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.
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.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment