Brunch c/o Kittery

Saturday was spent by me working, working, working while L. and Fat T. went out into the greater world to look at a house upstate. Eventually they returned and our evening began. I didn't really take any good photographs of food I ate that evening, but the highlights included my having a separate trip to see S. and T. from ye olde high school days before meeting back up with L. and Fat T. for a pig roast party. Hijinks ensued and the evening went late. The next morning I had to do more work and L. and Fat T. met up with E. and K. to look at apartments in Brooklyn. Eventually our schedules dovetailed through brunch at Kittery. I ordered a virgin bloody mary and enjoyed it.

And the fried clam roll, which was buttery to an extreme. The coleslaw that accompanied it wasn't so interesting, but the chips were decent.

Seafood Times

I could have sworn that I wrote about these meals yesterday and posted it successfully, but it seems as if I have lost my mind or that Blogger is suffering some kind of technical brain fart.In any case, here's a quick summary of what I wrote yesterday: On my way back from Delaware I stopped at a farm stand and seafood market, picking up a nice variety of things to enjoy over the days that followed. The first meal I enjoyed was rockfish with a cherry tomato, garlic, caper and lemon compote type thing, along with littleneck clams steamed in white wine and with some leftover salsa fresca I had made the week before. I overcooked the rockfish accidentally, but on the whole each dish was to my liking.

A day or two later I made this pasta feast for me and AS to enjoy. AS recently departed Philly so she can pursue graduate studies in NYC. This is a sad loss of a friendly face in Philly, but I'm excited for what this educational opportunity/change of location might inspire in AS's larger life. In any case, to get a bit of face time with her before she left, I invited her over for dinner. This dinner was: fettucini with a similar cherry tomato/garlic/caper/lemon element with the addition of fresh corn, jumbo shrimp, a drizzle of truffle oil, a liberal amount of parmesan cheese and just a dollop of heavy cream.

I will not lie to you, this was an absolutely delicious dish. All the ingredients were fresh and I did very little to any of them, letting them really just speak for themselves as far as flavor was concerned. Oh yeah. Tasty stuff.

A nice final evening of conversation and camaraderie with AS before her departure!

M. Comes to Town and Modo Mio Ensues

So back in the earliest of 2012, I was hanging out with M. and the gang (that's totally how they would describe themselves), celebrating the new year, editing like a fiend, stuffing my face with pork and other tasty treats, whetting my gullet with fine Italian wine and... Yeah, the usual. The point here being that I once again brought up the fact that I would not rest until M. had tried Modo Mio, and A. too for that matter. The two of them were staying east for a while after the holidays, as M. was going to do fancy theater lighting stuff in New York. It was then loosely decided that M. would come to Philly some time in February in order to realize the Modo Mio dream. And that she did about two weeks ago. She arrived by train and I made the fateful mistake of trying to drive west on Market at 6 PM to pick her up on a Friday (don't do that it will take you 20 minutes to cross the river). Blah blah blah. The real point is that we arrived to Modo Mio in one piece. M. went into the nearby wine/liquor store to pick up some bubbly...I strongly believe that any meal at Modo Mio should start with some kind of sparkling wine. And M. went big on that one, coming out with a bottle of Moet, which we quickly popped once we were seated. Behold, this, a tasty dish. Sweetbreads with a sort of nutmeg flan custard thing, asparagus, crispy porchetta and a sage leaf. And I think perhaps a touch of balsamic reduction? This was no joke. The eggy nutmeg base was of such a silken texture and such an unexpected taste, but (as always) complemented the the saltier and heartier tastes and textures rocking the higher limits of the dish.
M. tried the chicken liver pate (I don't know how to make the little accent) cannoli, which was rich as all get out but, as usual, this place/chef/kitchen has figured out the perfect way to keep that chicken liver-y taste but to soften it a bit or inform it a bit so there's so much more going on. Also? They gave us a taste of the special appetizer of the night: clams! Tasty, tasty clams.
For my pasta I believe I went with the veal and beef cheek ravioli. I think. The one problem with Modo Mio's ever changing menu is that I always forget to write what I had down, and their menu online is totally outdated. Whatever this may have ultimately been, its key characteristic was tasty treatness. M. had the special pasta...buccatini with a cream and pepper sauce. Reminiscent of an al fredo sauce, but a little different.
For my main course I went with the skate with calamari, asparagus and white beans. Or I think that's what it was. This wasn't my favorite entree of theirs ever, but I think that's more just a question of my taste, not their execution.
In addition to the champagne, we also drank a bottle of Chateau Caroline. And for dessert, I chose a profiterole-like option. I forget what M. had. Then we concluded our meal with orangecello and glee.
Afterwards we ended up meeting up with LW for darts in Center City, and though I had every intention of getting LW to take a photo of M. and me together, I totally spaced on that. You'll just have to trust that I went to dinner with M. and that we hung out until late into the night. Trust it.

Oysters, Steamers and Burger c/o Sansom Street Oyster House

The Saturday following my evening with the J.s was marked by a slow brain start, work, and the arrival of L. on the scene. I had been moaning about the chaos of my bedroom long enough that on L.'s agenda was trying to at least make some sort of order out of something. I suggested my jewelry. So L. did a bang up job fighting against my own lethargy and non-interest to make something better. It worked. Then we went to Sansom Oyster House for dinner. I started with oysters, but I'm totally blanking on the two different varieties I went with - though I'm pretty sure they were both of the west coast variety.
Then we shared a bucket of steamers, which I enjoyed heartily and that L. seemed quite fond of as well.
The original idea had been to take L. to Village Whiskey and blow her mind with their burger, but unfortunately we simply didn't have it in us to wait an hour...so L.'s mind remains intact...for now. That said, the idea of the burger didn't end just because we were in an establishment better known for its seafood. The burger came with fried oyster, blue cheese and caramelized onions and was not bad. The burger itself wasn't all that interesting, and the fired oyster was a little less succulent than I might have expected, but the portion of cheese was right and the onions were a nice touch.

Dump Dinner c/o Sansom Oyster House

Weeks and weeks ago C. and I both came across Oyster House's 'Dump Dinner' Tuesday special and determined that we wanted in on such a feast of seafood. We made a date. It was at least two weeks in advance of our actually going, which was nice because it gave us something to look forward to. I forget what the beer special of the day was, but I had it. I also ordered two of the Delaware Bay 'buck a shuck' oysters for good measure.

So. The dump deal is this: a huge bucket of mussels, clams, sausage, crab and shrimp with potatoes and broth for $19. We made good progress through our shared bounty and I believe we left nothing behind except shells. I had forgotten just how time consuming and difficult it is to extract crab meat from the little legs and carapace and what not. Carapace? One more reason to love soft shell crab season...so much less work!
After that we went on a small bar crawl. First to the Happy Rooster and then to Good Dog.

Beer and Clams c/o McCrossens

At some point in the last three weeks I met up with L. and, if you can wrap your brain around it, went to McCrossens. Once there I tried their Dragon's Milk Stout, which is something special, though not for the weak of liver.
I also tried out what was a harbinger of even more changes to the menu: clams in a miso broth with a bunch of other things. The broth was quite nice and I liked the dish on the whole, but many of the clams' shells had cracked, which led to me inadvertently biting down on quite a bit of shell. Clearly one must be careful when eating such things, but I was careful, and still I got burned ... or should I say cracked?
I then ordered a Troegenator, which came in this nifty themed mug.

Clams, Fingerling Potatoes, Parsley and Tartufo Handcrafted Salami

Years back, in my Chicago days, I received the odd cookbook to review for Chicagoist. That was a different part of my life, and I miss some of it. Mainly the free books and opportunities to attend food events as a press person. In any case, at one point I made this dish based off of Art Smith's cookbook. Haven't made it since, even though it was ridiculously good at the time. So, when I was on Long Beach Island and stopped at a seafood store and saw the option of clams, this recipe jumped to mind immediately. On Monday I went about making it. When I went to whole foods they were out of cured chorizo and the meat counter dude was so apologetic he gave me a salami substitute on the house ($11.99 value!). The substitute, Creminelli's Tartufo Salami, held up pretty well. It had .05% black truffle in it, which added a different flavor profile than Smith's original recipe, which was a little spicier if I remember correctly. The salami also cooked differently than the chorizo, neither of which needed to be cooked. I added the salami after the clams had opened, but maybe I let it sit too long before serving? The discs were just a little more chewy than would have been ideal.
It's a simple thing to do, as you can see from the above link, and it works out well. L. came over and partook and seemed quite pleased.

A Trip That Looks Better In Pictures Than It Was In Reality

Though I was sickly, I had a day off and I had a whole plan to go to Double Trouble State Park and then go to the beach. But then I missed a turn a got lost, saw some water and got lost again, saw the beach briefly but was illegally parked, and then got seriously lost.



Then I had dinner at Europa South. I had a dirty martini with three olives. My waiter's name was something like Armando. He had a way with flourishy presentation. I think he was slightly amused by the fact that I was dining alone, but in a way that didn't make me feel like a loser--which one should never feel, eating alone.
Originally I was given butter with my bread. But then I was given this tasty red onion, garlic and olive/olive oil stuff that was much better. Given with flourish, I might add.
Then I had the lobster bisque, which was-according to the menu-a house specialty. I'll say this, there were a good number of lobster bits in the bisque, they were certainly generous. The bisque, on the whole? Very doily-ridden and okay.
I had the Mariscada in green sauce. Mussels, calamari, shrimp, clams and half a lobster in a parsley and garlic sauce. The actual sauce was kind of not as good as I had hoped. Weirdly thick and not as powerfully parsley garlic, if you know what I mean...and if you don't that's because I did a really bad job of describing it.
There was saffron rice too. I had a glass of Marqes de Vizhoja wine with dinner.

And a "Portugese Cappucino" to end...I thought it was just going to be regular cappucino but it had Hershey's chocolate syrup and, after a few sips, I discerned some kind of alcohol...turns out it was Kahlua (very Portugese).

Fourth Food

On the fourth I drove back up to Newtown to spend the holiday afternoon and evening with E. and her family and friends. It was less of a Fourth of July party and much more a birthday party for her grandmother so I felt that much more lucky to be attending the soiree. I brought two cheeses and some flowers to contribute something to the fun. The cheeses' names I cannot remember but one was a version of my fave: fancy cheese with truffles! Also offered was a cream cheese dip with tomato and pepper flavors.
Clams cooked on the grill.


Burgers and nitrate free, grass fed hotdogs.
And pickles that E.'s mother defined as 'special'. E. commented that they weren't very crispy, which they weren't. And that led me to wonder how exactly one can know if a pickle will be crispy or not...is it a matter of how ripe or unripe the cucumber is when you begin the pickling process? Something to think about.