Phil and I took a day last week and went to Philadelphia to visit
Ansill Food and Wine, a restaurant I had been to in January 2008 while I was at a conference. I fell in love with the food, with small servings and lots of offal on the menu, and finally dragged Phil up with me.
Before we went, I emailed the restaurant to explain that I intended to come and eat my way through the menu and ask, given that we were planning to stay there for several hours, if it would be better for us to reserve a table or to sit at the bar.
I also asked if he could recommend a B&B. The owner/executive chef, David, personally wrote back to me saying yes, it would be helpful for them if we sat at the bar. He also suggested
La Reserve Bed and Breakfast, where one of his cooks works.
A couple of days later I emailed back confirming that we were coming and warning David that I might just ask him to cook "whatever," given that I had just been in heaven the last time I was there. He responded "I will cook until you say stop" and I started
really looking forward to the trip.
Dinner did not disappoint, and the B&B was fantastic. Over the next few days I'll be blogging/commenting, a little bit to share, a bit more to plug this great restaurant, and mostly so I don't lose the experience. Today is courses one and two.
As a production note, all the pictures were taken with my cellphone camera and no flash, so excuse the less-than-great quality. I think you get the idea, though.
We went early so as not to stress out the staff during a busy time and were essentially the first people there. So we settled at the bar and Tasha, our amazingly fabulous bartender/waitress, announced us. She came back and asked us to pick some things off the menu, which they would then augment in the back. We picked marrow, steak tartare, pig trotters, grilled Brussels sprouts, and idiazabal (a raw sharp cheese from Spain). Tasha gave us half-glasses (so we didn't get blotto) of appropriate wines to suit. Unfortunately, my wine notes are cryptic and spotty, so all I have is what kind and sometimes a year. I realize this little information is effectively useless and apologize (especially to Lane, who would have done it correctly, I'm sure) in advance. Anyway, Tasha set us up first with a sparkling wine.
The first food that came was house-smoked (I'm pretty sure that's what my notes say) salmon wrapped around dill and little cucumber spears and served with a lobster cream (pic at top of post). My only complaint was that the little fish forks we had were insufficient to the task of picking up the roll. Phil did the smart thing and used a regular fork. I ended up having a bit of a salmon-cucumber salad. But the taste was very good - velvet at the top of the mouth and just tart enough at the sides for balance.
Next up was the bone marrow, served with homemade toast. Pic shows it after we'd split it and piled it on 2 toast pieces. The salad was a salty parsley salad. I didn't ask David how he did the marrow, but it was so perfectly grilled we wonder if he used a torch. The outside was crispy and the inside appropriately unctuous but not melted at all until it went into the mouth. The parsley salad had red onion and what seemed to be hibiscus sea salt on the side. It was quite salty; in other circumstances, too much so, but here it was a perfect foil to the marrow.
Part 2 (stay tuned) - steak tartare; tomato-escargot soup served with a marinated salt cod salad.
Pulled the bones out and put them on a plate (broth and trimmings will be lunch tomorrow, served over millet) with nothing else. Phil looked very suspicious that this plate of bones would make a meal, but none of us are complaining now. Marrow and meat and good fatty connective tissue is really satisfying.
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