First Audrey Claire Trip 2009

J has wanted to go to Audrey Claire for a long time. He'd actually been talking about it since last summer. For whatever reason, it just never happened. When we got together with P and E for dinner on Saturday, I suggested it as a nice and local option. They agreed! Off we went. We ate super early, so it wasn't too tough getting a table.

The grilled octopus salad. I've gotten this a few times here before, and I love it.

Grilled artichokes. Now I'm not into artichokes at all, but they all started raving about it, so I had to at least taste it. I liked it! It had a lovely grilled flavor, and so the sourness of the artichokes was diminished quite a bit, and was probably why I ended up liking it. If all artichokes tasted like this, I could start eating them regularly.

The mediterranean spread with hummus, roasted eggplant and fontina, and sun-dried tomato and garlic spreads. The hummus? Good, but the least exciting of the 3. The sun-dried tomato and garlic spread was delicious. Strong tomato flavor, garlicky, slightly spicy. But the best of the lot, by far, was the eggplant spread. Oh my word, so damn good. I could have just eaten this with a spoon.

E got the pork chops as her entree. A giant chop with grilled apples, served with asparagus and mashed potatoes. She liked it, and she couldn't finish it. Lightweight.

J got the special, which was barramundi, or a type of australian seabass. A giant heaping portion of this fish, cooked well, and quite delicious. This was served on top of israeli couscous along with some haricots vert and a cucumber sauce. Oh man, I traded my asparagus for these green beans, and they were delish.

P and I both got the other special, which was a hanger steak. It was also quite a large piece of meat, served with oven roasted potatoes and asparagus. We both enjoyed our meals. It's a byob, so be sure to bring your booze along. Everything is cooked to order, so don't expect your food to come out very quickly. You can see the open kitchen in the back, and it's tiny, so just give it some time. Service was good, nothing great. Even when the place started filling up and there were people waiting for tables, we just sat around for awhile and they didn't rush us out, which we appreciated.

E couldn't help noticing some nearby diners who were clearly on a horribly uncomfortable first date. It makes me cringe just thinking about it now. We all came to the superficial conclusion that the dude was definitely the better catch of the two, and that he should go do better. Girl, could you crack a smile or two? No. So sad. We really wanted to go over there and fill their glasses with booze, to ease the tension.

One more note... after dinner, we took a little walk to Black Sheep on this pre-St. Patty's day weekend. It was crazy because there were leftover drunk erin express people there, along with some barely dressed guinness chicks getting people to sign a petition. P & E introduced me to the Dirty Hoe, which is a hoegaarden with some framboise poured in. Now I like hoegaarden tons on its own, and I'm a fan of lambic as well. Framboise is a bit too sweet for me, but you know I love me some peche lambic. Well, when you put the framboise and the hoegaarden together, what you've got there is now my favorite beer drink in the world. Delicious.

Sabrina's Brunch

On this fine Columbus Day of 2008 (which just happened to be the day with the highest Dow surge ever, after its ginormous drop) we finally got to go to Sabrina's for brunch. Every time we decide to get brunch on a weekend, we drive right past it because there's tons of many more patient people waiting to get in. We just could never be bothered. It's good to be free on weekdays.

Sabrina's is a pretty darn popular place. On weekends during peak brunch time, don't even think about it. You'll be waiting forever. It seems to be an institution. It's also a BYOB, serving brunch as well as dinner. They have outdoor seating, and we scored a primo spot outside. It's surprisingly large on the inside. There are seemingly 3 separate dining areas. I had no idea how big it was on the inside. Goes to show just how popular they are.
Egg white turkey bacon fritatta. I'd never actually eaten turkey bacon before, but damn, I liked it. There was also spinch and tomato in this, and the tomato made it a bit runny. I really liked these home fries.

I went with the stuffed caramelized french toast with cream cheese and bananas. Ok, so you can't tell in this photo, but this thing is huge. I wish you all could see this french toast in its proper scale. My jaw dropped seeing this monstrosity as soon as the server rounded the corner. It's enough for a small family. This dish is beyond decadent. I love me some challah, and when it's dipped and fried and stuffed and then topped with maple syrup... Damn. I barely ate the half. And I was trying very hard. As we were eating, more and more people started showing up and the place started filling up. And it was only a monday. Were it not for the waits, I would definitely come by for brunch more often.

Seafood at Dmitri's

When I asked P a few weeks ago for recommendations on where to eat in the city, he threw out Dmitri's and Effie's, two greek restaurants. On the drive over to Franklin Fountain the other night, we passed Dmitri's, and I said to myself, oh, that's where Dmitri's is. The next night when I was forced to pick a place for dinner (oh, the bane of being a food blogger), I thought why not. There are two Dmitri's, and this one on 3rd is a BYOB.

The place is pretty teeny tiny, and when we got there at about 8:30, it was packed. We had to wait about a half hour, so we walked around a bit. Whenever we got back from the walk, we were seated immediately. Table space is very limited, it's pretty much packed to the gills. The waitresses are all surly and tattooed and clad in black tank tops. A bit like the cheerleaders from the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. Like they would cut you if you wronged them.

One of the specials of the nigiht was the tomato basil and mozzarella salad. I was expecting one giant tomato and a big slice of cheese on top. Instead, we got this sizeable plate packed with some of the tastiest tomatoes ever. Man, was this good. Everything about it was good. Oh, and you get free bread and pita too. Good and good. The pita bread was a little bit charred, but lucky for me, I like burnt stuff.
P said the octopus was good so I had to try it. Again, a sizeable dished packed with grilled octopus. These are pretty no frills, just simply grilled served with some oily dressing on the bottom of the plate. I thought it was good, but I wasn't crazy about it. J wasn't crazy about it either, but that didn't keep him from stuffing himself with it. It was even garnished with some olives and pepperoncinis. J liked the olives (I hate olives) and I liked the pepperoncinis too.
One of the fish specials of the night was the tilapia. That's a whole lotta fish if you ask me. That plate is not small. Those pieces of fish are not small. This was a hearty portion of fish. It was simply prepared, grilled, and came with some kind of white wine based sauce. Simple, yet good. J was practically drinking this sauce, or at least sopping it up with bread. I went with the scallop platter. You can get this grilled or fried and I went with the grilled. Again, very simply prepared, just grilled. I thought I would get like 3-4 big scallops. Whoa, was I wrong. There were at least a good dozen scallops there, way too much food for me. These were delicious. Grilled perfectly, so that it wasn't overly done at all. Both the entrees came with rice and escarole. The rice was just fine, but this escarole crap was really unappetizing. I expected any kind of taste but what I got. Bland and bitter. Blech. I left the giant lump of this escarole pretty much untouched. In fact, when we had the leftovers boxed up, J insisted that I did not want the greens wrapped.

There was tons of food left... tilapia, scallops, and octopus. We should have just gotten a couple more appetizers, nixed the entrees, and called it a day, but we didn't know we would get so stuffed. Really, I need to stop this gorging. We ended up using the scallops and octopus the next day as ingredients for improvised lobster ravioli from trader joe's. You know what? It actually tasted even better the next day. Thanks for the recommendation P. I can see why this place is packed.

Dmitri's
795 S 3rd St
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 625-0556

Il Cantuccio

Il Cantuccio is a teensy little BYOB in Northern Liberties on 3rd. I'd passed by it dozens of times before but had never really wanted to go in (sounds like Pepperocini, eh?). I met some friends I hadn't seen in a long time there last week. Like I said, it's teeny tiny, so you definitely need reservations. That's the menu - one simple laminated sheet. You get complimentary bread. Loved the bread. It comes with two spreads, one was roasted red pepper and the other, a green mystery. We forgot to ask so I don't know what it was made of, but they were both awesome.
F got a house salad. This was the small, but it was still pretty big. All three of us shared it.
Z got the Sampdoriana, which was fusilli with shrimp and broccoli in a garlic sundried tomato sauce. This had a slightly strange taste. I attribute this to the sundried tomatoes, as I don't like sundried tomatoes. Z said it had a slight "asian" taste to it. I could see where he was coming from.
Both F and I got the fettucine pasta special. It came with shrimp and crab meat in a pink sauce. Totally great. I cleaned my darn plate. The service here was ok, nothing spectacular. There was one waitress waiting on the entire place. But that's ok here, like I said, it's very tiny, maybe 20 seats in the entire place? It's a nice little BYOB option in NoLibs.

Il Cantuccio
701 N 3rd St
Philadelphia, PA
215-627-6573

Post-Festival Audrey Claire Trip

I don't normally get drunk in the middle of the day, but Saturday was one of those rare occasions. The Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival was held, and luckily for us, the rain stayed clear and we were able to enjoy a nice day out.

P told A that there would be no funnel cake at the festival. Was he ever wrong! Not only was there funnel cake, but there was also tons of booze, including red and white sangria. Drinking sangria at 3PM on a Saturday is a recipe for shenanigans.


Eventually, we ended up going to Audrey Claire for dinner. It was a nice day for pretty much all of it, but by the time we went to eat, it was a bit too cold for al fresco dining. So we got a nice table by the open window instead.

We just ended up ordering a bunch of stuff and sharing. The grilled octopus salad, always one of my favorites. Pretty much P and I were the only ones digging it. I believed A called them "like tires". Which is fine because the more for me!

The flatbread with gorgonzola cheese, pears, and sunflower seeds. I didn't try this that night but I remember it from before. Gorgonzola is a strong cheese, so it's not for the faint of heart. It was not a very popular dish that night.

T ordered the mediterranean olives. This is like my ultimate nightmare dish. A bunch of olives on a plate (blech), plus, cornichons. I think this is what someone could use to torture me by, force feeding me olives.

T also got the tiger shrimp with sweet potato and watercress. She was digging on this.

D got the penne arrabiata. He said it had a bit of a kick!


A got the mediterranean spread with spicy hummus, roasted red pepper, and roquefort. The hummus - surprisingly spicy! The roquefort, a stinky cheese, so I did not enjoy this at all. The pitas were damn fine though.

I got the mussels and were there ever many many mussels. 2 lbs of big sizeable mussels. Definitely not puny like the ones at Plate earlier in the week. And it didn't even occur to me that I'd totally just eaten mussels earlier this week. In any case, they were good and very filling. I had to keep force feeding mussels to everyone else as the dinner went on. I also ordered the roasted beet appetizer but I totally forgot to snap a pic. It was simple, with fried shallots and a light dressing.

The service was good, as usual. We were pretty much the first set of diners for the evening, so they helped us quickly, and our food came out super fast, surprisingly fast. They kept our water glasses filled and they helped us with the wines we brought. As you already know, it's a favorite BYOB of mine, and this visit was no different. And it's super affordable, as it only ended up being $20 a piece for everyone, including tip.

La Viola Ouest - best of the BYOBs

I'd been hearing about La Viola all summer long. Everyone had been raving about it. It's not a new place, but it seemed that everyone was discovering it this summer. There are two locations, both on south 16th, the original La Viola and the bigger and slightly nicer Ouest location. Because we had a big party, we had to go to Ouest on the west side of 16th. Hence the name. Please keep in mind that the Ouest dining room apparently has more items on the menu and that dishes are about $1-2 higher than the regular La Viola. In the original La Viola, it's much smaller and more crowded.

La Viola Ouest does not have a sign. So good luck finding it. It's basically in a row home, so it's a long and narrow dining room. It's decorated very simply. Real Italians, with accents and all, are the waiters there. It's a BYOB, so bring your own booze people! No corkage fee either, which is nice! They give you free sourdough tasting bread that is warm, and (hopefully) home-baked. I quite enjoyed it.


The prices are quite reasonable. These veal dishes above were $14, as were most of the other veal dishes. There were plenty veal dishes to choose from. I don't know what the first one is, but it certainly looks damn fancy. Are those veal medallions? The gnocchi was only $9. What a bargain.


I went with the lobster ravioli. I absolutely love ravioli so I try to order it whenever possible. And I especially love lobster ravioli. There were only five, but they were large. I wished there were 50 more! So yes, I liked them alot. In fact, everyone loved their food! There's so much to choose from here, I definitely have to come back and try more dishes out.

La Viola

253 S. 16th St

215-735-8630