both the flavor of and the size of the ice cream scoop. There was plenty to go around for the whole dessert and it didn’t last long. They even removed the dessert from the bill because it took so long to get to us. 

Three and a half pints for Matyson. There is some really special food coming out of the kitchen at Matsyon. I really liked the look and the feel of the place, and if we didn’t have such a large group for our rehearsal dinner, we probably would have booked it. Place is great, check it out! Cheers!

A Cage Match for the Ages...

Osteria vs Amis Cage Match

One of the coolest culinary experiences I had last year was the ability to go to the Cage Matches hosted by the Vetri Family at Alla Spina. This was the first of the series, an epic battle featuring two powerhouse, Amis vs Osteria. I jumped at the chance to attend such an event when it was announced via Twitter, but had no idea exactly what we were in for. The hosted dinner was upstairs at Alla Spina in a room that I didn’t even know was up there. There were about 20 of us, all in for the $65 per person price tag that got us 8 courses and 8 paired drinks. Wow, a great deal and lots of food. Each team was supposed to use one of the 4 key ingredients in a dish that showcased the ingredient. Those four ingredients were blood orange, oxtail, sunchokes and radicchio. All of us participating were then given grading cards to grade the dishes on their presentation, taste, use of ingredient and beverage pairing. It was so awesome, kind of like being on our own little Iron Chef America right here in Philly!

The meal started with an offering from Amis, something Brad Spence called South Philly Foie Gras. They seared smoked mozzarella a la plancha, as they would with a piece of foie, and stuffed it with radicchio and topped it with a balsamic glaze and herbs. I thought it was a really tasty dish, but the radicchio was a bit lost for me. Their rhubarb cocktail was awesome though. It went down so easy, it was kind of scary. I love the taste of rhubarb and it worked really well here to provide a touch of acid and sweetness.

Osteria's first course was equally as good, but had a very similar dessert. It was a two way pork "sushi" roll, with a piece of loing stuffed with pork belly and wrapped with radicchio. The radicchio seemed to just be an afterthought here. While it held the whole roll together, it wasn’t the star. The pork overruled it. That being said, it was fantastically delicious. They paired the first course with a sour beer from the Bruery, actually a beautiful pair together due to the bite of the sour really cutting through the richness of the pork belly. Two courses, one beer and one cocktail down, it was going to be a long night. 

Second course was the pasta course from both parties. The order of dishes reversed with Osteria getting the chance to serve first. Their plating was fantastic, using hollowed out bones to plate their pasta with oxtail and bone marrow. The dish was incredibly rich and a great use of the oxtail. It was tender and coated the pasta well, and was only made that much better by the bone marrow. The crisp white wine served with this course was a great pairing as well.

The pasta course from Amis was off the chain for me. They made a porcini mushroom papardelle and coated it with a rich oxtail ragu and then topped that with shaved black truffles. What a plate of pasta! I would kill to have it again because it was astoundingly good. I ate way more of that big plate than I should have, but I just couldn’t help myself. It was paired with a very nice beer to round out another stellar course. Four courses, two beers, a cocktail and a glass of wine. Things were starting to get wild. I had the two teams pretty even at this point.

Next course was actually fish from both Osteria and Amis and both of their courses were served with a glass of red wine. For Amis who served first, it was a monkfish picatta with blood orange. They also used caperberries instead of traditional capers. It was an outstanding dish, but I thought it could have used a bit more blood orange in the sauce. It wasn’t as prominent as I would have liked it to be. The fish was perfectly cooked and it was topped with segments of blood orange and the beautiful caperberries. 

Osteria really nailed it with their presentation. They brought out the whole roasted sea bass that they had actually cooked in the roaster over at Osteria, and then took it back down stairs to carve it up and serve. When they brought it back up, they served it with roasted sun chokes and topped it with a touch of truffle just to make it that much more delicious. The sun chokes were great. They weren’t exactly the star of the dish for me, but they were really tasty. They were like puffy little potatoes, but with a completely different texture and more flavor. 6 courses, three glasses of wine, a cocktail and two beers later, it was a close battle and I was nearing capacity, but I had Osteria ahead by a nose after the third course.

Dessert time, and time to finish strong to an epic battle. Osteria was first up, and they served what they called chocolate covered booze, a chocolate covered blood orange and prosecco popsicle that was very interesting. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the chocolate and would have much rather had just the blood orange popsicle alone. They also served it along with some fried sweet dough that was awesome as well, but again I really didn’t think it went with the popsicle so it felt a bit odd.

Amis blew us all away with their dessert. Apparently there was a battle in the kitchen about the fact that they were going to use sun chokes in their dessert and Osteria said they couldn’t do it, that it was too savory. Well I have to tell you, the dessert Amis served was the best dessert I have ever had in my life. They made a sun choke cake, much like a pound cake, that was topped with a deliciously sweet syrup, candied sun chokes and the vaunted salted butter semi-freddo. If you haven’t had the salted butter semi-freddo at Amis before, you have no idea what you are missing. You could put it on anything and it would taste incredible, and it did nothing different here. The dessert blew me away. Paired with the beer they served, I easily ate three pieces of the cake and ice cream.

That dessert course turned the tide of the whole match. Osteria was way ahead after three rounds, so apparently everyone didn’t feel the same way I did about those first three courses. Amis converted a 90 something point swing on the dessert round to come back and win the battle as announced by the man himself, Marc Vetri. Osteria demanded to see the scores because they couldn’t believe it. It was an all around phenomenal evening and some of the most fun I have had in a long time. The food was unbelievable, and its just another reason why Philly is such a great food city. If you get the chance to attend one of these battles, you will not be disappointed, so do it! Cheers!

Top 10 Sweet Treats of 2014

Top 10 Sweets of 2014

I love looking back on some of the experiences I had over the course of the year at this time every year. Year after year, Philadelphia really blows me away with its quality and incredible ability to continue improving. This year was absolutely crazy in terms of quality openings and quality meals devoured. I wasn’t ever a dessert person really until I met my fiancé. As you all know, that has changed quite a bit. This year was a great year for them, so lets take a look at a quick recap:

10. The Pine Nut Tart with Apricots at Matyson - I heard a lot about Matyson and the food coming out of the kitchen when Ben Puchowitz was still in the kitchen, pre-Cheu days, and there were a lot of good things being said. Unfortunately, I never made it there while he was still there, but I am happy to say the food we experienced on our visit there was nothing short of splendid. The pine nut tart with apricots we had for dessert was damn near perfect. The crust was buttery and crumbly, the pine nuts added a nice depth of crunch and nuttiness, the caramel was a perfect accompaniment to it all. Each and every bite was spot on.

9. The Cake Shake at Square Burger - This is not a gimmick. Its real and its awesome. At Stephen Starr's season burger joint in Franklin Square Park, the make an ice cream shake with butterscotch krimpets, and it works out phenomenally well. The ice cream is delicious, but it’s the churned up krimpets that star in this dessert. They leave them chunky enough so that you can get them up the straw and chew them, leaving each sip full of tasty surprises.

8. The Buttermilk Chess Pie at the Alabama Dinner at the Fat Ham - Chef Kevin Sbraga invited some of his buddies, Chef Leo Maurelli and Chef Rob McDaniels, from down south up to the Fat Ham to cook with him and the chef running the show at the Fat Ham Aaron Gottesman. They knocked out tons of fantastic Southern favorites, some of which I am sure inspired the Fat Ham. Kevin Sbraga's stand out dish of the evening was his dessert, a traditional buttermilk chess pie. The custard filled pie, topped woith lemon Chantilly cream and fried rosemary leaves was rich in true Southern fashion and a beyond perfect way to end a delicious Southern feast.

7. The Rhubarb Panna Cotta at Osteria Jersey - Rhubarb has become one of my favorite flavors over the past few years. I love the bite and sweetness it provides at the same time, and it just seems to make so much sense to my taste buds. While dining at the Vetri family's new digs in Jersey, the kitchen sent us out a rhubarb panna cotta to try. What an outstanding dessert. The texture of the panna cotta was superb and the crumble underneath was a fantastic contrast to the panna cotta itself. The rhubarb sauce was sweet and savory at the same time. It was phenomenally done.

6. The Warm Cookie Dough at Ela - Jason Cichonski's neighborhood hangout was high atop my list of places to try far before I moved two blocks from it. It took me far too long to try it, but once I did, I realized what all the fuss was about. The warm cookie dough for dessert really lived up the hype. While I wish the ice cream didn’t melt as much as it did, the testure and flavor of the cookie dough was fantastic. It was soft and gooey just like you expect cookie dough to be. Inventive, flavorful and delicious.

5. The Bacon Egg Cream at Abe Fisher - So many good bites here this year. Definitely my new favorite restaurant in Philadelphia. The bacon egg cream is definitely one reason why. Maple custard, chocolate foam and crushed bacon all in a glass together formed into one dessert? Ridiculous. It looks dense and super heavy when you see it, but it doesn’t eat that way at all. I was shocked how light it was and how quickly it disappeared. Do yourself a favor and order two.

4. The Caramelized White Chocolate Pudding at Laurel - I barely had any room by the time the desserts came out at Laurel, but I actually wound up finishing mine and my fiances' because it was simply that good. It was a riff on one of the desserts he made on Top Chef that wasn’t well received by the judges, so he must have corrected it because it was fantastic. The pudding was very rich, and the crumble and fruit both provided textural differences and flavor contrasts that made it a very satisfying little bowl. 

3. The Poundcake with Rye Carraway Ice Cream at a.Kitchen - No surprises here. A lot of the best sweet bites I had this year came from the hands of Sam Kincaid. Her mastery of pastry and desserts got her a nod for best new pastry chef in the country, and with good reason. Any of the pastries at High Street on Market is a safe bet, but one of the best things I have had was the pound cake with rye caraway ice cream and peaches at a.Kitchen. The pound cake was warm, buttery and rich. The ice cream was what really pulled me in. Savory ice cream? That tastes like rye bread? I mean its just silly to think about. So silly that I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. 

2. The Brown Butter Panna Cotta at the Aldine Popup at Cheu Noodle Bar - Words cant express how excited I was to hear that George Sabatino was opening his own place. I hadn’t had a chance to try any of his work that had gotten so many good reviews at places like Stateside, so I jumped at the chance to try it at the preview of his new place at Cheu Noodle Bar. From beginning to end it was a symphony of flavors and technique, ending with a brown butter panna cotta with berries and ground almond. While I personally wouldn’t have said it was a panna cotta simply because of texture, it was one of the best puddings I have ever had in my life. The flavor was immense and kept the bar as high as it was all evening. 

1. The Sunchoke Cake with Salter Butter Semi-freddo at the Osteria vs. Amis cage match at Alla Spina ­- A cake made of sunchokes? Those little vegetables that taste like potatoes? You cant make a dessert with those. That’s actually what the team members of Osteria said to the team of Amis during the battle. 4 ingredients, 4 courses, you can use them in any order you please. Osteria made the easy choice of using blood orange for their dessert, but Amis stepped the dessert game up to another level. They were getting manhandled in the battle up to that point and pulled an impossible comeback out with the flavor of their cake. I knew how good the salted butter semi-freddo was because I had it multiple times at Amis. If you put it on the grossest thing you can think of, it would still taste like heaven. But the cake was the star of the show. It was incredibly moist, served warm and had just enough crust to provide the perfect amount of crunch to every bite. The flavor was not savory as you would expect, but sweet and paired phenomenally well with the salted butter semi-freddo, aka crack. Best dessert of the year, not even a close second. 

I would love to hear back from anyone about desserts out there that they think are top 10 worthy. Particularly I would love to hear about them so I know to try them when I head to those places! Cheers!