Year in Review: February
News
- It snowed a lot in February, a lot. Like a whole lot.
- Fish gets 2½ bells from Craig LaBan.
- It’s cuteness overload in these ground hog day cupcakes.
- David Ansill catches us all off guard when he turns up at Ladder 15.
- San Francisco Chronicle food and wine critic Michael Bauer is cool with us.
- Turns out Foobooz readers are quite opinionated when it comes to restaurant logos. A lot.
- We stop to read the posts in the window at Kanella.
- University City’s Fresh Grocer was closed temporarily for health violations.
- Philadelphia Weekly didn’t do a best of issue, they did a better than best issue.
Dish of the Month
Cold Beef with tripe at Han Dynasty
I’ve eaten tripe in half a dozen countries and I’ve hated it every time. Rubbery and flavorless makes it sound better than it is. It’s not so much a food of poverty as one of utter desperation. The only reason I submitted to it here was to avoid losing face. So the subsequent epiphany was all the more shocking. Sliced, like the beef it mingled with, into strips almost as thin as cellophane wrap, Han’s flavorless tripe became a sounding board for a symphony of minced peanuts and sesame seeds in a slick of chili oil the color of pale rubies. The cold plate was incendiary with capsaicin, yet every single seed and nut fragment drummed open a taste bud, like rapid-fire timbale rimshots above the slow bass-drum beat of shaved beef. – Trey Popp, City Paper
Quote of the Month
It looked as if it had been plated by a bucket, not a chef. Craig LaBan regarding MidAtlantic.
Notable Openings
Garces Trading Co., Hoof+Fin, Le Viet, Maru Global Takoyaki
