Hoof + Fin

Sea Salt, table salt produced through the evaporation of seawater. Quahog, an edible clam inhabiting waters along the Atlantic coast, having a relatively thick shell. Hoof + Fin, a new venture from the chef who owned Sea Salt and still owns Quahog’s “down” the shore.


The byo is as small as when it was the restaurant Gayle except for a new coat of paint and a new decorative theme. There were a good numbers of drawings on the wall depicting tall ships and seafarer images. I guess that represents the “Fin” part of the restaurant name. Then there was the one and only drawing of a horse. “Hoof”?

The new restaurant’s grill-centric menu reflects the Argentinean background of both the chef-owner and the chef who runs the kitchen. It also has several “seviche” items plus house made pasta and risotto. That is if you could read the menu. For mood purposes, the lighting in the restaurant was intentionally turned down. It was so dim that our dinner friends had problem reading the small prints on the menu and had to bring out their pocket flash lights.

Hamachi Tiraditos


Raw thin slices of yellow tail submerged in lime vinaigrette with small pieces of jalapeno, herbs and avocado. The freshness of the hamachi was definitely evidence with the excellent taste of the meat. The chef had skillfully used this subtler version of a seviche sauce to bring out the quality of the fish without masking its freshness and sweet taste. I was surprised by the amount of sauce on the dish which seemed a bit excessive. I would have loved to soak it up with a piece of bread, except we were brought bread sticks at the table. No bread.

Tuna Pineapple Seviche

This was one of the off-menu specials for the night. We liked the tanginess of the pineapple base seviche sauce but it also was a bit too overwhelming to the otherwise non-exceptional quality and taste of the fish.

Cannelloni


Stuffed with ricotta and ham, then topped with pomodoro, and a white sauce and walnut pesto. We never quite figured out where or what the white sauce was but the cannelloni was pillow soft with the pomodoro being very tasty without the sometimes over-kill taste of acidity in so many red sauces elsewhere.

Gnocchi Ricotta Style


This gnocchi was made with ricotta instead of potato. It was sautéed in truffle brown butter with sage and capers and topped with shaved grana padano. We liked the gnocchi being sautéed with burnt edges around it which added some texture to the interesting chewiness but it easily came apart when bitten. There was no hint of truffle whatsoever but I wasn’t expecting the real thing in this dish anyway even with the gnocchi swimming in the more than abundant pool of butter grease.

Bone-in Ribeye

“How big is the 12oz (every protein on the menu was listed with weight)?” I asked the waiter. “It’s about the inside ring of the dinner plate,” came his reply. Well, I guess the darkness in this restaurant has affected his vision too. The steak arrived at our table with plenty of room to spare before touching the inside ring of the plate. It looked beautifully grilled with neatly seared diagonal grill marks and a nice sprinkling of red and green peppers flakes and chopped parsley. The meat was seasoned just right for my preference, not overly salted like most steak places in this city. Also unlike most steak places in the city, the meat was of the lesser quality; but keep in mind that the dish was only at $24.00, with two sides.

Costilla


I can’t say the same about the 10oz bone-in short ribs. The two skinny grilled pieces on the plate had more bones than meat. They were also on the boring side. Maybe this was the dish that could have used a bit more seasoning to mask the lack of taste from the meat. At $17.00, we got about $10.00 worth of uninspiring protein.

Mahi Mahi

Consistency is a good thing, or isn’t it. Two of the four of us ordered the Mahi Mahi. Two of the four had a fish that was over-seasoned and over-cooked. There was so much salt and black pepper on the fish that it appeared the kitchen was trying to do a Louisiana style blackening but this was neither the case nor the intention, and we were left with two uniform pieces of salted dehydrated meat. On the other extreme, the grilled vegetables on the plate were very good!

 

The Sides


All of the grilled dinners came with a starch and a vegetable. The broccoli rabe and stewed tomato was quite good. The acidity and sweetness of the tomato balanced the slight kick of the broccoli rabe very well. The Provencal fries were thick-cut steakhouse type fries seasoned with salt, garlic and herbs. I liked the slightly undercooked inside which gave them some bite and character. The first few tastes of the parsnip puree were sweet and smooth, however this sweetness could get to you after a few more bites and become a bit overwhelming.

Banana Bread Pudding


I love banana, as a fruit. I have never been fond of banana as an ingredient of a dish or a dessert; but I do love bread pudding.

This particular one had a great texture. The pudding was not too wet, dry, sweet or overly buttery. It was nicely balanced and “bread-ly” with a nicely crisped layer topping the container it was served in. The most intriguing part was the nice firm pieces of banana mixed in. They seemed a bit undercooked with a nice rigid bite but that suited me just fine. I do not like mushy banana especially those that just disappeared into whatever it is supposedly a part of. And yes, I like my bread pudding warmed and with a scoop of ice cream.

Rice Pudding

This was the first time I ever had al dente rice in a rice pudding. I am not sure if it was done intentionally but I totally loved it. The pudding had a consistency somewhere between a porridge and a soup. I enjoyed the texture of this not too sweet dish especially with the little bite given off by the slightly undercooked rice.

 

 
 

Crepe with Dulce de Leche


Of all the house-made desserts, I was most disappointed with this one. The crepe itself was very nicely done but the dulce de leche filling was too sweet with overly tastes of caramel and sugar.




 




The restaurant has a very ambitious menu with a kitchen that wasn’t quite ready for prime time yet. Interestingly, the much touted about grill side of the menu was the weakest part of the kitchen. With a background heavily invested in making good seafood (Sea Salt, Quahog’s), we were disappointed that our cooked fish dishes were…disappointing. With its intention to position itself as a causal neighborhood restaurant, it will find its niche quite well when the kitchen catches up with the menu.


PS. Our friend brought a delicious bottle of ’99 Caymus Cabernet for the dinner which was so well suited for the grilled meats at the dinner.

No.188 and No.2

We love Vietnamese food but we could never order the items by name without totally mangling the pronunciations. To make things worse, some waiters in Vietnamese restaurants speak heavily accented English; so we always embarrassingly do the gweilo thing, we order by the numbers.


Pho Hua is our newly discovered Vietnamese restaurant. It is conveniently located within stumbling distance just down the street from Devil’s Den and across from the old stand-by, Nam Phoung. Added bonus point: The younger waiters are all bilingual.

The No.188


No.188 is a huge meal in a bowl of rice Vermicelli on a bed of shredded lettuce topped with shredded pork, charcoal grilled shrimp and pork with chopped scallions and peanuts sprinkled on top. It comes with a bowl of dipping sauce (nuoc cham) consisting mainly of fish sauce, vinegar, sugar, line juice, garlic, chili pepper, and spice. Along with the invented-in-America Srirachi sauce, No.188 can make any hungry person happy. I also swear that the nuoc cham and the Srirachi sauces could make anything taste good.

I love Vietnamese spring rolls. I like them more than their Chinese cousin. No.188 comes with a miniaturized version of the regular size spring roll that is served in the restaurant. We have had the regular version which didn’t excite us at all, but the smaller brother was totally delicious and crispy. My favorite topping was the freshly char-boiled pork. It’s a savory thin piece of pork with a light sweetness, still giving out the aroma of the charcoal and burnt meat when it arrived at the table. Dip that in the nuoc cham sauce, you’ll be in heaven. My other love was the grilled beef in grape leaves which I ordered as an extra for this bowl. The grape leaves retained all the juice of the beef during the grilling process that then exploded in the mouth after biting into it and let out all the essence of the beef into the sensory receptors. Yes!

The No.2

What makes a bowl of pho? It’s the soup! For a restaurant in which half of its name is the thing that can make or break its reputation, it has done a pretty good job with this soup base. No.2 is just a base pho with thin slices of steak (put into the bowl raw and cooked by the hot soup during its way to the table) and brisket. It comes with the usual compliments of bean sprouts, mint leaves, line, and jalapeño slices on the side. Along with the Srirachi and the Hoisin sauces, this is a perfect comfort food for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Hot Coffee with Condensed Milk


There are only a few words that can adequately describe France’s contribution to the Vietnamese: black, caffeine, intense, sweet; delicious! Everybody should have one of these little cup size metal drippers at home just in case there is a Vietnamese coffee emergency.

Beer Weekend, Pt. 2

Saturday

Pliny the Younger at Tria in the Gayborhood

No beer has enjoyed so much notoriety lately as Pliny the Younger from Russian River Brewing. Not because it has been rated as the all time number one beer by Beer Advocate; not because it is extremely limited in distribution with the reportedly less than 100 barrels produced each year; not because beer geeks line up outside when/wherever the beer is tapped; but because it might have unwillingly played a role in the now infamous Keystone Cop style Great Beer Raid carried out by the PA State Police and the much beloved PLCB as one of the beers they were looking for and confiscated less than a week ago.

I am usually never early for anything but I found my self getting into the city early since there was barely any traffic because of the miserable rainy weather. When we arrived at 20 minutes before noon, the appointed time which the Younger supposed to be pouring, there was already a sizable group of people queuing up outside Tria waiting to get in. There is nothing more miserable than standing in line in the cold wet rain, however, considering that the first guy in the line had been there since 10:00AM, we couldn’t complain too much.

Tria did a very good job in letting people inside in groups so the place wouldn’t be jam-packed. The Tourist Tree has had the Younger previously but this was my first taste of this much talked about double IPA. I am not much of a hoppy beer drinker but I must admit this was a pretty good beer. It’s hoppy alright but it also has quite a complex flavor and a slight sweetness. I have been scared away by some of the extreme American style IPA’s, nevertheless this beer has a lot of merit on its own. With the Tourist Tree being the hophead between us, we both agreed that the Younger is a very good beer, but we are not sure if it is something worth standing in line for in the rain. It was also quite an expensive pour at $7.50 for a small glass. As the Tourist Tree put it, “There are other excellent beers out there…”
 

People still standing in line outside as we were enjoying our Younger leisurely. I also noticed that two women and one man who waited in line earlier but were now drinking wines at the bar. Wine! Why somebody would wait in line for a beer event and had wine instead once they got in?  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Garces Trading


There was a need for food after drinking the 11%ABV beer with an empty stomach. We stopped at the Iron Chef’s newest venture, a super upscale deli/grocery store/bakery/table service café, with a mini PLCB store attached within.

Buying a wedge of cheese, a few slices of cured meat, and picking up a bottle of wine under the same roof is nothing new to the rest of the free world. However, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which still operates by Prohibition era liquor laws and influenced by big industry special interest groups and politicians’ personal interests, this is a totally new concept.

The wine store is very small. It boasts that it stocks mostly “special order” wines that are generally available only to restaurants but not in the regular retail stores. I found the selection to be extremely limited. There were a few bottles each from different parts of the world but nothing from the US. Most of the bottles were unknown to any average person but only to wine geeks. The entrance to the wine section has a clear sign on the door reminding everybody that the space is leased and operated by the PLCB. I guess the best advantage of this arrangement is that one can buy a bottle of wine and byo through the glass door partition to the café section and have a meal with wine without paying the usual restaurant markups. Wacky!

Beer? What beer? You know that you can’t buy wine and beer under one roof in PA. That’s would just make life too easy for its citizen!

Compared to the wacky wine store setup, the rest of the place looks surprising normal; granted very fancy with the high ceilings, light color walls, brushed aluminum display cases with super-sized chalkboard menus above, and a crew of clean cut staff in crisp white uniforms behind the counter.


There is an amazing selection of cheeses from local and international producers, plus mozzarella made in-house. There are also a wide selection of sausages and cured meat from around the globe except I didn’t see the much talked about 2lb packaged burger meat that is used in the Village Whiskey burger for sale during our visit.

Cheeses, glorious cheeses!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I found the most interesting part to be the olive oil and balsamic vinegar bar which you can help yourself to a taste of the different offerings before bottling one yourself to take home.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The in house bakery makes the bread and a small but well rounded selection of desserts. It also sells different coffee beans including one that are roasted specially for the Garces empire.
 
 
 
 
 

The Moroccan


Within the café, there are several communal tables that allow you to enjoy your purchase from the counter cafeteria style. Instead, we took a table served by a waiter and both ordered the Moroccan sandwich; I had it “wit”, Tourist Tree “witout” the bread.

We were brought fresh bread and olive oil which looked very delectable but neither of us wanted to fill ourselves up.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

A nice thick cut of perfectly roasted lamb lion with a spread of finely diced roasted pepper, eggplant, herbs, and bacon on top; whole chickpea, comté on the bottom; sandwiched between two pieces of hard crust bread spread with harissa aioli on the super soft and delicious inside; arrived at the table.


The bread was of the same type that was in the bread basket. It would take some strong jaw muscles and sharp teeth to bit through the ensemble but you would be rewarded with a wonderfully tender piece of medium-rare lamb nicely flavored with the accompanying vegetable spread and the aioli. I am not much of a sandwich person but this one was delicious and very satisfying. Just what I needed after Pliny the Younger!


 The Moroccan “wit”

 The Moroccan “witout”

We couldn’t resist but had to get the tempting looking canalé and macron for dessert. The canalé was excellent with its soft custard like middle. We loved the salt and caramel macron. It was soft and airy to bit thought until the gooeyness filling hit you with sweetness and a hint of salt that’s very satisfying.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
The lovely Tourist tree enjoying a cup of Garces private reserve coffee while dreading the inevitability of bundling up to combat the Northeaster rain storm outside.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Interesting Find. We noticed this soda in the soft drink cooler. According to the label, it’s a Pinot Noir soda from Wine Country soda with 50% of the juice coming from the pinot noir grape. So…where does the other half of the juice came from? Does it taste like a pinot wine or is it just an expensive grape soda?
 
 

Supplication at Tria Rittenhouse

We were completely soaked by the time we arrived at the other Tria. Staying with the Russian River beers theme, we had the featured beer of the day, the Supplication. I am not a fan of the Belgium style sour but after the big lunch at Garces, I needed one. This brown ale made with sour cherries and aged in French Pinot Noir barrels made a nice digestive for my full stomach.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The day was still young, we could have gone to a few more places, but with the crappy weather and wet clothes, we decided to head home…..for a nice afternoon nap.

Beer Weekend, Pt 1

I still don’t understand the logic of moving the Philly Beer Week to June but a teaser of several impromptu specials held at several area bars over a weekend gave us a quick fix for our indulgences.


Friday Night

Yards ESA firkin at Good Dog Bar

There is a hierarchy of beer drinking: Cans, bottle, draft, firkin. A firkin is about as close to drinking a beer in its purist form, from the brewer’s tank in the way he intends it. We have drunk beer side by side, one from a tap, one from a firkin; there is just no comparison. We started the weekend at one of our favorite bars with our friend Fat Head Carl and his wife Heidi joining us.

Founders at South Philly Tap Room

Our hunger grew as the night went on, we moved to SPTR to catch some good grub. Mr. and Mrs. Fat Head both had the Left Hand 400 Lb. Monkey while Tourist Tree and I grabbed the Founders Breakfast Stout and the Dirty Bastard respectively as we began our long wait for a table.

 
 
 
 
 

Fat Head and the Tourist Tree entered into an in-depth discussion with a group of young documentary makers from Detroit. They were in town to interview an important person at UPenn about Detroit. We never quite figured out why they had to come all the way to Philly to talk to somebody about Detroit, but they had an enlightened moment when the topic of its mayor’s idea of bulldozing the city came up.
 
 
 
 
 

Mexican Construction Worker Head Cheese Tacos


These little things were awesome! Chef-made head cheese with small slices of avocado, mozzarella, and topped with a sliver of jalapeño. The combination of taste and texture of these bite size wonders was just about perfect especially with the heat and the crispiness of the jalapeño coming back for a little kick at the end of the bite. At $1.00 a piece, you can’t go wrong with it.

“Mexican Construction Worker” - It’s an inside joke referring to the Mexican helps in the kitchen who piles on everything (like a construction worker) but the kitchen sink on their food as meal.

Tomato Lager Soup with Grilled Cheese

This soup had great consistency and a wonderful taste to match. The grilled cheese came already in the soup when served; therefore it had some extra time to soak up the essence of the soup when you’re ready to eat it.



 
 
 
 
 

Meat Loaf


The meat loaf was a bit on the dry side but I enjoyed the taste of the loaf itself which had a bit of sweetness; and the crunchiness of the crust from the reheating when it was put on the grill. I also liked the crunchy cheese pieces sprinkles on top of the loaf. The mac n’ cheese was about as special as any store bought ready-made variety. It needed some cheese. It needed more gooeyness. It needed just some oomph.


 
 

Wild Boar Taco

The meat was quite tasty with a little kick after from the spice in the sauce. The whole ensemble with the guacamole and the onion was very pleasing. It satisfied Tourist Tree’s appetite after the ESA and Breakfast Stout.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Fat Head and our friend Steve who came out for a meet up with his wife Karen.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Karen and the Tourist Tree.

 
 

The Ladder 15 Burger

Huh?


David Ansill at Ladder 15? Am I reading this right? What is a talented French chef doing at a place with a kitchen that turns out skanky food to feed flocks of Friday afternoon office party happy hour / post college ex-fraternity ex-sorority slackers whose drink of choice is either a Coors Lite or Miller?

When Ansill’s new menu came out, I was totally intrigued by a burger that is topped with wine braised short rib, mushroom, grilled onion, cheese, and comes with a side of bone marrow, truffle jus, and truffle aioli.

The star, the moon, and the sun, and whatever else were in total alignment one night when we were doing drinks at Time (the Boulder Planet Porter on cask was totally awesome!!!) and needed a quick bite afterward before heading home.

The Ladder 15 drink list completely blew me away. The usual standards of those giant evil corporate industrial beers on the taps were replaced with craft beers like Victory Hopdevil, DFH Indian Brown, Flying Dog Old Scratch, Ommagang Hannepin, Bell’s Two Hearted, Yards Phila. Pale Ale….. and a just as good bottle list and impressive wine list (well, impressive for this place). The industrialized beers were still there but were only available in bottles and demoted to the bottom of the bottle list! It looked like the restaurant is really trying to crank up its beer program. We were even reminded by the hostess when she was sitting us, our waitress, and two mangers who stopped by later separately that the taps are rotated every 7 days with new beers coming on-line regularly.

We both got what we were there for, the Ladder 15 burger. They arrived at the table looking excitingly delicious. The burger patty itself wasn’t particularly large. It sat on Metropolitan Bakery brioche and topped with cheddar (Gruyere for the Tourist Tree), pulled short ribs braised in wine, red wine mushroom, and grilled onions. The over the top part was the side of bone marrow with a marrow spoon sticking out of the bone and two little containers of truffle jus and truffle aioli.


I liked the slight grilling of the brioche that added some textural bites to the bun but I didn’t like the smattering of butter on it. It had made the bun as greasy as Danny Zuko’s hair. It was recommended that the bone marrow be spread on the bun and eaten with the burger. However, after several bites, I still couldn’t taste the marrow. It was obviously that the meat overwhelmed the flavor of the marrow when eaten together.

Speaking of meat, the burger was made with aged sirloin. I am not 100 % sure if there were any other cuts of meat mixed in for flavoring. I do think that the meat taste was not outstanding. It was good but not outstanding. I have to admit that my taste buds might still be tinted from eating a Village Whiskey burger from the week before so my judgment on this patty might have been biased especially since Tourist Tree considered the patty to be quite tasty. Regardless, the patty was still nicely packed and moist despite it was cooked to medium with mine ordered as medium rare. This was interesting since the waitress had forewarned us, “The chef tends to undercook the burger.” I did enjoy the enhancement of the mushroom and onion in the burger; and eventually I far enjoyed eating the marrow more on its own with the spoon. It was like eating semi-melted butter, with meat flavor.

All these changed when the truffle jus was introduced to the burger. The dish was transformed into something totally different. I could even see the burger starting to levitate above the plate. This was David Ansill at his best. The jus was as old-school classic as any sauce that could have come out of a 5-star French kitchen. It was not too heavy, not too buttery, and nicely balanced with seasoning and complex depth of flavors with little flacks of truffles swimming in it. The Tourist Tree had requested her burger without the bun. She basically just poured the sauce on the patty and ate it like a chopped sirloin steak. I love the feeling of a burger in my hands and biting into the juicy concoction, but I have to admit that Tree’s method of attack was not without merit.


Neither one of us thought much of the truffle aioli. We didn’t taste anything special about it except it reminded us of a mayonnaise with seasoning. It did serve as a nice dipping sauce for the fries.

A burger is not a burger without its fries. Some of the fries on our plate were nice and crispy, but some were soggy and in need of a dose of Viagra with the rest being somewhere in between. The fries seemed to be made in-house (I didn’t have a change to find out) and I hope to see improvement on them as the new kitchen settles in with the new menu.

When I was looking at the draft list, my eye immediately zoomed in on the Southern Tier Crème Brûlée. I have had this beer before in bottles but this was the first time I saw it on draft in PA. Drinking this 9.2%ABV Imperial Milk Stout is just like eating a liquefied crème brûlée! It’s a total indulgence. This beer was so wrong a match for the burger but I didn’t care. It’s such a delicious beer (In retrospect, I should have had it for dessert).

I was pleasantly surprised by the new and improved menu and drink list for this restaurant. Although we only had one item from the menu, it showed promise and potential. The Ladder 15 burger was very fulfilling. It stood quite well on its own. The bone marrow was a nice luxury. It was totally unnecessary but it does give you bragging rights about eating such any excessive item. I am not sure if the $18 price of admission was a worthwhile bragging right since the basic burger is only $10 (plus an extra $1 for cheese and $2 for bacon) and there are a few top notch burgers within walking distance of this place. But I would submit my pride in defeat and willingly hand over a few extra dollars for that truffle jus.

We noticed that the staff also made an effort to improve the restaurant’s image. It took a while after we were seated before our waitress to show up. She was a bit clueless when I asked her what the makeup of the burger meat was but she was attentive and accommodating. We also had friendly chats with the 2 managers on duty when they made their rounds and stopped by our table to check on thing. Do keep in mind that we stopped in on a relatively quiet week night. This could be a totally different story when the mob of fun seekers jams this place and puts the staff into combat mood to manage the chaos. Can Ladder 15 climb its way up this ladder of the Philadelphia food chain with its new focus on food and drinks? We shall see….and I will return for the Korean Tacos.