I'll write more generally about my few days in Philadelphia in the next (I think) blog entry. First, however, let's talk about the food. Specifically, two dinners I enjoyed.
The last time I was in Philadelphia, I was doing a monthlong cleanse diet. Not quite vegan, but pretty close to it. And it wasn't a problem. After all, there is a gem of a vegan restaurant in Philadelphia: Vedge. Here's what I love about the place: it doesn't serve up tofu or seitan or other such things pressed into shapes and called "Mom's meatloaf" or "turkey dinner" or stuff like that. I have vegetarian friends, and they love stuff like that, for sure, and good for them. I mean that. Like what you like and eat it. But if I am going to be meat free, I want to really enjoy vegetables and fruits and grains for what they are, not what they are pretending to be. So I love places like Vedge or the now sadly gone Green Zebra in Chicago where the vegetables were the beautiful, glorious stars of the plate.
My dinner dates on Saturday in Philadelphia were Andrew and Ed, two good friends who both enjoy food. Neither had been to Vedge before, so I was glad to bring them there for the first time. It was an easy walk from the hotel. We got to our table, ordered drinks (the Sea Legs for me, which I enjoyed),
and alerted the server that Ed had a food allergy that we needed to work around. She took the menu back to the kitchen, and shortly after returned with it marked up. There were eight dishes that we could share with Ed, one or two of them modified a little, and so we ordered them all.
I didn't get photos of everything. The light was low, and I don't like being too much of a nuisance taking photos, especially when enjoying a meal family-style. I liked everything that we ate - no surprise there - but my favourites were the spicy dan dan noodles,
the eggplant bracciole (which I remembered from previous times eating there),
the deviled celery root crepe, and the rutabaga fondue. Look, here's how much I enjoyed things: I willingly ordered and ate and enjoyed things with mushrooms, like the portabello carpaccio.
Andrew and Ed enjoyed the savoury courses as well. Opinions were more mixed on the ice creams (the potato chip ice cream wasn't what we hoped, though it was fine), but the blueberry buckle with sage ice cream was a clear winner at dessert.
It was a very good meal, just what I had hoped from the restaurant, and though Mike teases me that there are other worthwhile places in Philadelphia to try, I will come back to Vedge when next I am in town.
After the dinner, we didn't simply return to the hotel for drinks with whatever colleagues were hanging out in the bar. Instead we headed to a comedy club
to watch Stand-Up with Strings. Andrew's son, Eli, was playing bass throughout a multi-comedian set, and we were there to enjoy it all.
Eli was terrific - my first time meeting him and hearing him play. He improvised and responded to cues, intentional and otherwise. The comedians were a mixed bag, and that's fine. The last two were the best, each of them interacting with Eli, able to do so on the fly. It was a fun way to end the evening.
The three of us walked back to our hotels, and my long day (I had landed that morning at 5:30) came to a good end.
Sunday night was dinner at Vernick Fish. I gather that the Vernick name is a known one in Philadelphia, and I liked what I saw when I was researching a dinner place online. I hadn't realized it was essentially in the lobby of the Four Seasons, and it was perhaps a little more upscale than I had expected, but that's all fine. The company with me (Van was there, Sara and her husband Peter, and Amy)
made for an excellent evening. I didn't photograph every single thing at dinner (like my cocktail, the A Day in the Life, which was tasty, or the eggplant katsu we shared and that I think was the best thing on the table that night), but I did get shots of my oysters (delicious)
and the halibut (the accompaniments outshone the fish, which was - sorry! - a little overcooked)
and the desserts (an olive oil cake, a dark chocolate mousse, a banana pudding sundae, all of them quite fine).
We had some good wines. The setting was bright and attractive. It was a good dinner. I realize I have less to say about Vernick Fish than Vedge, and perhaps that's because Vedge is the more interesting to me. But both meals were fine.
I think most of us had a nightcap at the hotel bar after that dinner - it is a conference, after all. And that capped the last of the finer dining I had in Philadelphia!
Posts
