Monday, November 16, 2009

Alice's Tea Cup









Alice's Tea Cup (chapter II)
is my sister's favorite place to take people in NYC for brunch. Its adorable but the food is not as good as the place is cute. I'll let her go she's only been in New York for a few months, I'm sure she'll find better places ;) So she and I ordered a Mad Hatter which was a choice of 3 scones, 2 sandwiches, an assortment of desserts and two pots of tea. Our scone choice consisted of a ham and cheese, lemon raspberry, and a pumpkin scone. I picked Alice's BLT and my sister had the curried chicken salad sandwich. The desert was a chocolate mousse with assorted cookies. Our choice of teas were an indian chai and a ginger peach. The indian chai was watery and our second pot was better but still not great, the ginger peach was delicious. The lemon raspberry scone was the best one, next came the pumpkin one, and my least favorite was the ham and cheese(I was mostly curious when choosing this option). The BLT was OK but I didn't realize it had blue cheese on it which I am not a fan of, it also had lettuce that should have been used in a salad (my favorite for a BLT is boston lettuce but romaine would have been fine), and there was too much bacon for my taste. The curried chicken salad was delicious with a hint of sweet from the raisins and apples. The mousse was nothing special but there was a surprise of white chocolate mousse layering underneath the chocolate. The cookies were just butter cookies and I could have done without considering i wasn't hungry. We only ate about half of each scone, the sandwiches, and the mousse, everything else went into a doggie bag. The rating for this one is ok but I wouldn't eat there again.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Marathon Grill




I did it, what i always say I'm not gonna do. I ate at a place I worked at before, but I only got soup so I guess its ok. My friend and I couldn't find a place to go on Sunday for a super late lunch, we wanted to check out Distrito but it was closed. We drove aimlessly around west philly and then walked aimlessly and decided upon Marathon Grill on 40th and Walnut, also known as MarBar. Freshman year I worked at a Marathon Grill (16th and Sansom) and I'll admit I loved working there but its just a policy of mine not to eat where I've worked once I'm done working there. Marathon Grill is a family owned chain (there are 5 all over the city). Their food is what i would call "Applebees" style but with a way better atmosphere and experience, oh and breakfast options. Anyway we were too late to make the Brunch menu although they do have a breakfast all day menu so Adam got a meatloaf sandwich and Lentil and Ham soup and I also had the same soup (I was sick so soup was perfect). The soup was delicious, warm, think, had a good taste, the beans weren't too broken down, and the ham chunks weren't too big. It was very filling and I couldn't even finish mine. The meatloaf sandwich was as to be expected, kind of boring, nothing special, topped with onions and bacon. Although the sandwich was boring the fries were delicious, thin, crispy, not mealy/squishy on the inside, and just the right amount of salt. All in all not too bad but everyone says the breakfasts are the best at Marathon especially the different kinds of egg dishes.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Zorbas





A friend and her daughter came to stay with me so they took me out to dinner! We didn't want to get stuck in traffic (because of the SEPTA strike) in center city so we went to a greek place a friend of mine had gone to recently called Zorbas Taverna. Its a smaller place that was as it said a tavern. Our waiter was very nice and attractive =) We ordered saganaki (kaseri cheese, usually fried in some way) this one was deep fried, huge, but delicious as always. For dinner Jessie ordered a salad while Jenn and I attempted to eat the hugemongous charcoal sampler(meateaters galore) which consisted of lamb, gyro prepared lamb, kebab chicken, chicken breast, pork kebab, sausage, yellow potatoes, rice and beans, and a vegetable mishmosh containing eggplant. All was delicious, my favorites were the chicken breast, gyro prepared lamb, and the potatoes (prepared in a different way then I've ever had them, they were yellow). There was also a dipping sauce which I think was greek yogurt with herbs. Jessie liked her salad, nothing to special or extravagent. The price was pretty good, nothing was too expensive, our sampler was 28.00 and 14.00 a person with a ton of leftovers is pretty good for good food if you ask me.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Breakfast in Bed







It was my boyfriends birthday so i wanted to make him breakfast in bed because breakfast is his favorite. I made a spinach, sundried tomato, locatelli, provolone, swiss quiche, pumpkin pancakes with pumpkin butter syrup (trader joe's pumpkin butter mixed with syrup and heated up),and breakfast sausage from reading terminal. Then for lunch i made him a chocolate cake with peanut butter icing(individual portion style). Everything was delicious! I also included a picture of one of the pizzas we made at his sister's the night before (no-rise pizza dough, veggie sausage, bruschetta, onions, and a cheese mix), also delicious.

Fabio Piccolo Fiore-NYC







The international business association went to the UN so then we got to have lunch in New York! Some of the ladies from IBA and I went to Fabio Piccolo Fiore. There one of my friends had a tomato mozzarella salad and then linguine with olives, calamari, and fresh tomatoes in a red sauce. I thought there was too strong of a seafood flavor. I had the penne alla vodka, it was very good, in my opinion the best out of what everyone got, just simple, creamy, and rich in flavor. Another girl had fettuccine al fredo which was good and simple. And the last girl had cheese ravioli which I thought were delicious (but i still liked mine better).