Restaurant Review: Morimoto, Philadelphia PA

Our anniversary was earlier this month (six years! Holy crap!) and we celebrated by ditching the kids and getting loaded. We did other things, too, like visit the Please Touch Museum, and take Zo to a friend's house to watch the Kipona fireworks, but the centerpiece was the part where we took the train into downtown Philly and ate fantastic food and drank amazing wine, secure in the knowledge that our girls were in the very capable hands of Daryl's aunt & uncle and their three girls.

We went to Morimoto for our anniversary last year, too, and it was great. The only bummer was that Daryl was pregnant -- not a bummer in itself, of course, but it precluded her from eating raw fish or drinking alcohol, which meant her Morimoto experience was severely curtailed. So we decided to go back so we could do it right this time.

Morimoto

I continue to be impressed by the space the restaurant is in. After walking through the frosted front doors off the mean streets of Philly, you quickly feel like you've entered a different world. The dining room is a single, open room with a sushi bar at the back of it. The ceiling is light wood slats, and it isn't flat, it has a bit of an undulation in it. The walls are covered with what looks like cast fiberglass, also in a wave/abstract art pattern. All the lighting is recessed and/or behind the fiberglass panels, so it's all indirect. The tables (the 4- & 6-tops in the middle of the room) are separated by Lucite dividers with lights in them that slowly change color over the course of the evening. The overall effect is one of being underwater, but in a good way. The bar, by the way, is upstairs at one end, and you can sit and look out over the entire floor while you enjoy your pre-dinner drink.

We didn't do that this year, since we were running a little late (what else is new?), so we immediately sat down, ordered martinis, and checked out the menu. We didn't look for long, though, because we had pretty much decided to go with the omakase, which is the Japanese word for "entrust" and is basically Morimoto's "let us feed you" option. The only choice we had to make was which price level to go with, and we went the Goldilocks route, opting not for the cheapest or the most expensive but trusting that the one in the middle would be just right, and it was. For good measure (and due to the fact that we were taking the train home) we went for the mid-range wine omakase as well -- a glass of wine or sake matched to each course.

The meal started with a little amuse bouche. Since Daryl got the same thing I got when we were there last year, I'll just re-print what I wrote then:

The first course was a hamachi tartare, with bits of crunchy onion mixed into it, served with Osetra caviar, mirin, and wasabi, with a yamamomo (tiny red fruit). It was AMAZING -- creamy, a little crunchy, salty, sweet, a perfect combination.

My first course was a small glass of gazpacho with fresh horseradish and an oyster. I think that in this day & age it takes a pretty damn good soup to rise above the cliche of "chilled soup served in a cocktail glass for first course," and this one did. Both our dishes came with a glass of Moet & Chandon White Star NV champagne.

Daryl's second course was very similar to what I had had last year -- last year our server called it the "hot oil" course, but if I remember correctly he was sort of a tool, so let's call it a crudo of hamachi, served on microgreens with fresh cilantro and chili oil. Very tasty, as was my diced scallop, liberally seasoned with black pepper, topped with parmesan cheese, and grilled. Fish and dairy is a tough combo to pull off, but this was excellent.

The wines with this course were fascinating. My 2006 Chateau de la Vielle Tour Bordeaux Blanc was a bit boring in the glass but absolutely came alive when paired with the scallop. Daryl was served a 2006 Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand, and when the sommelier brought it, he warned her to expect "notes of green pepper and jalapeno." We had never heard a wine described this way and we were skeptical, but she drank it and damned if it didn't have notes of green pepper and jalapeno! Unsurprisngly it worked very well with her dish. Hats off to the sommelier for that pairing.

Third course is where they appeared to have made the largest adjustment over the last year, and it paid off. Daryl's yellowtail looked and tasted great -- the only thing I remember about it (the wines were starting to take their toll) was that it had some bonito flake on it; Daryl's notes refer to it as "fancy yellowtail," which sounds about right, and it was paired with a 1999 Domaine Joseph Matrot Meursault. My dish was Japanese tilefish in a brown butter sauce with green peppers with a fantastic glass of 2006 Keller Estates "Oro de Plata" Chardonnay. This is about the point in the meal where I started to run out of new ways to say "delicious" or "perfect."

On to fourth course: halibut with crab and seaweed and a 2005 Michel Picard Vouvray Chenin Blanc for her; king salmon cooked on a cedar plank with a side of oshitashi for me, along with a cup of Morimoto's own Junmai Daiginjo sake.

Finally we got to the main course. I still remember the Kobe beef and Japanese sweet potato dies I got last year, and was hoping one of us would get that this year. We didn't, but what we got instead was no disappointment. Daryl got lamb in a molasses reduction. All her notes say is "LAMB!" probably due to a combination of the food and an evening's worth of wine. Speaking of which, she got a 2004 Estancia Syrah; pretty impressive for an American wine to be the match for this dish.

My dish was Peking duck done two ways. I had Peking duck in Peking (OK, Beijing) a few years ago and even putting aside that I didn't have sliced liver on my plate this time, and was not expected to drink the liquor that smelled like old socks, Morimot's was way better. It was minimalist duck, just two small pieces, but the slice of breat had all the flavor of the entire breast, and the same was true to the dark meat. It was accompanied by a glass of 2005 Wildekrans Pinotage, which was simply one of the best glasses of wine I have ever had in my life. It was full-bodied, with huge lingering fruit notes. I can envision this becoming a regular in our wine rotation, if I could only find a place to buy it! If you get a chance you should definitely pick it up.

The meal wrapped up with a sushi course (accompanied by a Fukumiysuya Junmai sake) and a dessert (with a Grahams' 10 Year Tawny Port) but truth be told I don't even remember much about them. This meal was all about the main courses and for the second year in a row we were blown away by the food (and this year the service was much, much better as well). I don't know if we'll go back again next year -- we might try to branch out a bit -- but everything served to us makes me want to eat there as often as our bank account allows (which is almost never) and also to recommend Morimoto to anyone in Philly who wants a fantastic seafood-based dining experience.

Road Food: Barbeque and Beyond in Winston-Salem, Part Two

After a great meal at Lexington Barbeque on Thursday night, I was looking forward to trying a few other places. First up on Friday was lunch at Sweet Potatoes, a little bistro in the Arts District, which was, conveniently, only a block from the Convention Center. They were packed at lunchtime but I sat at the bar and had an absolutely fantastic steak sandwich with blue cheese dressing, and the Best. Sweet Potato Fries. Ever. Crispy and nicely salted on the outside, creamy on the inside. They were heavenly.

Unfortunately my second barbeque experience was totally different from the first. First of all my phone totally LIED TO ME and Don's Barbeque was nowhere near my hotel, as it had claimed. Not a big deal, it just meant I had to drive out to the edge of town. I actually welcomed the opportunity to explore a little bit more of the city, as otherwise I was pretty much seeing my hotel by the Interstate and the two blocks around the convention center.

Don's is apparently one of the only Western-style places in Winston-Salem, which is why I decided to give it a try. Alas, it wasn't that great, but I don't know if that's because I don't like Western-style (more ketchup in sauce, therefore sweeter & wetter) as much or if it just wasn't very good. Either way, it was a let-down, although I will point out that even "not very good" barbeque is still really really good, especially when consumed with an ice-cold mass-produced domestic beer.

On Saturday, after another fantastic lunch at Sweet Potatoes (summer

Sweet Potatoes

sausage with fried onions & corn relish, cup of three-cheese bacon soup, and seriously you have to eat at this place any time you're anywhere near The Triad), I packed up the truck and headed home. First, though, I had to make one more barbeque stop, this time at Clark's in Kernersville. I got a pound of coarse chopped to bring home, since it had been made clear to me that I wouldn't be welcome back in my home without it.

I was so pleasantly full from my lunch that I didn't even break into it until I was home, and then it was just to have a couple of bites. But the next day we made ourselves some sandwiches with the 'que and the barbeque slaw, which was their vinegar-based cole slaw with some of their barbeque sauce mixed in.

Clark's was, in my opinion, even better than Lexington Barbeque. Their coarse-chopped was actually big chunks of shoulder, and the tenderness of the meat was perfectly matched to the tanginess of the sauce. The meat benefitted from a night spent marinating, and once we had piled the barbeque slaw on top, it made for a perfect sandwich. Sorry, no pictures, I ate it all before I thought to grab the camera.

I didn't get a chance to try Little Richard's, and I did see a sign for an Eastern-style barbeque place, but I'll be back in W-S in January and both of those places (along with the upscale restaurant that the owners of Sweet Potatoes are apparently opening) and already on my "to eat" list.

Road Food: Barbeque and Beyond in Winston-Salem

So here I am sitting in a hotel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I'm down here for a few days on business, attending the South Atlantic Fire Exposition.



This was a long drive for what is going to be, I expect, a pretty boring show, so I was not too excited about going. I got a little more excited, however, when I learned about something called the North Carolina Barbeque Society's Historic Barbeque Trail. When it became apparent that my path would be crossing the trail, I suddenly got a little more interested in my first-ever trip to the Tarheel State.

So I spent a little time poking around on Chowhound, looking for barbeque recommendations in W-S and the surrounding area. Also, since I would be driving for seven hours to get here, I looked for recommendations in the towns along I-81 and US-202, and I was not disappointed.

I stopped off for lunch in Staunton, VA, at Mrs. Rowe's.

Mrs. Rowe's

This restaurant has been around for 60 years, specializing in fried chicken. So of course that's what I had, along with some mac & cheese and greens. The restaurant itself felt like a Shoney's on the side of any highway anywhere in America, but don't be fooled -- the fried chicken is something special. Juicy and flavorful, with a light coating that didn't overpower the chicken. I wasn't particularly impressed with the sides, but the excellence of the chicken more than made up for that.

Once I arrived in W-S and checked into my hotel, my thoughts turned immediately to BARBEQUE. There are, of course, several difference schools of barbeque in America: Kansas City, Texas, Memphis, etc. I had no idea that North Carolina alone had three different styles, or that I was in the home of one (Lexington-style) that I had never heard of. Since I'm barbeque-agnostic (I love 'em all), I was excited to check out a new style, so I drove down to the city of Lexington to try the pork shoulder at Lexington Barbeque (aka Honey Monk's). This was, based on the reviews at Chowhound, the acknowledged leader in this particular style, which calls for smoked shoulder only, with a thin, vinegar-based sauce with no ketchup whatsoever.

The place was packed on a Thursday at 6:00, which seemed like a good sign. We sat down and ordered the basics: coarse-chopped outside brown, cole slaw, hush puppies, beans, and a sweet tea.

This was among the best barbeque I've ever had. It was a little surprising upon first bite to not be getting any ketchupy sweetness (and, truth be told, I do like KC-style

Lexington Barbeque

the best), but the meat was perfect. Not so cooked that it was falling apart, it put up a bit of resistance as you chewed it but gave up terrific smoked flavor while doing so. Outside brown is totally the way to go -- the additional smokiness and slight caramelization was fantastic, and the thin sauce imparted a vinegary zip and just the slightest bit of heat from the red pepper flakes. The sides were also great; the cole slaw (vinegar-based, no mayo, just like DJo makes it) carried over the flavors of the sauce, the hush puppies were light & airy, and the beans were smoky & sweet and were improved by a spot of (Texas-style) barbeque sauce.

Given the preponderance of barbeque joints littered throughout Winston-Salem, I was skeptical of the need to drive 20 miles to go to a particular joint, but rest assured the additional effort was worth it. I think any time you're within 50 miles of Lexington you are required to make the drive to Honey Monk's. You will not be disappointed.

Mrs. Rowe's
74 Hwy 250 (Rowe Rd)
(At the junction of I-64 and I-81)
Staunton VA

Lexington Barbeque #1
10 Hwy 29 70 S (Mocksville Rd)
(Just off old Hwy 85)
Lexington VA

Restaurant Review: Fish On, Lewes DE

Did you miss us? We got back on Saturday night from out wonderful week in Lewes, spent hanging out at the beach, walking into town to get ice cream, and doing all the fun things that families do on vacation. Thanks to our brand new super-cheap video camera, I'll have a bunch of videos to post soon, but while I get all that together here's a review of the dinner we had at Fish On:

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We ate in on our vacation for almost every meal, but we did go out twice, once for brunch and once for dinner. Both times, I had GRITS, which might be my new favorite food.

The dinner was fabulous. It was at a restaurant called Fish On! in Lewes,Delaware. As we usually do, we went over as soon as they opened, the better to avoid inflicting our children on other diners. The restaurant was very kid friendly (as it should be in a vacation town) -- there were probably five or six other families there and we were very pleasantly surprised with the kids' menu, which included salmon, tuna, and crab cakes along with the typical chicken fingers & whatnot. Zo had the crab cake, which came with both french fries and green beans, and afforded Daryl & I the chance to try the crab cake (tasty!) without having to order it ourselves, freeing us up
to try other things.

We started out our dinner with cocktails, like actual adults -- Daryl had a Dark & Stormy, and I had a Martini, extra-dry, up, with olives. It came with three olives, immediately putting me in a good mood. We had checked out the menu online beforehand and were pretty sure what we were going to get, but the specials included a cream of crab soup with jalapenos, so I got that instead of the Delaware crab soup, which Daryl got. Both soups were excellent -- they included nice juicy pieces of crab and mine had just the slightest jalapeno kick at the back of the throat.

For starters, Daryl ordered chilled peel & eat shrimp with cocktail sauce. A basic starter, very nicely done. The shrimp were cooked perfectly and the cocktail sauce contained lots of fresh horseradish. I thought about ordering the pan-roasted mussels with tomato compote, chorizo & jalapeno, but I was on a crab kick so I went with the hot crab dip with jack cheese, served with homemade kettle chips. Best. Bar food. Ever.

Our main courses continued in the same vein as our first chices -- Daryl stayed with a red-sauce meal by ordering the Lewes seafood stew, which was a tomato broth chock-full of shrimp, mussels, tuna, halibut, and other various fishes and shellfishes. It wasn't as good as Phil's cioppino, but what is? It was a very nicely balanced fish stew, and they certainly didn't skimp on the seafood (though I was surprised that the soup didn't include any crab).

I ordered the item which had caught my eye when we were browsing menus to decided where to eat: grilled shrimp & chorizo over spicy jack grits. Yum. The grits were nice and creamy (making my dinner a cream-based trifecta), with enough jalapeno to make you notice, without overpowering the other flavors. There were only 5 or 6 small slices of chorizo, but that was enough to add an excellent accent to the meal, and the shrimp were grilled to perfection, juicy and flavorful.

Overall, an excellent meal. Next time you're on the Delaware coast, it's certainly worth a trip to the Villages at Five Points to eat at Fish On.

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Listening to: Spoon - Don't You Evah via FoxyTunes

Restaurescat In Pace

Do you have a favorite restaurant in the Harrisburg area? Do yourself a favor and don't tell me about it. We've lived here for less than two years and have already seen six favorites close.



* One of the first things we looked for when we moved here was good sushi. Living in the Bay Area we were spoiled, since we had multiple places to choose from, from cheap (No Name Sushi on Church Street) to expensive (Kirala in Berkeley) and everything in between. There are a couple of decent spots in Harrisburg, but the best sushi we found was at Gobo Restaurant on Lucknow Street. They had a good selection, everything was fresh, and best of all they delivered! We actually went there for D-Jo's birthday last year, and it was our go-to spot for celebratory take out. Alas, they closed about a year ago.

* The next great find was this little hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese place just off Paxton called Pho Viet Nam. Their pho and spring rolls were excellent, and they were also the only Vietnamese place we'd found which served banh mi, the fantastic Vietnamese sandwiches. It was right on the route I'd take from work to home when the highway was backed up, and I found myself taking that route more and more, calling D-Jo and suggesting banh mi for dinner, a suggestion she rarely vetoed.

Then one day I drove by and the doors were locked and there was a big notice on the window that they had been closed for health department violations. Whoops.

We can still get really good Vietnamese at The Garden and great pho at Golden Gate in the Broad Street Market, but we are, sadly, banh mi-less.

* Right next to the Garden on Reilly Street was Cedar's Lebanese, above the used bookstore. It was a little pricey, but the food was authentic and delicious and it was walking distance from our house. A few months ago it closed, though I have since heard that it is re-opening on the West Shore. Too far to walk to, though.

* About six months ago another one of my culinary prayers was answered as the Al Madina Halal Grocery in Steelton started selling prepared foods. This quickly became our work lunch spot of choice, as I was glad to drive up from Middletown for fantastic shwarma, hummus, and fool. It was a good decision for Al Madina, since I started picking up things like olive oil, pita, and feta cheese every time I stopped in for lunch or dinner. It only took a few months, though, for the take-out part of the market to close up shop.

* Recently a post went up on Harrisburg Nightlife mentioning that it looked like Jackie Blue might be undergoing an ownership change. It eventually came out that yes, it was closing, to be replaced by an "alternative bistro," possibly serving fondue.

I loved Jackie Blue. Once again, being within walking distance of our house (and those of you interested in stalking me ought to have triangulated my position by now) helps, but every time I went there (Except the last time -- more on that in a second) it was great. Great food, excellent service, fantastic atmosphere. I took business associates from Montreal there and they were impressed as well, which made me feel a swell of pride for my little city. Heck, I went over there on Super Bowl Sunday to drink a couple of beers and take advantage of the giant HDTV behind the bar.

Our last visit was a different story -- after waiting for 15 minutes to be seated in a mostly-empty restaurant, we were seating next to the window, and as the bitter cold streamed in we noticed that everyone in the restaurant was freezing and TPTB appeared to be unable to remedy the situation. Undeterred (and late for our movie) we ordered our entrees, and I ordered a glass of house red wine.

A long while later, our food arrived, and on each of our plates the main item (my steak, D-Jo's chicken) was not hot. All the sides were, but the meats were lukewarm, telling me that they had come out early and sat on the counter while everything else was cooking. Disappointing, but not as disappointing as the fact that, when my food arrived, our server informed us that they were out of red wine.

Out of red wine? In a restaurant, at 8:00 PM on a Friday? I was too shocked to suggest he go behind the bar and grab another bottle and open it, but really I shouldn't have had to figure that out. We finished out meals and headed out, a bad taste in our mouths both figuratively and literally. I hope to get back there one more time before they close so I can leave with a positive memory.

* The last straw was last week. Over the last six months we've been driving out to Ephrata every few weeks to eat at the Nav Jiwan Tea Room at the Ten Thousand Villages store. It's a long haul, but the draw has always been that every week they featured the cuisine of a different country. It was amazing -- you'd go there one week for great Indonesian food, and you could go back a few weeks later for Ethiopian, or Malian, or Ecuadorean. It was all good, very authentic, and reasonably priced, and it was a great treat to have, say, Thai food, and have it be as spicy and flavorful as it is supposed to be.

I logged on last week to see what the upcoming countries were, and found this message:

The Nav Jiwan Tea Room will be closed from Monday, March 19, 2007, through mid-spring. Following this period of renovation and restructuring, it will re-open with a new format, offering fair trade coffees and teas and light fare.

I'm sure it'll be good, but I won't be driving nearly an hour each way for tea and finger foods.

So that's six special restaurants in under two years. We still have a handful of favorites: Mangia Qui/Suba, the first restaurant we ate at in Harrrisburg; Bayou, the current walk-to favorite; the Middle Eastern trio of Skewers, 2nd Street Kabob, and La Kasbah; and all the great places (Nonna's, Golden Gate, Curry In a Hurry, Corner Rotisserie) at the market. But given our history and the apparent fickleness (or uncomfortableness with unfamiliarity) of the dining community here, I fear for all of them.

Joe Beef!

Tonight my co-worker Dean and I had dinner at Joe Beef, a Montreal restaurant which certainly lived up to its name. That web page doesn't really say anything about the place -- if you're interested, check out what the folks at eGullet have to say.

The room is very small, only 26 seats, and the two-tops along one wall are crammed in so closely that the beyond-adorable servers have to move the table in order for you to get to the banquette seating. (I don't usually go on and on about the attactiveness of random women but this woman was seriously cute). The seating arrangement fostered a sense of community that I don't usually care for when I'm eating, but it turned out to be very comfortable. Many of the diners seemed to know each other as well as the waitstaff -- since we went on a Wednesday I'm guessing it was mostly regulars, though the room was full, and we only got a reservation due to a last-minute cancellation.

There were lots of things on the menus which sounded very tasty -- filet mignon, trout on a bed of lentils, roast guinea hen, Dover sole, mussel soup. They have a huge wine list including several wines by the glass. We started with a half-dozen oysters on the half shell -- a few from British Columbia and a few from Price Edward Island -- before moving on to the main course.

After mulling over the guinea hen as well as the "Pot Pie" with boudin sausage, we decided to split the cote du boeuf, which was a rib steak. Actually it was more like an entire rib roast cut into steak-sized pieces -- there must have been 2 lbs. of beef, plus a giant rib bone. Seriously, this thing was huge. I'm planning to bring the bone home and make my dogs the happiest dogs in the world, and I figure that if Montreal gets snowed in over the next few days Dean and I will be able to survive for at least a week on the leftovers.



In addition to being large, though, the steak was great -- tender, juicy, and well-prepared in a horseradish wine jus with greated cheese on top. The Swiss chard tart seemed almost unnecessary in the face of so much steak.

As we were getting our coats, one of the owners (Fred) came out, introduced himself, and thanked us for coming. It's the sort of thing you might expect from a brand-new restaurant, but for him to be doing it two years in is a nice touch. All in all it was a very nice meal in a great atmosphere and I would certainly recommend it to anyone who's in Montreal and looking for a big, hearty meal.