PRUNE - prunerestaurant.com

New brunch spots are possibly the best thing I think one can find. Brunch is the time to reconnect with friends, rehash the prior night's wild tales, drink a lil' more, and eat the stuff that will send you back to your covers for a mid-afternoon nap. I would like to introduce PRUNE in NYC.
Prune is a cute little spot at 54 E. First St. A small bar and small kitchen produce amazing food for about 25 seats. Vodka's and tequilas sit in giant ice rings on the bar adorned in frozen lemons and fruit. The menu boasts a good selection of Bloody Mary's..and I must say, probably the best one I have ever had. Bloody Mary's are an art, too many over sweetened ketchup laden muck fests that don't have enough horseradish have ruined an otherwise good meal. PRUNE does not disappoint. My selection was "The Green Lake," a basic Mary with the addition of a homemade beef jerky swizzler and an adorable cube of wasabi for that extra flavor. To add an added pleasure to the drink, all of PRUNE's Bloody Mary's come with a beer. A nice lager shot to cleanse the palate.

For the main course I ordered the fried oyster omelet with remoulade. A simple egg omelet with giant fried oysters and a yummy onion-remoulade over top. This combined with some truly excellent homefries made it pretty great.

My brunch mate Chanida got possibly the largest pancake I have ever witnessed. It is one CAKE, covered in fresh blueberries and creme-freche. The cake is over 8 inches across and 2 inches thick. Tasting of delicious vanilla yellow-cake! It is more than one person can handle.

PRUNE..you get 4.5 fists in the air!

boudin noir

My friend tim just got back from France, and brought me back some great pictures of pastries and boudin noir (blood sausages) that he ate.

Believe or not this guy was a vegetarian 4 months ago.

Food and Clothes

Style Bubble shot a cupids arrow through my heart with her post of food and the outfits that go with the meals.

Sigh.

Homesick

I'm proud to call Hawaii, the Bay Area, and Philadelphia home. Lately I've had a hankerin' for the left coast and my grandma. When you come home in my family you are expected to eat. San Francisco is home to all my aunt's, uncles, and grandma. They insist on you coming home for dinner. Seeing as I really am the only wayward child who lives on the east coast, these tiny women will spend the day handrolling spring rolls and picking up pork from the chinese butchers. I don't deserve such care.

Phoebe's

My belly has been queasy all weekend, but for some reason we decided to have BBQ for dinner.

So me and Tim hauled down to Phoebe's BBQ on South St. It's exactly the way a BBQ place should look. A smokey shack, with kinda charred looking employees and a great looking lit up menu. It's take out only, which is why it's so small.
We order the "BBQ for 2" a mix of pork ribs and rotisserie chicken. The service is fast and nice. We then recieve a 5 pound plastic bag full of meats.
We get home and its really food for 3 or 4. The chicken is delicious, the pork ribs are falling off the bone with a little smokey pink in the middle. The cole slaw is crunchy with a slight bite and the mac-n-cheese is bangin'. The sauce is less on the tomato-ey side and more vinegary, which is delicious.





They deliver too.

Phoebe's BBQ
2214 South St
Philadelphia, PA
19146-1158

(215) 546-4811

Cheap Ass Eats

My good friend Zoe, recommended this site, which I must say is after my own heart. Its called Cheap Ass Food. It finds you all the delicious cheap food in New York, and the writing is pretty awesome. The pictures are really great too. It's not about food snobbery, its just about delicious cheap food. Amen!

Oh and what you are looking at seems to be a stir fry hoagie.

ButterBeer

Sorry for the lack of posting, Harry Potter briefly took over my life with dreams of pumpkin juice and butterbeer.

Amanda from Traverse City, Michigan

The following is a guest post from our Traverse City, Michigan correspondant Amanda:







Pearl’s- a little taste of New Orleans….in Elk Rapids, MI
The bloody marys come with a blue cheese stuffed fried okra and a crawfish. The jalapeño cornbread is to die for. Such an unexpected delight just outside of downtown Elk Rapids. I have been vacationing in Elk Rapids for as long as I can remember. Pearl’s has been a vacation dinner tradition since it opened in 1998 and I don’t see it ending anytime soon. I usually go for a fish option (since it’s always fresh from Lake Michigan)…so this night I decided to have the pesto walleye with collard greens and cheddar mashed potatoes. I also picked off of my mom’s meal- crawfish cakes, more collard greens, and sweet potato fries served with chipoltle honey mustard dipping sauce. Over all, Pearl’s get a 2 thumbs up for food and drinks…and an extra high five for such cool décor!





Tom’s Mom’s Cookies-just plain “Yum!”
Tom’s Mom’s Cookies comes from the beautiful town of Harbor Springs, MI…where the ladies look like they just stepped out a Lily Pulitzer catalogs and the boats are mansions compared to my little box of an apartment in Philly. I had one white chocolate cherry cookie and my sweet tooth was satisfied….did I mention that Traverse City, MI is the Cherry Capital of the World?!




Don’s Drive In- the home of the BIG D
Well, this one is another vacation dinner tradition. Located in Traverse City, MI, Don’s drive in is by far, the best burger joint…ever! I always order a kidding burger basket; fries and a loaded cheeseburger (the usual plus fried onions and green olives). The best part is that is comes in this cute little car basket. For all you big eaters out there, the _ pound Big D is the perfect choice. Oh! Can’t forget the cherry milkshakes! They’re made with fresh Traverse City cherries. Must bee eaten with a spoon because the cherries will get stuck in you straw.




Chef Charles- only $1.86 for a slice of pizza and a coke
You can’t find pizza and a drink much cheaper than that! Chef Charles is yet another up north tradition….usually followed by a day on the beaches of Grand Traverse Bay. This place is located in the tiny little town of Elk Rapids right on River Street. If you’re lucky, you will be served by Chef Charles himself. The menu has a wide variety of tasty pizza and salad selections. This also goes good with a cold beer around the camp fire.

pepperoni rolls

in the northern mountains of west virginia hides the pepperoni roll.
it's a small pepperoni stick baked into a soft yeast roll and left to sit so the grease soaks the bread. only available in west virginia and parts of maryland and ohio, I found these at a combination gas station/diner/post office/gun shop in the middle of nowhere.






unfortunately I didn't make it to fairmont,wv; where you can get them freshly baked at Country Club Bakery, the birthplace of the pepperoni roll.

to learn more about pepperoni rolls, check out
bob heffner's pepperoni roll page

meat camp

spent last weekend deep in the mountains of west virginia drinking "old german" and grillin' up meats over the old campfire.
25 miles from the nearest ATM or cel phone service in the craziest backwoods country I've ever seen. fantastic.









check out my flickr page for more west virginia photos..
hawkkrall's flickr page

Pork Wraps

Tonite's Dinner:

Coffee Marinated Pork tendorloin
Fresh Jersey Heirloom Tomatos
Tim's fancy chili garlic mayonaisse
Avacados
Red Onions




Wrapped.

Jammin'

I was lucky enough this week to have 3 lovely people in my life give me jam as a present. I recieved a jar of West Virginia Blackberry Mountain Jam from Tim. I got a jar of Traverse City, Michigan Cherry Butter from Amanda. And from Gianna I recieved the sweetest jar of blueberry jam from Japan. All these jams in the span of 24 hours, I told you I was a lucky girl. Of course I had to have it with a loaf of fresh multigrain from Metropolitan Bakery and sweet butter with bits of sea salt churned in it.




Tim really enjoyed the Blackberry Jam the most. The Japanese jam was rather amazing because it was whole blueberries and wasn't too sweet, it was more like pie filling. The Cherry Butter is the kind of thing I would smother all over cheese because its not too jelly like, but has a good flavor that would go well with savory things.

People's Restaurant

On the way to West Virginia, stopped at this amazing spot deep in rural Pennsylvania. The sausage and scrapple were amazing, everything perfectly cooked...just wish I was hungry enough to try the creamed chip beef. Great service & atmosphere provided by the locals from the rotary club and 4-H hanging around and shootin' the breeze over coffee.








140 West Main St. (route 23 between Blue Ball & Leola)
New Holland, PA 17557

Bubke

For my birthday this year (which is the reason for slow posting) I went out for a duck dinner with 16 of my friends. And then the memory card of my camera got erased.

Sorry no pictures of duck dinner. Don't hate me.

And then my sweet friend Andy, who is from Boston, said she would get me a loaf of bubke when she went back to Boston. Bubke as far as I can figure is an egg based bread like challah, but is filled with goodied like raisins cinnamon and sugar. But, the bakers were on vacation, BUT her sweet dad, fed ex'd a box of it. A box of SIX loaves!!! ( thanks Andy's dad and Cheryl Ann's Breads of Brookline!)It wieghed a ton, or like 6 loaves of eggy bubke bread. It was so amazing I took a picture.

And then my camera's memory card got erased, and all these great pictures disappeared....

Except one picture of a late nite that me, Tim, and Hawk had together drinking. And on this school nite, we came home drunk and hungry, and Tim that genius, made french toast out of bubke! And bacon of course. My apartment smelled like bacon and syrup the next day.

Bubke is amazing on its own, but with more egg and fried, it was like heaven decided to pay you a brief visit, IN YOUR MOUTH!

Rooster Sauce

Tim doesn't like spicy things. No hot sauces. It's just gross to him. He doesn't even use ketchup, he thinks it's gross. So for someone like me no hot sauce is like why even bothering to eat that bowl of Pho, or that plate of dim sum, or PUT DOWN THAT BURRITO! So imagine my pleasant surprise when he brought this home from SuperFresh:



And then made me this beautiful coconut shrimp curry. With straw mushrooms and lots of cilantro. Just how I like it.



I'm still in shock.

Chick's Wine Bar

I had recently discovered Chick's Wine Bar in the Bella Vista area of Philadelphia. I normally don't cross Broad to eat since I am chained to my studio ( the chain, not me, doesn't cross broad). Chick's is everything I want in a wine bar. There has been a lot of wine bars opening up in Philadelphia recently and they are too much for me. I don't want to feel like a snooty tutti frutti jerk to get wine and I don't want to feel stupid. But I want to be in a place that has yummy food to go with the wine. Chick's looks like a pub, which I like, but is actually a delicious wine and beer bar. It has this beautiful dark wood bar and brick exterior along with outside seating. The staff is really friendly and not pushy yet very informed. Me likes. If you like bacon, they have this magical date stuffed with some amazing cheese and wrapped in bacon. Sorry for the terrible description, I just know I ate it up.









Chick's Café & Wine Bar
614 S 7th St
Philadelphia, PA