Summertime Pops...

Popularity Pops

216 South Bay Avenue

Beach Haven, NJ 08008

www.popularitypops.com/ 

My fiancé and I grabbed a couple pops from here as we were walking back from the grocery store one summer weekend. They have a ton of great flavors to choose from. It was pretty hot out, so I probably should have gotten a fruit flavored one, but I love gelato, so I wound up ordering the Salted Caramel, while my fiance ordered the Chocolate Peanut Butter.

They were decent popsicles, but they were definitely very different. They had the richness effect you expect from gelato, and I thought the flavors were very nicely done. I enjoyed the salted caramel one much more than the chocolate peanut butter one, but they definitely could have both used some improvements. They held up pretty well in the heat too which is always a plus, especially in a summer time beach town. The major draw back for me was the price. Four dollars for one popsicle is very pricey in my opinion. I know there is a lot more going on in these handmade popsicles, but it still seems a bit high.

One and a half pints for Popularity Pops. The location isn't really conducive to a lot of traffic, so I think they may have a tough time of it. Also, 4 dollars for a popsicle is pretty steep. Its worth a stop in at least to try it, but I cant say Ill be back frequently with so many great ice cream shops to choose from on LBI. Let me know what you think! Cheers!

Tapas Party...

Bar Ferdinand

1030 North 2nd Street 

Philadelphia, PA 19123

www.barferdinand.com/ 

My fiancé and I dropped in for brunch on a Saturday afternoon recently because I had a gift card and we were nearby looking at wedding invitations. The place was completely empty which I thought was odd, but maybe they do more dinner business than lunch. We sat outside because it was beautiful, and we received plenty of attention from our waiter. We ordered a glass of red and white sangria respectively. Both were very good, but the white was killer. I thought the red sangria had a bit too much wine taste to it and not enough fruit. If I wanted a glass of wine I would have ordered one, not a Sangria. 

Our waiter recommended that we order 4 to 5 plates between the two of us so that we would have enough food. We did just that, ordering the open faced chorizo sandwich, the date and bacon empanadas, the patatas bravas, jamon croquettas and the churros. It should be noted that the brunch menu is much more compact than the dinner menu is in terms of options. 

Overall the food was pretty good. There were some high and lows along the way though. The date and bacon empanadas were a distinct winner with the combination of smoke and sweetness and very light crust. The open faced chorizo sandwich was also fantastic. The heat from the chorizo was a great complement to the rich egg yolk, and the bread was perfect as well.

The patatas bravas and the croquettas didn't fair so well for us. The aioli served with the potatoes was great, but the potatoes weren't crispy which definitely took away from the dish. The croquettas were fried well, but they were overly cheesy and definitely made us lose the taste of the ham. Again the romesco sauce was awesome. Unfortunately the churros wound up the same way. They were ok, but I think they needed a better sugar ratio. The chocolate sauce it was served with was awesome, but it just wasn’t good enough to save the flavorless churros.  

 

For now I would offer up two pints for Bar Ferdinand. With all the ups and downs I really want to go back for dinner and try some more of the other options. There were definitely a bunch more options for dinner, and definitely some more traditional tapas dishes that I would really love to give a go to. Some things were great and others were just ok. So far it's not the best tapas I have had in Philly, but It's definitely worth a visit. I will be back! Cheers!

Brawlin for Burgers...

Burger Brawl

My cousins and I missed out on Burger Brawl last year, but we weren’t going to let it get by us again this time around. Rob Wasserman's event is organized to benefit Philadelphia schools because he wasn’t happy with the quality of the schools his children were going to. Tickets cost $35 and get you unlimited burgers to eat for the afternoon. All of the proceeds go to the charity. The line to get in was very long and it was a bit too crowded for my liking, but it really was a great event. 50 to 60 of the area's best come out to compete for both the judges title of winner, and the people's choice champion.

Each place has its own tent and cooks up its burgers to its own liking. Each person is given a token to vote for their favorite, and although we didn’t go in with the right strategy, we learned for the next time and found out the hard way, you just cant eat enough to know the one true best. While most places didn’t give you a whole burger, some definitely were bigger than others. I think the ideal strategy is to go in with a partner and for each of you to take one bite of each item you are given in order to take up as little room as possible. Eventually, the meat sweats set it, and I just couldn’t take a bite more. I didn’t even get to try two of the three people's choice winners because of that, so I definitely learned my lesson. 

Some places just don’t prepare enough and run out of burgers. That sucks too, especially when you are really looking forward to trying theirs. Highlights of the day for me included Justin Swain's pimento burger from Rex 1516, Spot Burgers Umami burger and the Dandelion's lamb burger. I tried Avance's lamb burger, the eventual judges winner, and I thought they were terribly wrong with their choice. It wasn’t very good. It was very plain. Dandelion's was definitely far superior. Unfortunately I didn’t get to try the people's choice winners in order of Blue Duck, Twisted Tail or Parc. I really wish I had, but I got to a point where it just wasn’t happening. Ha!

It is a really great event, and I would encourage anyone to check it out. Its fun, its burgers, and its usually a great time to be outside. I will definitely be making it into a yearly tradition with my friends and family and its for a good cause. Hope to see you there next year! Cheers!

Southern Supper in Philly...

Alabama Dinner at the Fat Ham

3131 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

www.sbragadining.com/fatham/ 

When Kevin Sbraga was traveling to do research for the Fat Ham with his team, they were posting videos of their Southern road trip. They seemed to be having a great time, and they were definitely eating really well, so when I heard that they were inviting two chefs from Alabama up to cook for a night at the Fat Ham, I grabbed a couple tickets and invited a friend to come with me and my fiancé. We also had the pleasure of sharing the meal with the sommelier of the Central Kitchen Sam Fonte. We talked a lot that night, and it was a pleasure sharing that meal with him. All evening they were serving alcoholic sweet tea and lemonades in true southern fashion. It made me very nostalgic for my time at Elon.

The menu for the evening looked amazing. It was a four course dinner that really was an eight course dinner, because you got two different dishes at every course. First course from Chef Leonardo Maurelli of Central Kitchen in Alabama were marinated blue crab claws with Alabama corn and heirloom tomato and hominy fritters with cotija cheese tostones, pork jowl bacon and sofrito. While I enjoyed the crab claws, I found myself getting frustrated with them after a while because you do so much work to get the tiniest amount of meat out of them. They flavor was great, and I especially liked the corn and tomato with it. The pork jowl dish was out of this world. It was one of most delicious pieces of meat I have ever had. It was like bacon kicked up to another level. It was smoky and fatty, meaty and delicious with a slight hint of sweetness to go with the crispy char on its edges. It was outstanding. I am always a sucker for tostones and although hominy fritters are new to me, they are welcome on my plate at any time.

Our second course was offerings from Chef de Cuisine of the Fat Ham Aaron Gottesman. While I was not expecting to get a pasta course from him in a southern themed dinner, that was exactly what we got. Black pepper papardelle with rabbit confit, fava beans and locatelli cheese made for one hell of a dish. Southern or not, that dish was just damn tasty. It was creamy, yet light, and the rabbit added a great heartiness to the dish as well. I wasn’t as crazy about the salad course he served us however. While it wasn’t bad by any means, I just didn’t think it was all that good. The pig ear was great, it was super crispy, but it was tough to chew and cut. I didn’t get much dressing on mine at all, so maybe that is why I thought it wasn’t that great. It was supposed to come with fig vinaigrette and sunflower seeds, but they were pretty sparse.

Third courses came out next from chef Rob McDaniel, and there were two of the best of the evening. First up was a slow roasted porchetta with crispy skin and a field pea and cherry tomato salad that was out of this world. The pork had been roasted for so long that it might as well have just dissolved when you put it in your mouth. It was so succulent and tender, I could have eaten mountains of it, and my god that skin. Crispy, crackly and salty beyond imagination, it was an amazing amount of flavor and texture to go with the pork. The second part of his course was the poached Louisiana gulf shrimp with gribiche and jumbo asparagus. The shrimp were cooked every so lightly and intensely flavored with the gribiche. The asparagus while humongous were also cooked perfectly and left very tender. I was so full at this point, they could have already rolled me out of there. 

Kevin Sbraga finished us off strong that evening with a buttermilk chess pie with lemon Chantilly cream and fried rosemary and a blackberry cobbler with goat cheese sorbet. I never knew Chef Sbraga has such a deft hand with desserts, but there were two pretty fantastic desserts. I had never even heard of buttermilk chess pie during my time in the South, and after tasting it, I was super disappointed that I didn’t know about it while I was there. It was amazing! It’s a custard based pie that gets browned on top and is incredibly rich. It tasted like the South in each and every bite. Cobbler of any kind immediately makes me think of the South, and this particular blackberry one was spot on. The one difference with this was the goat cheese sorbet. It was supremely different than traditional vanilla ice cream that you usually get with cobblers, so it actually kept it light and fresh all the way through because of the tanginess of the goat cheese that made it feel much more savory than sweet.

If you haven’t been to the Fat Ham before, you may not know how charming this little restaurant is. It is even more charming when you have the whole place filled with awesome chefs that really know what they are doing and are just having an awesome time together. I loved checking out the Alabama dinner they hosted, and I encourage you to keep an eye out for similar events held there going forward! Cheers!