Food - Philadelphia Weekly

Philabeverage: Veggie Pairings

By Brian Freedman — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:52:20 PDT

Springtime produce is finally hitting farmstand shelves, which means that, after the long, dark days of roasted root vegetables and little else, the time has come to indulge in the classic vegetables of the season: artichokes, asparagus, cardoons, fava beans and more. As much as I wait for these...

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Forking Stupid: Nicole tries Thai at Old City's Fire & Ice

By Nicole Finkbiner — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:43:18 PDT

And she finds her palate is more culturally diverse than she thought. Well, friends, I’ve made an important realization: My palate is actually far more cultured than my past columns would suggest. You see, even though Italian and Mexican are about as ethnic as I’ll get in my own...

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Honey's Sit 'n Eat Is Sweet Enough For Two

By Brian Freedman — Wed, 08 May 2013 06:32:56 PDT

The brunch experts expand to South Street, and our hangovers are better for it. Sequels are rarely as good as the original. Sure, there are exceptions — The Dark Knight, Before Sunset, Justin Timberlake’s post-N’Sync career — but...

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Forking Stupid: Nicole Gives Veggies a Chance at Farm and Fisherman

By Nicole Finkbiner — Wed, 01 May 2013 07:02:42 PDT

While my aversion to vegetables isn’t nearly as strong as it was six months ago—when I first started this column—developing more than just a mild appreciation for them remains an uphill battle. But now that spring has finally sprung, I think it’s time to try to embrace all...

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Now's Your Chance to Experience Great Food-and-Drink Combinations

By Brian Freedman — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:58:35 PDT

Coffee beer brunch? Check. Gluten-free beer dinner? Check. Deciding which beer or wine to order with dinner is often the most difficult decision you have to make over the course of a meal. But as long as you enjoy what’s in your glass and on your plate, the intricacies of the pairing...

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Philabeverage: Tis the Season for Exciting Pairing Dinners

By Brian Freedman — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 07:56:16 PDT

It’s the classic conundrum of springtime in a great eating and drinking city like ours: Just as the season of more revealing clothing arrives, so, too, does a brand new crop of pairing dinners. So, do you take a pass on all of these phenomenal opportunities to joyously damage your liver and...

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Forking Stupid: A Few of Nicole's Favorite Things at La Calaca Feliz

By Nicole Finkbiner — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:47:01 PDT

Most of the dishes I’ve now cooked for this column have been totally new to me. So you can imagine how delighted I was to finally prepare two of my all-time favorite Mexican dishes: tortilla soup and guacamole. If it weren’t for the photographer documenting my every move, I probably...

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Saigon Cuisine Joins University City Scene, But Has Some Fine-Tuning to Do

By Brian Freedman — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:07:24 PDT

Few openings in the recent history of Philadelphia restaurants have been as fraught as Saigon Cuisine’s in University City. The lack of a sprinkler system led the Department of Licenses & Inspections to shutter the doors until one was installed, halting the restaurant’s December...

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Philabeverage: Crabbie’s Ginger Beer at Growler's

By Brian Freedman — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:50:03 PDT

For all the focus on craft brews, and the ever-increasing range of beer styles that Philadelphians have access to, ginger beer has, for the most part, been left out of the discussion. And no wonder: Most of the bottles you’ll find are either (a) nonalcoholic or (b) not very good. So when...

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Forking Stupid: Nicole Digs Into Ground Meat at Mt. Airy’s Goat Hollow

By Nicole Finkbiner — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:00:38 PDT

While I’m sure my German ancestors are rolling over in their graves, I gotta say, I’m really not a big fan of sausage. Bratwurst, liverwurst, salami, kielbasa—there’s just something about smelly, phallic-shaped mystery meat that instinctively makes my stomach turn. But if...

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Don’t Pass Over These Restaurants’ Seasonal Jewish Hybrids

By Brian Freedman — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:04:19 PDT

Three years ago, on an otherwise ordinary Sunday night, I ate the first spoonful of the matzo ball that changed my life: Such flavor, this soup! my Eastern European forebears would have said. What mazel to eat like this! It was 180 degrees from what those little nuclear golfballs so often are:...

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Spring Guide: Cooking with Flowers? Oh, Yes!

By Miche Bacher — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:28:01 PDT

One Long Islander in town for the Philadelphia Flower Show this month found herself with a rapt audience as she answered a question that, while it may not previously have been foremost in the mind of anyone present, in retrospect seems so obvious it’s amazing we all don’t ask it with...

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Philabeverage: Firestone Walker Beer to Debut at Monk's Cafe

By Brian Freedman — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:17:41 PDT

Two of the great liquid loves of my life, wine and beer, are far too often spoken of as if there’s an unbreachable gap between them. For too many, the world is populated by either wine people or beer people. Which, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth, especially in these heady...

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30-Second Reviews: New Jimi Hendrix, Rhye, "Hurly Burly" and More

By PW Staff — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:13:28 PDT

ON THE RECORD Rhye   Woman  (Universal Republic)  Sounds like: A killer debut from a team-up that bore beautiful fruit: Danish mutli-instrumentalist Robin and delicate, angel-voiced Milosh.  Free association: Everyone’s getting on the R&B train, and it’s picking up speed.  For fans...

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Han Dynasty’s Revamped Monthly Dinner is a Bold, Hot Adventure

By Brian Freedman — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:26:46 PDT

About a year ago, a few days after an adventure-eating article I wrote appeared in these pages, I found myself being questioned by Han Chiang. To the best of my recollection, the conversation went like this:  Han: So, you write about eating intestines and balls, and you don’t call me?  Me:...

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Philabeverage: Sbraga's Cynar Manhattan

By Brian Freedman — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:30:09 PST

Sometimes, the best cocktails are born of the most challenging circumstances. This was driven home yet again a few weeks ago when I had a chance to taste the new Cynar Manhattan at Sbraga, a beautiful, balanced, complex drink that seems to embody everything that head bartender/mixologist  Anwar...

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Forking Stupid: A Trip to Ippolito's Has Nicole Singing “Salmon-Chanted Evening”

By Nicole Finkbiner — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 14:50:33 PST

Even more so than with most foods,  I’m completely clueless when it comes to seafood. Besides having never purchased or cooked it myself, my palate is inexplicably discriminatory: I like tuna and flounder, but not salmon or tilapia. I could eat a thousand clams and mussels, but the mere...

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The White Dog Cafe’s Classic Cuisine is Freshened Up by New Chef Eyhab Hatab

By Brian Freedman — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:37:36 PST

Long before “farm to table” had ever been uttered and well before Michael Pollan had become a household name among a certain type of food-focused Americans, there was the White Dog Cafe. It’s remarkable when you think about how pioneering the place was back when it opened in 1983,...

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Forking Stupid: Nicole Finally Gets Some Damn Ice Cream

By Nicole Finkbiner — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:14:09 PST

True story: I probably wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Mister Softee. I’m not going to elaborate on that at this time, because I think even first-person columnists  deserve a little mystery, but now that I have your attention, allow me to say that Little Baby’s Ice Cream...

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Delightfully Divine Kosher Cuisine is on Display at Citron and Rose

By Brian Freedman — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:17:43 PST

Chopped liver is to Jewish grandmothers as Sunday gravy is to their Italian counterparts. But while that simmering, sputtering vessel of blood-red tomato sauce has been memorialized, fetishized and obsessed-over by chefs both amateur and professional, humble chopped chicken liver hasn’t...

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