Sushi Stretches the Busy Season

So, the busy season continued and while others were still digging the Indian fare, I found myself wanting something slightly lighter. To satiate my desire for a less heavy lunch I decided to walk to Whole Foods and pick up some sushi. Nothing fancy or mind blowing, not even real sushi, just shrimp tempura rolls and an Odwalla Power C drink. The dragon had a zen moment with the sushi, which made me wonder where it came from...I had always assumed Germany, as it did come to me in a Kinder Egg, but now I'm wondering (sad thing is it was probably manufactured in China...and you know how the Chinese feel about Japan...I don't know what that means but I have a feeling it could be offensive).

Delivery c/o Trio

Our card playing and beer drinking, to put it simply, ran kind of late, and I was a bit out of commission the next day. I did, however, have to go to work for a bit, but after that I knew my day was going to be some sort of delivery food and a few good movies. I ordered from Trio, because I wanted Thai food and hadn't tried their fare. I ordered their Tom Yum soup and Pad Thai. I know, not very original, but my thought is this: if they can do the basics/inauthentic things in an interesting and satisfying way then it would be worth trying their more exotic/complicated dishes. The soup was quite pleasing, very lemongrass-y. I'm beginning to think that my expectation of straw mushrooms is silly, as the last three places from which I have ordered this soup have all given a button form. Weird.
The Pad Thai was better than my last Thai delivery experience, but not too exciting. It may be that the dish itself is not that exciting and so I should get over it. Ah well.
I keep meaning to do a movie/tv/book round up but it's gotten so long that I can't imagine that I would care about it, let alone anyone else. That said, I watched Away We Go and Unbottled (Uncorked?), and maybe even a third movie that escapes me. Sigh.

Beer Tasting ANd Cards

Two Fridays ago L. and I made plans to play rummy on the deck. I went to the beer store to buy some PBR for the occasion and found a beer tasting in progress. So I tasted. Then we played cards. In one round we literally played every card in the deck, L.'s finger represents where the deck had been.

Lasagna c/o Luigi's

As the busy season winded its way down, I thought I would try something new from Luigi's...so I ordered the meat lasagna. I felt that it tasted wrong. Weird. Maybe rancid. Maybe just spiced funny. L. tried it and agreed that it tasted funny, though I don't think she went as far as to say rancid. C. liked the taste of it, so I gave it to her.
It was a solid brick of molten cheese, sauce and strangely flavored meat. Shame I didn't like it.

Lamb with Artichokes and Avgolemono Sauce

For another lunch I ordered the lamb with artichokes and lemon egg sauce. It was rich, and tasty, the dragon tried to take the dish by surprise.
The landscape of food.
The food was not terribly surprised by the dragon popping up.
The lamb was very, very tender.

Pizza c/o Luigi's

At some point in the last two weeks I went over to C. and R.'s to hang out with them and M. and Ak and L. Oh and Brutus, the puppy. We ordered pizza from Luigi's. The choice of onions and broccoli was, at first, a little counterintuitive to me...but then I actually tried it and, you know, red onions on a pizza? Not such a bad idea.

Bean Burrito c/o Mugshots

Another busy day lunch was had c/o Mugshots. I thought I'd try something new, so I ordered the burrito, adding bacon because, you know, bacon makes everything better...except in this case, when bacon actually doesn't work at all.
I guess I had imagined a slightly less liquidy bean element that would not compromise the crispiness of the bacon. But the fact is that this burrito did not meet my expectations, and the bacon was kind of soggy.
The dragon was unfazed by this minor set back and, while I turned my head for a second, quickly latched on to a piece of tortilla. It was quite difficult to separate it from the foodstuffs, perhaps it has a thing for guacamole?

A Little Ocean, Right in Your Mouth

So at some point in the last two weeks, I have no idea when exactly, I met up with A. and A. and A. and two others at Sansom Street Oyster House. I walked. It was still warm then.
I started quite the trend when I ordered myself a dirty vodka martini with three olives. And by trend I mean that everyone else ordered one too. That, I think, totally counts as a trend. When A. showed up he bucked the trend, which was a little bit of a bummer but I guess we can't all have the same taste, now can we? It was deliciously dirty.
The buck a shuck oyster of the day were the Saddle Rocks, but I was interested in trying another thing too so I ordered half a dozen of the Saddle Rocks and half a dozen of the Pemaquids. This guy suggests that one think of Saddle Rocks as a slightly larger cousin of the Bluepoint, which I think is quite accurate. He also had a fairly interesting description of the Pemaquids, though I think my description (which I am about to give you) gets to the point more succinctly. So, you know how sometimes, when you're at the beach, riding waves and whatnot? And every once and a while your timing is off and you end up getting pushed into the water and not escaping without a snootful of water up your nose? The salt lingers in your nose and mouth for a second? Yeah, eating a Pemaquid was like that, only without the fear of drowning, and in a positive way. The briniest oysters I have ever had, but in a way that makes me remember them fondly.
After our oyster fare we went next door to Oscars, where I had a beer the size of my head! I also took advantage of their jukebox and put on some tunes...I forgot how much fun it is to flip through a jukebox's offerings.

Ham and Cheese c/o Luigi's

Another day at work I thought I would try a hoagie c/o Luigi's. Ham and cheese. The funny thing was that the onions were cooked and seasoned already, but cold. It was really, at first, not what I was expecting, but they actually added an interesting sweetness. The hot peppers, however, were just too hot. The meat and cheese were standard. A dependable but not exciting sandwich.

Food Bloggers and Brunch c/o National Mechanics

On Sunday I was committed to going to to brunch at National Mechanics to see what a panel of food bloggers had to say for themselves. Philly food bloggers, that is, with the exception of the Girl Who Ate Everything, who lives in New York (but I've been following her eating exploits with envy for at least two years now). I asked A. if she'd like to join me last minute and, bless her heart, she said yes. So I walked on into Center City, passing the Love Fountain (not the official name, I don't think) that was dyed pink in honor of the Phillies doing something great.
A. biked, so even though she left her house about 20 minutes after I did, we arrived within five minutes of each other, which was great because I really wouldn't have wanted to sit at a booth and eat and listen alone. That, and A. is great company. There was a make your own bloody Mary bar (should one just capitalize 'bloody' because Mary is capitalized, this is something I wonder each and every time I have one and write about it). A. and I both took advantage of this option. I used half their existing mix, half regular tomato juice, but added a fair amount of horseradish (I like my Bloody Marys cloudy with the stuff) and put a few dashes and tickles of different hot sauces in for good measure. I enjoyed their offering of capers and olives, though I would have overloaded on olives if their supply hadn't seemed so low.
Old bay around the rim. It was delicious. I liked how the capers were some weird version of tapioca in my straw. In other words, I considered this Bloody Mary (I've decided, capitalize both) like a savory and alcholic version of a bubble tea...only totally different.
A. had the skillet with queso fresca eggs and myriad other tasty looking treats.
I agonized over having a proper breakfast brunch of eggs benedict but found the allure of a burger with a fried egg too tempting to pass up, so I didn't pass the burger up.
It was a good burger, one of the better I've had in Philly, actually. They season their meat, which I appreciate, and in a way that I can get behind. I would have enjoyed a runnier egg, but you can't always get what you want, especially when you don't really need it.
The panel itself was pretty informal, but certainly featured a few bloggers with whom I was familiar. There wasn't a lot of structure to the event, but hey, that's not so bad. It was certainly interesting to see the faces of Drew Lazor, who is the food beat writer/editor for the Philadelphia City Paper and, shoot, I've forgotten his name but he is the co-founder of Unbreaded, which is definitely a site for sandwich lovers.
On the walk back we passed an art gallery with a giant dinosaur made of pink bottles.
And a sand sculpture in honor of the Phillies doing something great.
I'd never actually seen this park, complete with mini-golf course and mini-carousel. The carousel made me remember Glen Echo's carousel nostalgically. Anyone?
In all it was a five mile walk, made me feel good about myself, though all the heel bopping from the musical show the night before, and the Saturday three mile walk, and the fact that I hadn't walked such distances in about three weeks (oh work, can you be an excuse for my laziness?) led to my right leg kind of giving out about a half mile from home. Some sort of hip muscle seized so that if I walked with a proper stride I would yelp with unbearable pain. Thankfully this went away after a day. What a great weekend, a nice mix of people and events. If only my life was this interesting and varied all the time. Ha. Ha. No, really.

Twilight Sad and Socks

When the Twilight Sad took the stage some dude with a serious camera and fill flash came around to take pictures. The few times his flash and my longer exposures met, the results were quite neat, to me. Then I photoshopped the hell out of them.

The front man was very into what he was doing.
While the bassist pretty much looked like this (to the right) the whole time. Dude was playing the music in a way that made him seem wry.
The fact that he was playing in his socks...and that his socks didn't match...I took as confirmation of his wry state of mind.

The Lemon Lobster Vampire

There should be a 'the' after 'of' and before 'matter,' sigh, I am awesome.

We Were Promised Jetpacks at the North Star Bar

After the limoncello I sped home to meet up with Ak for a musical show at the North Star Bar. wanted to see We Were Promised Jetpacks, she wanted to see The Twilight Sad, we both won....because they were all Scottish! I took terrible pictures and then photoshopped them into different, not much better, images. I have more. But right now I have to go to work.





This is the same picture three times, but I forgot to include it before any photoshop took place, and why bother? I don't know.

Duck Tacos c/o Adobe Cafe

After my walk I returned home, regrouped, and then went to the King of Prussia mall for an epic amount of shopping (though I actually only came home with two new pairs of pants, two sweaters, a bra and two DVDs). Once my consumerism was completed I drove to J. and J.'s for dinner. We ended up going to The Adobe Cafe.
We shared a pitcher of beer and he-J ordered nachos, which were quite tasty. I ordered duck tacos.
They were good, though there was a moment where I felt like the meat tasted more like chicken. Service was quite good until the end. Our server disappeared and the kids were getting antsy and there was no check in sight.
N. and S. were in fine form that evening. N. is now speaking a lot more, and stringing together sentences, so that's pretty revolutionary.


We walked back to their house where I was tempted by limoncello. And by tempted I mean that I had a glass, and liked it very much.
A big thanks goes out to S. for suggesting I come over for dinner, and another thanks goes out to J. and J. for the always great company, dinner and libations.