Enter the Empanada: 943's Opening Weekend @ Italian Market BYOB

Enter the Empanada!

After many months of wandering past the papered storefront for 943 in the Italian Market, we finally had a chance to experience the Italian/Argentinian BYOB 943, which opened for dinner & lunch service this weekend.

The atmosphere was warm and welcoming, with plenty of neatly arranged tables spread across the open dining area - not your typical elbow-to-elbow dining setting.  The open kitchen in the back of the dining room was buzzing with activity as our server brought out some olives & nuts, followed by bread and a chimichurri dip.

Greeted with Olives, Spiced Nuts & Bread w/Chimichurri Spread

After being overwhelmed with snacky hospitality, we settled down to reviewing the menu. If you're a regular reader of our blog, you know that typically we stray towards the small-plates and starters on menus. The entrees looked very straightforward with lots of grilled meats, along with a daily fish special and a ravioli special.

Empandas: Carne and Jamon y Queso

Three different empanadas are offered on the menu - the carne included ground beef and chopped egg filling but the clear winner was the Ham & Cheese empanada, stuffed with a proscutti and a very intense cheese. The dough on these were flaky and perfectly browned. We could've ordered another round they were that addictive.

Pulpo 'Moscardino'-Octopus w/Tomato Broth, Chard, Black Olive & Red Onion

Another exciting highlight on the menu was the octopus, which was served in two styles. This first, called 'Moscardino' was served in a tomato broth alongside sweet red onions, sauteed swiss chard leaves and black olives. The octopus was perfectly cooked, tender and flavorful without any pungency or chewiness that can sometimes be found in octopus that is not fresh or cooked improperly.

Pulpo 'Don Giovanni'-Octopus w/Fennel, Fava Beans & Saffron

Pulpo 'Don Giovanni' was a mix of fava beans, sauteed fennel and saffron. The smaller favas tended to have a less meaty taste than large beans, a more subtle flavor that matched the sweetness of the fennel. The strong character of the saffron wasn't as overwhelming as I had thought at first sniff and ended up working perfectly with the octopus and favas...this was one of the best pulpo dishes we've had in a long time, due in part again to the freshness and perfect tenderness.

Housemade Chorizo y Morcilla and Mollejas

Our last dishes had more affinity with the Argentinian offerings on the menu. The Chorizo and Morcilla sausages are housemade and have the right grind and texture for a filling as rich as morcilla.  The Mollejas or grilled sweetbreads, were a grilled delight, a served in some of the largest portions I've seen for sweetbreads in quite some time.

Mollejas - Sweetbreads and Bacon Jam

The seared Mollejas tasted smoky and rich, the char flavors and the offal character of the sweetbreads were a new combination I'd never fully appreciated until now. The sweetbreads rested on a bed of Bacon Jam, which seemed like a marmalade of caramelized onions and bacon. The sweet and smoky flavor of the jam blended with the sear to make for a BBQ like taste; we kept getting hints of BBQ chicken or livers with each tasty bite.

We noticed other couples enjoying their entrees and desserts, although we didn't get a look at the dessert offerings as we were too stuffed from our meal.  The kitchen staff waved a friendly thank you as we headed out and, opening weekend jitters aside with service, we thought that the staff did a great job serving up a meal that was well worth the wait of over a year.

Bye Bye BYOB @ Fat Salmon

Spider Roll - Softshell Crab & Lettuce

I had heard that Fat Salmon, the novelty sushi bar on 7th & Walnut, was about to start-up it's license to sell alcohol on Sept 1st, so we took a few summer brews and a bottle of wine along last Friday night the celebrate the waning days of a great BYOB situation.

After happily uncorking our wine bottle, the waitress confirmed that this was the last weekend for BYOB dining.

After drifting around the menu of signature rolls, we decided to do some research on a few of the rolls that included cooked components in case we wanted to do sushi with any less adventurous diners in the future.

The shumai were just as good as I had hoped after hearing about them in the Adam Erace's review of Fat Salmon. Tender skins, surrounding juicy nuggets of shrimp..these were so tasty on their own they didn't even need the spicy sauce that accompanied them.

The seaweed salad was your basic affair...a decent side with enough sesame flavor and seasoning to break up the sometimes heavier flavors of Fat Salmon's over-the-top rolls.

Miss Sake Bomb-eel, avocado & crunchy on top-lightly cooked salmon with tartar sauce

Miss Sake Bomb was a study in contrast...a rich eel & avocado roll topped with lightly broiled salmon & a dill-spiked tartar sauce. I was really hesitant about tartar sauce as a condiment - it conjured up memories of greasy fishsticks - but the dill and pickle were pronounced enough to balance out any over mayonnaise-y nastiness. 

Mr. French Kiss -crab stick with masago, fried shrimp & tartar sauce

Next up, Mr. French Kiss. Having gotten over my apprehension of the tartar sauce, we tried out a roll that featured crab-stick and crystalline-crunchy masago with a topping of tempura-fried shrimp & tartar sauce. There was a claim of bacon & onion in the tempura, which I didn't detect, and the shrimp itself seemed more breaded than tempura-fried, but nevertheless, it was a crunchy and savory addition.

Midori - cucumber, shitake, oshinko, gourd & burdock

We also had an order of a vegetarian roll, the Midori - a combo of pickled vegetables, gourd, burdock and shitake. We had never tried these veggies and ordered it more for the acidity that pickled veg can brig to balance out what was quickly becoming a very heavy sushi session, what with all the fried preparations.

I will definitely miss the 'affordability' of Fat Salmon in BYOB mode - out total check came to less than $50 - but the menu is broad enough that I can see coming back for more traditional sushi or for the flashy house-creations.

BYOB Paul Revered in Pictures

"Did you like the famous crepe?", our waitress asked as she whisked away my now empty plate. I gave her a slightly puzzled look but I could see how news of the delicious appetizer could spread quickly - the tamale-like braised, tender pork filling, neatly tucked into a herb-laced savory crepe was the perfect marriage of French refinement and Latin comfort.

We had dropped in on Tuesday night "Neighborhood Appreciation" night where the prix-fixe was $20.

Here's a shot of the crepes again, this time you can see the marinated cauliflower micro-florets and chili sauce. Trey Popp does a great run-down of the flavors you're going to find on this plate over at City Paper - guajillo pepper, Coca-Cola, lemongrass and vinegar. I found this article after we'd dined at Paul...little did I realize that I'd ordered much of what City Paper covered, so here's the pictures to go along with the article.

Elizabeth started with the soup of the day - The French Onion soup was heavy on the croûton and the consistency was on the thicker side of the F.O. soup spectrum, but the flavors were balanced...usually there's an overload of salt when you have a hearty F.O. soup.

The braised short-ribs were fall-off the bone delicious and came served over polenta...a solid rendition of an early-winter comfort dish. The polenta couldn't quite handle the amount of sauce that accompanied the ribs.

Here's a snapshot of another dish that Popp sounded off on, the seared skate wing. The coating was a fine-grained herb crust that reminded me of fried chicken. The skate was cooked perfectly, with a flaky inside, crispy fennel-studded outside, and without that oily heaviness that you can sometimes get with a breaded fish.

The peppery potato-chorizo hash beneath the skate was aggressively spiced...we're talking habanero heat. It's not so much heat that it's unpalatable....I just wish I'd brought a wine that was a little more evenly matched, like a Gewurtz.

UPDATE: KITCHEN CHANGE-UP

It looks like the chef at Paul who served up this meal has left the kitchen.

Here's his side of the story, posted over on Yelp and has since been deleted - thanks to a savvy buddy of mine who scooped up the cached version of the review and broke the news to me.

Don't know if the link is still valid, but if you care to read it...

http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:qvdNRH5YwEMJ:www.yelp.com/user_details%3Fuserid%3DtVeEXkdMjJd9UTK9g2t2Gg+"Joshua+Noh"+"up+until"&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Little Fish Sunday Night Prix Fixe

Touted as one of the better deals in Philly's BYOB scene, we packed up a bottle of Pinot Gris and headed down to the 'original' Little Fish in Queen Village for their $35 $28 Sunday Night Prix Fixe. We had 8PM reservations and the way they work the Sunday night dinner is to keep all the diners outside until 8 sharp, at which point they open the doors to the tiny establishment and begin the service.

Tacked to the wall is the menu for the evening...a five course set meal featuring what we hoped would be some excellent seafood.



Starter was a salad of bitter endive and green apple...a crispy, crunchy, tart & bitter way to open up the palette for the lighter style of fish to come.



Second course was the raw tuna served on a block of Himalayan pink salt, accompanied by a diced beet salad. We found that rubbing the slivers of fatty tuna against the salt block released a subtle saltiness that suggested the briny waters that these fish were pulled from. Unfortunately, my sense of taste just isn't refined enough sometimes to pick up on the show of flavors that raw fish is meant to provide the diner...so I'll take Elizabeth's word for it.



Next up was a portion of sustainable Scottish salmon cooked with a tri-layer effect that left the skin-side a crispy sear, while creating a strata of cooked and rare flesh. Every forkful was like a combination of three fish all at once...cripsy skin, flaky meat and a succulent rare edge...the consistency was incredible and it had me rethinking the way I will be cooking fish next time. The mussel & farro salad on the side was an earthy contrast to the fish.



The final savory course was hands down our favorite...a Vietnamese-Style Escolar. Resting in a light stock tinged with fishstock and showered with crisp, fresh veg & cilantro, the flaky Escolar had picked up the Southeast-Asian flavors, yet retained some crunch on the outside. It looked like it had been pan-fried briefly, creating a slight crust that sealed in the flavor of the fish while soaking up the character of the stock.

Only after the fact did we find out about the unfortunate side-effects that can befall some diners who over-indulge in Escolar...mercifully, Little Fish kept the portion sizes small enough where this wouldn't be an issue, although I was a little concerned for the staff, who were sharing a uber-generous portion of the Escolar amongst themselves as service wound down.



Dessert was a bit of pumpkin mousse & a little slab of chocolate ganache that was drizzled in a berry sauce. While it was a pleasant finish, I would've gladly thrown caution to the wind and wolfed down on another chunk of Escolar.