Since the beginning of 2016, I’ve been writing a restaurant review column for my Philadelphia neighborhood weekly newspaper, the Chestnut Hill Local. The MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin), as Alfred Hitchcock used to say, is that all the restaurants are BYO (or BYOB), meaning they don’t have liquor licenses. BYO restaurants are as …
Despite what purists say, bouillabaisse can be made many different ways and still taste delicious. Perhaps you’ve heard or said yourself that dishes eaten in France don’t taste as good once they are transported to the United States. Bouillabaisse, the heady fennel-and-saffron-laced fish stew of Marseilles, is a classic example. …
The term “home cooking” usually denotes the satisfying comfort food mom used to make. But unless your mom was Julia Child, she didn’t cook with the complexity and sophistication of chef Andrew Wood and his wife, pastry chef Kristin Wood, owners of Russet in Center City, Philadelphia. Take the silky, …
Eberhard Muller is a tomato fanatic. The former chef Lutèce, Le Bernardin, and Bayard owns, with his wife Paulette Satur, Satur Farms, on Long Island’s North Fork. Muller says, “When we eat tomatoes, we don’t eat anywhere else except home. I pick them right before I eat. It’s fantastic.” …
More copper colored than pale, pale ale is a British invention with a yeasty fruitiness and a dry hoppy finish, though not as hoppy as India pale ale. The fruitiness in the Yards Philadelphia Pale Ale leans toward citrus. It is lean and clean with lovely floral notes and a …
Wheat beers are sort of the beer equivalent of Sauvignon Blanc, fresh and clean with citrus notes and the ability to handle difficult foods such as salads (notoriously difficult for wines) and asparagus (ditto). Also look to wheat beers for delicate seafood such as shellfish, tempura (with or without vegetables), …