Thinking about Tokyo

I miss having lunch at the Tanaka household. Where after cruising the neighborhood mall ( where you ride your bike through) Ryohei's super mom had soba and croquettes waiting for us. Perfect Lunch.

Treviso, Italy

I had no idea what the restaurant was called, or what the name of the food I had at this place in Treviso, Italy. The plate of smoked octopus and some type of fish with fresh rasberry is drissled with olive oil and lemon juice. How simple!

I was alone there with of course no knowledge of italian. I somehow managed to say (or point with my index finger) "appertiser," "fish," and "please." and of course "wine, the red."

I got soooo addicted to the cured octopus and it also helped me drink 4 glasses of wine. After a while, all i remember was drinking local cherry liquir with the restaurant owner, who's name was Valdo. He kept on pinching my butt and speaking in Italian (or at least that's what i think he was speaking.)

Pub and Kitchen

Ignore the Rittenhouse suits and cable knit clad women. This place was awesome.

The Pub and Kitchen was a lovely dining experience. Hands down High Fives all around. From the Pabbit as there logo, to the nice staff, to the simple well done dishes. Good beer on tap, well done cocktails, and a wine list that's got a good under 10 bucks selection.

This made me ache for my old neighborhood even more.

The Fish and Chips were deicious and light, with the best tasting mushy green peas I ever had. There was a little bit of mint, maybe a potato, but I almost got an extra side to take home. The fries were perfect with some malt vinegar.

Becky had the Lobster BLT which I had a bite as well, and that too was delicious. The lobster was sweet which was good with the bacon.

We also had oysters, which were fresh and delicious, and the duck liver toast which came with the right amount of cornichons and mustard to share. I have to go back for the malt vinegar potato crisps, the best part is all the bar snacks are 3 bucks. Which is smart, because just having that will make me drink more.

The Pub and Kitchen
20th and Lombard

chicago dogs

so it's nice to go to chicago and try out some of the fancy new restaurants where truffled bacon chips hang from wires and chefs pump blueberry caviar smoke into your face with strange gadgets, but what I really wanted to eat was some chicago hot dogs.

a hot steaming dog covered in whole pickle spears, diced raw onions, sliced tomato, hot peppers, celery salt, yellow mustard and neon green relish, delicious.




first stop was "Mister J's dawg and burger" which we stumbled past after eating a deep dish pizza (also delicious) but couldn't resist the glow of the yellow and red sign. pretty good and garlicky. No poppy seeds on the bun or celery salt though.




the next night we were wandering out of some dive bar and saw yellow lights in the distance and ended up at clark dog which for some reason also has philly cheese steaks (didnt try) but the dogs were delicious. also there is a bar next door which sounds like the prefect place to me.





then we sought out the wiener's circle which is know for insane screaming matches between the customers and the staff late at night. we were there during the day and the staff was very pleasant which was sort of disappointing but the dogs and fries were fantastic. with 2 pickle spears and giant thick slices of tomato it was like eating a hoagie. also wiener's circle "char-dogs" are available grilled (most seem to be steamed) which is great.

there's also hot doug's which has wild stuff like fries cooked in duck fat, corned beef reuben sausage, all kinds of stuff but we didn't make it there this time..

Mister J's Dawg n Burger
822 N state st

Clark St Dog
3040 N clark st

Wiener's Circle
2622 N clark st

ghost town

I don't know if it was because there was flooding a few weeks ago, but chinatown in chicago at 8pm on a wednesday is pretty much vacant. there were maybe 3 other people on the pitch black street and most of the restaurants were empty.

anyway we ended up at 'cantonesia' where we were the only people there. seems strange in the third largest city in the united states.

i kept waiting for gangsters to jump out of the ceiling or a little wizard man out of 'big trouble in little china' to float out of the kitchen in a cloud of green smoke.

the food was decent - seaweed soup, dumplings, lo mein - and we drank a bunch of tsingtao. the lights went off and doors locked as soon as we left the building.

custom house

custom house was our first meal in chicago. we were originally planning to go to alinea or tru but custom house looked a bit more relaxed, more affordable -and right down the street from our hotel. turned out to be the best meal of the trip.

the menu is mostly meat; braised meats, housemade bacon, pork belly and steak, a-la-carte style almost like a steakhouse but with much more eclectic food and a focus on local farm produce.

started with a heirloom tomato-mozzarella salad with watermelon "variations" - diced, pickled rind, and granita - fantastic. sweetbreads and bacon with white polenta - delicious.

then bone-in shortrib, bacon wrapped rabbit loin, and a side of cauliflower with fromage blanc that was delicious, and made me wish we ordered more sides (everything from sheeps milk potato gratin to swiss chard gnocchi).

dessert was awesome - sorry no pictures, i was drunk and/or batteries ran out - plum linzertorte with brown sugar ice cream and a "smores parfait" with black lava salt and toasted marshmallow that was incredible. i've had a lot of forgettable desserts lately that seemed like an afterthought, custom house's pastry chef is on her game, I would go back just for that.

custom house
500 S. dearborn
chicago

Southwark

I can't sing the praises of Southwark enough. I had the pleasure of having a full meal there this past Friday and the fresh seasonal dishes made me want to be a regular.

There was a rabbit crepe with balsamic figs, and stuffed squash blossoms tempura battered and fried to start off the meal.

The pork belly was a piece of pork I fell in love with. It was bigger than my face and good enough to fry my eggs in the next morning.

Tim's trout was delicious, it came with a yummy onion marmalade and fried green tomatoes. It was light and yummy.

And of course I had one Gimlet too many.

15th and Morris

On 15th and Morris is a small Indonesian food market run by the nicest family. I have to admit that I feel completely alien in this store but the family's daughter is nice enough to offer information on all there ready made snacks. Here is the booty we grabbed for a rainy day of sitting inside snacking.

Tommy's Texas Wiener

This place has great T-shirts, good lookin' dive-like outside, and a great name. It's probably high on the Philadelphia road food hit list. And its's also right by my house. So while Hawk is running around eating fine dining in his nieghborhood, good ol's South Philly's got my back.
The hot dogs were suprisingly (because I was suspect)delicious and flavorful, since they dress the entire dog for you. I got the Chicago, which included peppers, tomatos, mustard, and relish. I really love how they split the dog down the middle and grill it. Tim got one that had a potato cake in it, yummy.
The inside is also a surpise, with a mini diner look. I love the Mafia and Italian references everywhere.


Tommy's Texas Wiener
1426 Snyder Avenue
Philadelphia, PA (South Philly)
(215) 465-8635

restaurant madness

So for whatever reason I've eaten out about a hundred times in the past few weeks, but forgot my camera every time. I usually try to focus my posts on lesser known gems, like some secret bulgarian sausage stand on a barge in the delaware river or something.. anyway here goes-

snackbar
meant to just go for a drink, but couldn't resist ordering some food.
boneless bbq chicken wings, grilled watermelon. the menu was all burgers with eggs on top, mac and cheese and smoked turkey, definitely would go back for dinner.

tria
awesome array of cheeses, nice $2 truffle potato chips, service kind of spacey though, snackbar is more comfortable.

table 31
pork trotter in brik pastry with serrano ham and mustard sauce, and a tobacco-infused bourbon cocktail? fucking awesome.
mediocre steaks that cost half my paycheck in a restaurant that looks like a space age ruby tuesdays?
only worth it if I was a big fat dude in a suit that made $500,000,000 a year.

parc
I sort of view steven starr as the wal-mart of the philadelphia restaurant world, sucking up all the cooks and customers into establishments that are more like theme parks with assembly line factory kitchens than restaurants, robotically cranking out mediocre food to thousands of suckers that pour in from new jersey and the suburbs.

so I was ready to talk all kinds of smack after eating at parc last week, except it was really really good. the menu is classic french bistro stuff, nothing crazy but everything came out perfectly despite the restaurant being packed to the gills with about 4000 people. the place is freakin beautiful too, don't miss the antique french pin-up photos in the men's room.

lolita
great guacamole, lamb loin with huitalacoche, bring your own tequila and they make it into a watermelon margarita.
good stuff.

ruby tuesday's
so suburban casual dining chains are pretty much the bottom of the barrel, olive garden probably the worst food I've ever had in my life. I imagine the kitchens at places like this being full of drunks straight out of prison stabbing eachother in the neck over the sleazy waitresses.

but the burgers at ruby tuesday's are so good, and the atmosphere is so refreshingly un-hip, it's like being in new jersey on vacation. don't be scared.

13th Street

I remember when this part of Philly only offered up Woody's and Sansom Cinema. Now it's all cleaned up with places like Lolita and Grocery.

Which is good if you like to eat and drink. At the strange hour of 4 though most of these restaurants are closed untill dinner. So Brielle and I went into Vintage Wine Bar. We had the most amazing, Brie en Croute and Seared Duck Salad. The Brie en Croute was a chunk of brie wrapped in puff pastry and then covered with carmelized pears. Yummy.

Then we went to Apothecary to sit on the roofdeck. Apothercary has an extensive list of amazings artisan cocktails and they have great service. Being on the roof reminded me of how beautiful Philly was from the rooftop. Our friend Matt said it looked like Spain.

Nam Son

Formerly the "other" Nam Phoung, I think this place finally changed it's name due to confusion with the other Nam Phoung.

Again I already talked about the hoagies. But the rest of the food in the restaurant is yums too, especially for summer a fresh bowl of "bun" is awesome.

I6th and Washington, in the Asian supermarket next to Duncan Donuts.

Laura's Fudge Shop

I had the most amazing suprise birthday party ( thank you Tim and Brielle ) and I feel so stoked to have the most amazing friends. And of course the food was good.

In the hung over aftermath, my friend Katie brought me fudge and salt water taffy from the Ocean City, Jersey. And there's nothing better than waking up to this hot pink box hung over and eating some fudge.

Flo's Hot Dogs

I guess I've never really had a good hot dog until about a week ago. A lot of cooks and restaurants don't really put much value or care into the hot dog, it's usually an afterthought - something easy and fast to sell to the masses. Sure I've eaten and made some outstanding hot dogs, but never experienced the kind of dedication that manifests itself in a Flo's hot dog.

Open only a few hours a day (11-3), the line was out the door and around the corner. To my surprise the only person behind the counter was a lone woman-apparently not Flo herself, but the Heiress to the Flo's empire, Gail Stacy. The history of Flo's and various newspaper clippings are displayed on the wall of this tiny shack, with a ceiling so low I my head bumped it in some places.

As I watched the solitary woman furiously steaming buns and scribbling orders onto a pad I realized that the 20 or so people packed into the 110 degree shack were all completely silent. It was like a religious experience. Someone asked the magic hot dog woman if she had any help today and she went on a long diatribe about the lack of work ethic in today's youth and her reluctance to let anyone in on her secret sauce recipe - before angrily correcting someone on flo's terminology after they asked for a "hot dog with chili and relish".

Flo's only serves hot dogs, at $2.25 a pop, along with chips, soda, and coffee. That's it. A Flo's "special" - what everyone orders - is a natural casing hot dog on a steamed new england style bun with flo's relish (which is more like a spicy chutney) , celery salt and mayonnaise. The only other option is mustard. If you ask for Relish, Hot Sauce, Or Chili it's all the same thing, Flo's homemade secret spicy hot dog relish. Don't even think of saying the word ketchup. Sounds wierd but it's amazing. I'm the only person in line to order less than 8 hot dogs, by the time I leave the parking lot is overflowing and actually causing a traffic jam on Route 1, and the line out the door is about 150 people long.

I almost feel obligated to help this poor woman that is about to single handedly serve about 3000 hot dogs from a small bun steamer and a pot of water on a single burner, especially after tasting the best hot dog of my life and washing it down with a delicious Moxie.

Flo's
1359 Route 1
Cape Neddick, ME

Gilly's in Portsmouth NH

So on the way to Maine to go camping I stumbled into this dining car on a side street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that claimed to have the state's best hot dogs.

I soon learned that New Englanders are serious about their hot dogs - natural casings, special fluffy white hot dog rolls, gravy fries?? Even the burger - that looked the same as every other slapped on the grill diner burger - tasted incredible.

also they are open LATE until 2:30 AM every night except monday.

Gilly's
175 Fleet Street
Portsmouth, NH 03801 US

Izakaya

Here is the official Wikipedia definition of Izakaya:

"An izakaya (居酒屋?) is a type of Japanese drinking establishment which also serves food to accompany the drinks. The food is usually more substantial than that offered in other types of drinking establishments in Japan such as bars or snack bars.
They are popular, casual and relatively cheap places for after-work drinking."

Which is basically true. This was one of the greatest eating experiences I ever had. My friend Saya took me to her neighborhood Izakaya, which was in Nerima near Tokyo. She told me she never took any of her japanese friends or visitors from the states because it was too disgusting. I was the exception of course.

It was actually far cleaner than most bars in Philly. We had these really refreshing sochu and grapefruit juice drinks. Saya ordered what is now my favorite fresh cabbage with japanese mayonaisse and miso. Everything is delivered fresh and made for that day only, so when it runs out, its out. The grilled pumpkin was amazing and the endamame was sooo fresh and salty.

Sigh I miss it already.