Steampunk Style! Steamtable Flavor? The Farmer's Cabinet in Pictures

Looking for a place to hold a Steampunk Fourth of July Party in Philadelphia? 

Must have:

Diverse beer list to impress all your aficionado friends? Covered...don't miss the beers from Denmark and Italy can outshine the Belgian and German stunners.

Top-notch offerings from the bar? The drinks are extensive and meticulously crafted...enough to sway an ardent beer hound over to the other side of the menu.

Atmosphere and character...Live Music? Lit almost entirely by natural sources like candles and kerosene lamps, The Farmer's Cabinet evokes all the grit of a turn-of-the-century hunting lodge and the charm of the majestic railway hotels along the Continental Divide...with period-appropriate live music to boot. Subdued lighting, apothecary jars galore and animals mounted on the wall...like National Mechanics but without the chiptunes.

Great Food? Certainly.   I've been dawdling on writing this post up because I really love what the Farmer's Cabinet is doing and I felt like being critical of just one aspect would be unfair to a place that I enjoy frequenting, but when the LaBan one-bell review hit the phood-o-sphere I figured that dredging up some of the dishes E and I have eaten there over the last 3 months would provide some decent quality pictures and opinion around what I thought was a pretty accurate review.

Overall we really liked the variety of ingredients splashed about the menu, which seemed in line with the larger feel of the place. But it was a general lack of seasoning and some misfired concepts that would caution me recommending the food. The cheese, charcuterie and baked goods were delicious though, so there's no fear of going hungry while you enjoy all those great drinks.

The Good

Apricot Bread w/ lard 'butter' and seasonal jam

Nice way to welcome the diner...the bread was fresh baked...the spreads of lard 'butter' and jam was rich and pleasantly sweet. The jams changed between the dinners we ate but they were always delicious and chunky.

Buffalo Short Rib w/ Sunchoke puree and Horseradish Scallion salad

Our dining partners seemed to naturally gravitate towards the tastier dishes on the menu...this short rib was perfectly cooked but the horseradish scallion slaw was what had me begging for another shared bite.

Ground Short Rib Burger w/ Cheddar & Bacon Jam

Another selection by one of our friends...it didn't overwhealm him by any means but compared to some of the other oddities that were arriving on the table, I took his relative silence on the dish to mean that it was a tasty burger that went well with the Belgians that we were washing our dinner down with.

Peekytoe Crab Roll

A really delicate preparation, not overly seasoned so the crab flavors came through. In general most of the dishes we tried at Farmer's Cabinet suffered from a lack of seasoning...a serious lack of basics like salt was noticeable several times...but for this dish the restraint worked.

Pretzel with Smoked Beer Mustard

HERE'S where all the salt went! I wish it was just a joke but we found ourselves pinching off salt from the pretzel and sprinkling it over a few dishes to bring up the flavor volume. The mustard was so-so but the pretzel was delicious. I'm starting to see a pattern emerge...some baked goods, like the cheese and charcuterie, seem to really hit the mark here.

The Bad

Pea Tendril Salad

When eating with your eyes...the presentation was just so rough on this that I'd swear it made the salad taste worse than it really was.

Pan-Fried Oysters w/ Sweet & Sour Cucumbers, Curry Aioli  and Trout Roe

This looked great on paper but was a sloppy, soggy mess on the plate. The oysters lost all their crusty, molten unction when bathed in so much aioli...it felt like they had sat out or been cooked in oil that was not hot enough, although the trout roe was a great idea. Why? it was the only hint of salt that we could detect in the dish.

Cast-Iron Tomato Tart

LaBan mentioned the Tart as a highlight and to be fair we tried this early on in it's existence when it was still a tomato tart, but the problem was not the filling but the crust of the tart itself - dry, tough and lacking seasoning. Although the flash of the camera tends to was everything out, the crust really was very white and had none of the flavor you would expect...butter, salt, herbs, or even a spritz of olive oil. 

Bourbon Braised Escargot

This was just a big pot of awful. Along with the soggy oysters, I chuckled when LaBan mentioned that his escargot were "doused in something so vividly bitter we pretty much couldn't eat it".  Ditto. Although he neglected to mention the Werther's Original Caramel Candy taste that followed the bitterness

Duck Egg in a Jar - Shirred egg with Black Trumpet Mushrooms

This dish could have been really good but it suffered from poor execution - it sat too long in the steambath that I'm guessing it was cooked in. The yolk was hard and the double-cream & egg surrounding dried to a pectin-like glue....although the flavors of mushroom, possibly spiked with truffle oil, were present.

The Dish-No-Longer-Appearing-In-This-Restaurant

Fried Lamb Kidneys & Sweet Potato Biscuit w/ Spicy Greens

Seeing this on the menu re-awakened Ansill's offal stirrings in our heart but it was nowhere near the same level.  Lacking salt in the greens, the kidneys were barely fried, tasting like they had seen a saute pan for barely a moment, and the biscuit was a severe letdown (not as bad as the hardtack that we experienced at Adsum though - Southern Science: Adsum...)

Also no  longer available...Cheesecake in the Men's Room

Last time I was here I noticed that the pin-up art was no longer gracing the men's room wall..don't know if this was a Beer Week re-decoration or something more permanent. 

The Dish They Need to Bring Back

We did have a great dish at the Hitacho Nest Beer Brunch that would qualify for dessert. The picture is lost somewhere on my phone though.

Described as an Okinawan Pancake, imagine a golf-ball sized nugget of sweet, muffin-like dough deep fried so that it was crispy on the outside but custardy-soft and warm in the center with a buttery corn meal batter flavor. They need to put that on the menu

Bloody Good - An Early Look at The Farm and The Fisherman BYOB

Lately the concept of farm-to-table has been in full swing in the restaurant-o-sphere in Philly - Talula's Garden in the latest in a cavalcade of farm-to-table concepts.When it comes to the The Farm and The Fisherman, a BYOB located on the 1100 block of Pine in the space formerly occupied by Paul, the name is more than just a casual nod to convention.

We had late reservations on a busy Friday and even thought the week-old restaurant still exhibited some of the opening 'jitters' you would expect, we were impressed with the warmth and friendliness of the place.
The menu that was announced during their opening had already undergone some substitutions and revamping. Gone were two of the dishes that I had looked forward to most - a Lamb Sirloin & Neck dish and a sunchoke & lobster knuckle soup. There were still lots of seasonal offerings spread across the three sections (Appetizer, Mid-Plate, Entree).

Fresh Warm Rolls and Housemade Butter

Although the service was holding up admirably for an opening, there were a few noticeable gap. However we were plied us with some delicious, flaky and just-from-the-oven warmed rolls while we settled in, a real treat.

Pancetta Wrapped Egg with Russian Kale & Mushrooms

This was my favorite dish of the night, a Pancetta-Wrapper Egg served over Russian Kale with bits of pancetta and mushrooms flavoring the sauteed greens. Kind of a brunchy dish, but very delicious and gooey with lots of savory elements to soak up the sauce.

Bloody Beet-Steak - split, smashed and sauteed crispy in pan-drippings

This was the most cleverly simple dish of the evening - a smashed beet that was sauteed in pan drippings. The beet's skin crunchy and rich, similar to a baked potato...and to think I've been peeling these things all along. The richness of the drippings transformed the earthy sweetness of the beet into a satisfyingly 'meaty' dish.

Roasted Celery Heart, Creamed Rice Grits w/Parsley and Roasted Red Quinoa

Elizabeth giggled when this plate hit the table. "An over-sized kiwi fruit exploded on the plate!", was how she summed up this dish's look.  We had ordered it because the thought of roasting a celery heart whole seemed like some sort of vegetarian homage to offal, sort of a nose-to-tail approach to the part of celery that usually gets trimmed away or under-utilized.  The creamed rice was flecked with toasted quinoa which gave each bite some textural interest.

Pig Ear Salad w/ pine-nuts & sherry vinegar

Speaking of offal, the Pig Ear salad was an odd mix of elements - the ears were somewhat tender but piled on to the point that the overall chewiness of the ear took over all of the more delicate elements of the salad.

Sweet & Sour Pork Belly w/raisins & celery root

I think I've been affected from the excess of crispier lacquered preparations of pork belly that I've been having lately - I found the softer braised belly somewhat lacking in flavor and rather flat...perhaps the sweet & sour flavors were too much, but it seemed like the melted belly fat disappeared under the whammy of raisin & vinegar.

It's been about a month since we dined there and I after scanning the latest menu I see lots of changes. The fact that the beet steak is still on the menu confirms that the things we really enjoyed are a hit and, while seasonal, hopefully will be on the menu for a little longer.

Overall we really enjoyed the Farm & Fisherman's approach and clearly the more creative ingredients signal that there is plenty of worth checking out here. Add to the fact it's a BYOB and the service was excellent, Farm and the Fisherman will keep us coming back for a taste of the seasons.

Greek Wine & Octopus @ Opa

Pulling this article from the pile marked DRAFT articles that we never seem to get around to posting on our blog...

We stopped into Opa last month to grab a small plate and a glass of wine during happy hour. There's been alot of press recently about the beautiful interior and we enjoyed sitting at the bar and drinking in all the detail.

The wine list was (obviously) biased towards Greek wines, which is unique and makes for a fun tasting session.  However for many people, ourselves included, Retsina is the only familiar Greek wine and the staff was a little unsure on the specifics of each varietal; I overheard the bartenders having a quick conference to figure out how to describe one of the white wines to a curious patron.

Grilled Octopus & Chickpeas

Braised & Grilled Octopus with Chickpea.  I actually had forgotten completely about having this dish and in fact I hadn't even thought about posting about it until I saw the latest Citypaper review by Adam Erace on the octopus and then remembered I had a picture on my phone...which kinda says how forgettable we found the octopus.

A little less than tender, it wasn't a disappointing as some other octopus experiences that have been had around Philly (I'm looking at you Dmitri's ...so is she.) but I didn't think it was the best in Philly.

We are looking forward to going back and seeing if this dish has been tweaked...from the Citypaper review it sounds like a few changes were made to the chickpea accompanying the octopus.  We'll also be ordering the kokoretsi  - a tasty grilled dish made with lamb offal.

Falafel Bar in Pictures

Welcome! A colorful dining room at Falafel Bar

Strangely warm weather hit Philly last Friday and I felt like taking a stroll on my lunch hour down towards my wife's office near City Hall to grab some lunch. Among the smattering of new lunch options opening in the neighborhood, I was curious to try the new Falafel Bar on the 1500 block of Chestnut. [menu]

Offerings from the bar include sweet Baklava and salads

The dining room was bright and still a little busy for a late (2:30pm) lunch.  The bar was stocked with several salads ready to go, as well as some sweet & savory stuffed pastries.  We decided to go with the classic falafel and a greek falafel - the difference being a tahini or a tzatziki sauce and slight variation of veggies.

Greek Falafel - Crispy falafel stuffed with tzatziki, cukes & tomatoes 

I prefer this style of falafel to the kind you sometimes get at other falafel joints in Philly - the warmed pita pocket is opened up and stuffed with the contents, rather than served as a 'wrap' style.  Both falafels had a very crispy crust and the toppings were fresh enough. I preferred the richer tahini flavor of the classic, but both were satisfying. I had read some early online feedback declaring 'meh' when it came to comparing this place with others like Maoz, but I thought the falafel itself was better than anything I've ordered from Maoz.

Mediterranean Fries - Sweet potato & potato fries with roasted/grilled peppers

As we were tucking into our sandwiches, a runner from the kitchen approached with a basket of the specialty fries. I thought were a dupe order that belonged to another table, which had received theirs already, but the smiling cook informed me that they were a gift, to enjoy, no charge.

I've never had a truly crispy sweet potato fry in my life that can rival a white potato, but these weren't too bad by sweet potato standards...slightly limp is de rigueur with sweet potato fries, but these were seasoned well and had plenty of flavor. I thought the peppers were decent but unnecessary, adding a bit too much oiliness to the fries while the regular fries intermingled in the basket were so-so.

If you're a regular at some of the other Mediterranean sandwich joints around Center City (Maoz, Argan, Mama's), definitely stop-in and give it a try to see how it stacks up against your favorite places. Being so close to Five Guys, it makes for a convenient alternative when the half the lunch crew wants to go vegetarian and the other half wants to take out a burger.

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.

Spring Garden Lunch? Colosseo Pizza Delivers

As you know from my earlier post on Sakura sushi, non-food truck lunch options on North Broad St. can be limited, so I was thrilled to see a new pizza joint open up last month at the corner of Spring Garden and 15th.

Colosseo Pizza has a pretty wide variety of by-the-slice pizzas, sandwiches and other typical fare for a pizza shop. It always seems to be pretty busy with a mix of people dining in and carrying out during the lunch rush, but if you come during off-hours you'll have the place all to yourself.

Veggie Pizza & Margarita

Let me be clear, this isn't one of those wood-fired thin-crust envelope-pushin pizza places that has been all the rage in Center City last year (Stella, Zavino, Barbuzzo, etc.). This is just some decently made pizza, with balanced amounts of sauce-cheese-toppings on a firm crust, which is plenty enough to satisfy.

I've tended to stick with the classic Margharita but the veggie options were pleasing. Without stopping to ask for the rundown, the selection looks pretty wide as you survey the long marble counter containing an ice cream shop-like spread of pizza varieties.

Meatball Sub

I also tried out a few of the warm sandwiches. Generally they tended to be a bit on the dry side, lacking sauce or being served on bread that was a bit oversized.

The Meatball sub had a good flavor in the sauce but it seemed to disapear in the roll, leaving the meatballs on their own...needed more sauce.

The sausage and pepper sandwich likewise was a bit undersauced but carried through on flavor - the peppers were undercooked in a few places making it a little too crunchy/watery.

Chicken Parmesan Sandwich

The chicken parm sandwich was just that, a grilled chicken breast, slice of cheese and some marinara sauce, which makes for a lighter lunch option than the heavier subs.

Like all the sandwiches, ask for extra sauce if you order it...while the portion of chicken was plenty enough to satisfy, the marinara was spread around in amounts that seemed more like an afterthought.

Final verdict? If they can work the issues out of the sandwich prep, Colosseo could be a great option for Italian lunch but for now stick with the pizza an enjoy the wide variety in a setting that is pleasant enough for a lunch out of the office.

Opening Review of Sakura Sushi - Lunch Options on Spring Garden

Looking to avoid the afternoon slump that can hit an office-worker like me who has overloaded on lunch, I was pleased to see Sakura opening up near my office on the 1500 block of Spring Garden.  There were more than two dozen great looking options for the lunch roll special, so I decided to try them out on opening week.



It's a clean & tidy little spot, not unlike most of the sushi joints closer in towards downtown, with a small bar that seats about 5 and maybe a half-dozen tables.  In the weeks following their opening I'm pleased to see that they always have a healthy lunch crowd and are hustling out the orders.

I opted for the 2-roll Lunch special for $7.50; two of your choice with a cup of miso soup and a simple salad.

I enjoyed my lunch outside on a weirdly warm day - here's the spread pictured above.

I've kept to the more standard fare; salmon, yellowtail and standard tuna. My colleagues have tried rolls like the tofu skins and found them pleasant.  The soup was a nice pick-me-up and while the salad dressing was a zesty ginger, overall it reminds me of  'Japanese Steakhouse Salad' I would have as a kid, meant to tide you over before the knife-show...simple iceberg-cuke-tomato.

I haven't tried Domo yet, around the corner down on 18th and Callowhill, but I'd definitely put this on the map if, for some weird reason, you find yourself around N. Broad & Spring Garden and in need of sushi.

Devil's Den Sour Beer Fest & Menu Revisited

A few weeks back Devil's Den hosted a week-long 'Sour Beer Fest' in which they had 8 different sour beers on tap that you could sample. Two of our favorites were the St. Louis Gueze and Ommegang's Zur, each one distinctly sour and puckery-pungent in their own way.

I won't go into too much detail, as most of the more interesting brews are pretty much non-available on draft throughout the rest of the year, but we did visit twice during the week and enjoyed some excellent small plates to go along with our beer tasting.

While Devil's Den has a good reputation for their taps, the kitchen was always hit-or-miss with me - this opinion was shared by most of the people I talked to when I mentioned going to D's Den for sours.  I'm glad to report that this is no longer the case with the 'small plates' we tried...they're serving up some great options like flatbreads (a new popular item on half the menus in town, along with sliders) shown here.

This one was called the Casino and was a riff on the traditional dish with seafood, bacon and a creamy white sauce. Garnished with frisee greens and served on a cracker-thin crust, this disappeared from the table.

Not quite as stunning was the BBQ braised pork flatbread, which we tried on another trip back. The structural weakness inherit in cracker-crust pizzas was apparent as the heaping dollops of tender pork became like tacos and threatened to bring the each piece to a messy ruin...however, the crust held out and allowed us to enjoy the flavor profile of spicy pork and a loose hash of cheese and salad.

 As wonderful as the surprise of good flatbreads was, this dish was the big winner - Chickpea Fries. The cubes of chickpea were flash fried, for a crispy shell encasing a soft and creamy chickpea custard.  The pickle, remoulade and a spicy oil that accompanied the fries gave a little bit of contrast to the texture, which reminded me of fresh-cooked corn bread straight from the oven.

You can see how light and airy these were, not a heavy, clunky blob of fried batter.  We went back a second time and ordered these, but they came out more like polenta or semolina 'fries' that I've had other places, where large blocks of polenta are allowed to set-up in a chiller before being sliced into slivers, coated and flash-fried. If I was going to order an entree, I'd make sure I had a few of those little squares on the side.

The bacon-wrapped balsamic dates were the only real disappointment of our trips during Sour Fest - the bacon wasn't fully rendered on a few dates and the glaze was so heavy handed and the char so overdone that this snack resembled charcoal candy more than a intensely sweet and rich bite-sized sack.

The slider trio was pretty good too - we didn't bother with a photo - if you've seen one slider like this, you've seen them all. The flavors were spot-on, with the meat cooked medium rare and the accompanying toppings, like caramelized onion and fresh pico di gallo, delicious.

So while I'm sad to see the sour beers fall off the tap list one at a time, I'm happy to see alot of what's coming out of the Kitchen at Devil's Den .  Elizabeth & I are already looking forward to enjoying dark beers and good food next to the fireplace.

Chicago, Chicago You're My Kinda Town - Restaurant Roundup

I recently traveled to Chicago for a training at work and had enough time to take in some of the sights and check out some of the restaurants around the downtown area known as the Miracle Mile.

Armed with a new Android-powered phone, I was able to track down some pretty good grub in the short three days that I spent there. Let's start with the one that everybody knows about...

You probably recognize the Top Chef Master Season winner Rick Bayless - traditional Mexican fare is his niche and it all started with Frontera. On a Tuesday night the wait for a table was 1 hour, that's how popular this place is. We waited patiently for a spot to open up and the the bar; if it hadn't been for the kindness of a pair of British tourists who allowed us to claim their spot before they got up, we would've been waiting at least 15 minutes more.

A friend of mine and his wife regularly visit Chicago and always make sure to stop in here for a meal - in fact, he's the one who gave me the tip to forget the table and order from the bar...you'll get the full menu without the wait and the hassle. What you've got here is a good collection of Mexican flavors - the sopes, fried discs of masa dough topped with slow-braised pork were excellent - the spicy shrimp & corn soup was unusual and refreshingly spicy - in the foreground was a tortilla topped with black-bean mash, pork belly, avocado and a heap of cilantro..another contrast between deep, umami flavors with a clean, green & herbaceous finish.

The wait isn't for everyone and the crowds can be discouraging but the I'm glad we tried some of those flavor combos - it reminded me alot of a meal at Xochitl with attention paid to the layering of flavors.

The Publican!!! (located in Fulton Market) 

This place belongs in Philly. It's focused on three things....Oysters...Excellent Beer...and nose-to-tail cooking, preferably of the porcine variety. The restaurant itself is decorated like an upscale barn, with diners sitting in penned in booths like livestock or seated around large communal tables farm-style.  The lyrics for the Beatles song Piggies kept popping into my head when I saw happy diners tucking into massive plates of food

Everywhere there's lots of piggies 
Living piggy lives 
You can see them out for dinner 
With their piggy wives 
Clutching forks and knives 
to eat their bacon 

This wasn't bacon or pork belly or tongue or any number of interesting cuts on the menu - this is a lamb neck that is slow-braised then dusted and fry-crusted before being served in a broth alongside lemony potatoes & yogurt.  A little heavy for August, but unctuous and rich with flavor, a sweet dark meat being braised for so long right on the bone. 

This is my favorite fun dish of the trip...fried spicy pork rinds.  These were still hot from the frying oil and coated with a spicy, cheesy powder coating...think Cheetos meets chichirrones. I found out later that this dish was featured on the schlocky "Best Thing I Ever Ate" time-filler show on the Food Network...grrr...it deserves better.

I found the Purple Pig online in a search for tapas on the Miracle Mile. The website & menu looked pretty good and I'd even considered it for a dinner, but as luck would have it, we got to Chicago early so we chose to go there for a late lunch.

I was a little worried as we approached the place - what had looked like a gastro-pub/tapas bar online had all the appearance of a ladies-who-lunch/post-shopping trip wine bar - the kind that serves up $15 glasses of chardonnay to go with uninspired bruscetta.

The Purple Pig was somewhere in between the two expectations - the food was clever and had a few interesting flavors. I especially enjoyed the chorizo-stuffed fried olives.  Some of the food was on the edge of being too oily or salty.

Always looking to compare Chicago to Philly, we decided that the Purple Pig was similar to the small plates from Amis, albeit a cut below in terms of execution. This dish was the most evocative of Vetri's Italian tapas - a mousse of mortadella spread on delicious crusty bread and topped with pistachio, arugula and quality balsamic vinegar.

I'm glad we went there for a late lunch - I think I would've been disappointed with a dinner there as the menu seemed to promise flavors that never seemed to peak on the plate.

Speaking of ladies-who-lunch, another meal the next day took us deep into the so-called "Viagra Triangle" - a term for the high-end shopping/restaurant/bar district that sat just off the north end of the Miracle Mile. I'm guessing the large amount of middle-aged shoppers and diners strolling about contributed to the moniker.

Welcome to the Luxbar! Take away the D&G clad grannies pecking away at their chicken salads and you could see the bones of a decent gastropub here - a smattering of decent craft beers and options like truffled fries and sliders had me thinking I was back in Philly sitting outside Varga watching the the world go by and 10th & Spruce.

Objects on the blog may appear larger than they are on the plate! Luxbar had a mix of sliders to choose from - here's a lineup of the mini-dog, BBQ, Kobe and Fried Chicken sliders. Nowhere near as good as the Varga sliders - the Kobe was dried out and the BBQ was disgracefully sweet and without a smidge of heat or tartness.

Again, decent lunch option but I'm glad that we didn't spend an evening in the Viagra Triangle.

Located several blocks away from the Triangle and closer to Loyola Law School was the strangest Spanish restaurant I've ever eaten at - Cafe Iberico.

Now, don't get me wrong, I really wanted to like this place but everything about it was cringe inducing to the poor sucker like me whom after reading several online reviews, was expecting something closer to Amada or Washington D.C.'s Jaleo.

Was it the laminated accordion-like menus that displayed a washed-out photo of every dish on the menu? Was is the cavernous interior, designed to simultaneously feed 300+ people in one sitting which made me worry about the attention to quality that inevitably goes out the window when you're hitting that many covers a night? How about the TVs on an endless loop of sports-news-weather, just like the airport terminal we'd left behind at O'Hare?

Well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. This was tuna cannelloni, tuna wrapped in pasta and topped with a thin 'white wine' sauce which resembled yogurt.  Assembled together, it looked pretty much like more of the same goofiness we'd witnessed, but the taste was actually spot-on...the tuna was flavorful, not a mushy paste, and the tomatoes were fresh and vibrant in a dressing of olive oil and lemon.  Looks like a case of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole here.

This dish just had me in stitches - I chuckled when our served delivered the Pulpo a la Plancha - a pile of grilled octopus & french fries...yes, french fries....about as Spanish as the french fries you find at Chinese buffets. I joked with Elizabeth that this was Sandra Lee's recipe from some never-aired episode...a 'Spanish Siesta' complete with a paella made with Uncle Ben's and kielbasa braised in Sunny Delight.

Again, the saving grace for Cafe Iberico was that I'll be darned if the octopus wasn't cooked perfectly. And the fries, also perfectly done, actually worked in the dish. When I asked the waiter about the dish and the odd inclusion of fries, he kind of sighed and said 'American-style'. I was not lying when I told him that I enjoyed it and the octopus was perfect.

So to summarize - Cafe Iberico is a great deal for decent food...like a chips&salsa on-the-table 'Mexican' restaurant for Spanish themed dishes.

OK, if you've made it this far, you really must be interested in some of the dining options in Chicago so I've saved the surprise favorite for those of you that have scrolled your way through to here.

We arrived at Quartino very late in the evening, just as the restaurant was winding down. having been hopping from place to place all night, we were in the mood for a late-night snack before headed back to the hotel and I had notived Quartino came up in nearly every search I did on the Droid for wine or tapas.

We had a seat at the bar and chose from an excellent selection of charcuterie and accoutrement - we opted for some olives, speck, and a slaw of pickled fennel. 

In another Philly comparison, not only is the menu similar to the Garces Trading Post, but the decor also has the same retro butcher/soda fountain/general store feel, with white subway tiles, reclaimed wooden timbers and a gargantuan bar.

The polenta fries were over the top in late-night bar snack - served piping hot, still crunchy and without any gumminess, these were another one of those dishes I hope will appear on a menu in Philly sometime soon...perfect replacement football-friendly finger foods like fried cheese sticks. We had them, along with a marinara veal meatball slider.

Looking back on all this great food I suddenly feel the need to take the stairs instead of the elevator at work for the next 2 months. Overall I was impressed with Chicago and I look forward to going back for more good stuff as we missed out on a few places due to the the timing of the trip.  The problem with having an early-week trip is that many of the restaurant were closed Monday & Tuesday...so plan your trips accordingly.