#19: Alma de Cuba

 

Alma De Cuba, post 2 of my restaurant week series.  So pumped to write this. I've heard how great Alma De Cuba was, I've walked past the place many times, nestled on Walnut street among the shops, but I was still curious what it was all about. When I say that I've heard how great Alma De Cuba was, I mean mostly through my cousins, Melissa & Jeff's, raves. So I thought it would be a perfect idea to invite them down for restaurant week to join us at Alma De Cuba! I also prefer going to new places with people who have been there before. Sometimes these ethnic menus confuse me and its nice to have some back up.

Alma de Cuba was surprisingly big. It looks pretty small from the outside, but there were 3 floors with plenty of seating. The restaurant was dark, with candles and red lighting all around to make the place feel intimate and trendy.  Their restaurant week menu was pretty limited, only about 3 or 4 choices per course. That being said, I would have liked to order every option.

Melissa and Jeff talked up Alma de Cuba's El Jefe Mojito all summer, so clearly had to get that. It was worth the hype. The only complaint I have is that the glass was pretty small for being $12. (Are you shocked that I am complaining about a drink being too much money and too small?) Just a side note, you are not supposed to eat the sugar cane stick in the drink. Chewing it and then having to spit it out on your bread plate is not a good look.

 

 

During restaurant week you typically have to order your 3 courses up front. This is a lot of pressure. I slightly panicked and ordered the black bean soup, the Panca Glazed Chicken with yucca fries and plantains and the Tembleque for dessert. After I avoided saying any word that I didn't know how to pronounce to the waiter, I thought, do I even like black beans? What even is black bean soup ? I am going to get sick? Fortunately, it was delicious. I don't want to go ahead and say that I would order black bean soup from anywhere else just yet, but baby steps.

Other starter items we got were the Smoked Albacore Tacos and the Plantains. I didn't get a chance to try the tacos, so I am going to go ahead and assume they were good since everyone ate them pretty quickly.  The plantains tied the black bean soup for my favorite part of the meal. They were perfectly sweet with a buttermilk sauce. I basically ate most of my meal in plantains. Ugh, I miss them.

 

Melissa got the Cuban Shrimp and Grits for her meal and Brendan and Jeff got the Vaca Frita (skirt steak with rice and beans). I got to try both entrees and they were basically amazing.  

 

For dessert I was the only adventurous one and got the Tembleque when everyone else got the Alfajores (boring cookie sandwich). Tembleque is a Puerto Rican custard with a mango sorbet. I didn't love this. The custard tasted like flan to me, even though I've never had flan. It had a spong-ey texture and stood straight up on its own.

Overall, we had a great time at Alma de Cuba. Once Melissa & Jeff got over me taking pictures of their meals before they could have a bite with my obnoxious camera flash, we were good. We basically tried everything on the restaurant week menu, and if you know anything about my aversion to ordering the same thing as anyone else at the table, you know that this made me happy.

My advice for Alma de Cube: get the mojito, get the black bean soup, get the plantains, expect to pay a pretty penny!

 

#18 Ristorante Panorama

Post 1 of 2 of my restaurant week series of 52 first meals. I figure this is where I can really make the most out of my gift cards. Contributing $50 towards a 3 course $35 meal gives me a little wiggle room.

Ristorante Panorama (already annoyed that I will have to continuously type that out during this post, by the way) was located in the Penns View Hotel on the corner of Front & Market streets. Sounds easy enough to find, right? Nope. I already add at least 10 more minutes to my drive when I am going anywhere in Old City because I never know where the hell I am. 10 minutes extra was just not enough for us. Next time remind me not to use Siri to direct me. Once we finally parked and made our way through the foreign land that is Old City, we arrived at the Penns View Hotel which houses Ristorante Panorama. It was beautiful. It overlooked the river and had an amazing view of the lights of the Ben Franklin Bridge. There was some seating outside and I thought it would be a great place to go in the summer.

Regan & I met our friend Colleen at Panorama. We entered through the lobby of the hotel and then made our way back through a hallway to the restaurant. Of all the empty tables in the place, they sat us directly next to a couple. Why do they always do that, by the way? It has to be some restaurant formality that I am not aware of.

The cool thing about Panorama was that they included their entire menu in the restaurant week special. This was great because you knew you were going to get a good portion size
and that the food was going to be well prepared because they weren't just cranking out orders after orders of the same few dishes all night.

The waiter took our wine orders almost simultaneously as we sat down. Typically, I like to get my wine order in fast, but I didn't get a second to think about what I wanted. When we all ordered glasses of their house wines, we got a bit of a look. Clearly, people who eat here don't typically order the house merlot. I wanted to peruse the wine list to act like I knew what I was ordering, but frankly I would've ordered the cheapest glass anyways.

They started off some crackers on our table. We were all starved and annoyed that the only thing they were giving us was these pellets of dog food. It wasn't 30 seconds after I said "I'm putting this in my blog" did they come out with warm bread rolls with a delicious pesto dipping sauce. Touché Ristorante Panorama, touché.

 

We put in 3 apps that we could all share. We went with clams, calamari (duh) and the  'Mozzarella al Limone'. We were happily surprised that the mozzarella dish was basically fried cheese. All of the appetizers were great. Typical Italian restaurant apps, but I loved every second of them.

After much, much deliberation we finally chose what we wanted to order for our entrées. Regan got the Gnocchi con Provola Affumicata, homemade potato and ricotta gnocchi with fresh basil and fresh & smoked mozzarella in a light San Marzano tomato sauce. Colleen ordered the Pappardelle al Sugo d’Anatra, which was slow cooked duck over noodles. Saving the best for last, obviously, I got the Tagliatelle con Funghi e Granchio homemade pasta tossed with  mixed mushrooms in olive oil with chives topped with lump crabmeat. Regan's gnocchi was perfect. It was light and fluffy, not too thick. Colleen didn't love her duck (duck, though?), but she also didn't love most of her meal. Being from Scranton, PA and experiencing all of the fine dining establishments NEPA has to offer, I can understand her pickiness. I love love loved my meal! The fact that it was only tossed with olive oil and not a thick sauce made it easy to taste the flavors of the mushrooms and crab.
 

 

 

 

Now on to the dessert. After having a lot of appetizers and a pretty big entrée, none of us really wanted dessert, but since it is restaurant week and it is included, you can't not. Regan and Colleen both got the Profiteroli, or in English,  Italian creampuffs filled with vanilla pastry, served with dark chocolate sauce. The reason that my sister ordered this was because it was basically the only thing on the menu that didn't have fruit in it or on it. Yes, Regan refuses to eat fruit. And whenever telling someone that she doesn't like fruit, without fail, someone always asks, "But what about_________" or "Not even _______". I still do it. I once told Regan I would pay her $20 to eat one blueberry. She said no. My dad made her eat an orange once when we were younger, she gagged uncontrollably.
 

I ordered the cheesecake special. I thought it was great, but Colleen was like "that is great to you?!" So maybe it wasn't that good. I guess I was feeling weirdly optimistic that night.
 

So the bill comes. It's restaurant week, I am expecting this to be a breeze of a bill. Wrong, wrong, wrong. With tip, $180. Luckily, I only had to pay with my gift card and then add $10, but Regan and Colleen had to drop $60 on dinner on a Tuesday night which hurts my heart.  But great time, great laughs, great friends, lots of food. Can't wait to venture back in the summer for happy hour!

#17 R2L

R2L to follow dinner at Sampan. I've been wanting to experience R2L, mostly for it's infamous views. I figured going here for just dessert and drinks would be a good way to end the night and a great way to not spend more than $50. R2L is located on the 37th floor of 2 Liberty Place. As we were walking there, we looked up to the top of the building and said "Is that where we're going?". It just looked amazing to be able to be up that high.

After 2 wrong door entrances into Liberty Place (after a year of living in the city I still feel like I never know where I am going), we finally made it to the elevator that had only two stops- the lobby & floor 37.

Once we entered the 37th floor we realized R2L was a pretty lavish place. The lighting was dimmed and everyone was dressed to the nines. We had made a reservation, but decided to sit in the lounge area to be able to get the best view of the city. The dining room was pretty empty (as to be expected at 9pm on a Tuesday), but the lounge was almost fully occupied. Consequently, we did not get a seat right by the window. We were facing a somewhat awkward group people who looked like they could have been on a blind group date.  Not exactly what I wanted to look at or listen to, but we made the most of it.

Our waiter brought us two glasses of champagne to start, which was pretty amazing. With all of the free food we were getting at Sampan, plus this, we were starting to feel kind of important. R2L had an extensive wine list, so I just chose a random glass of Pinot Noir. Typically, I go with the cheapest glass, but since we had $50 so spend on 2 drinks and dessert I chose a mid-priced glass. After much debate about the dessert, we decided to go with  the Toasted Cinnamon Crunch, which was donut ice cream with hazelnut and cinnamon crackers. It was one of the most beautiful desserts I had ever seen. I didn't know how to go about eating it a first, but we definitely figured it out. It wasn't a huge portion, but it was fine since we were pretty full from dinner. The dessert menu also suggests a drink to pair with the dessert. This is something that I wish we tried. If it wasn't a Tuesday quickly approaching my bed time, we probably would have.

Then the check came.. $36. In such a debacle. I texted all of my friends to see if it was appropriate to leave the tip on the gift card. Most of them said no. This annoyed me because $14.00 on a gift card at a place like R2L doesn't really entice me to come back. So the waiter processed our bill and came back and said "If you would like to leave the tip on the gift card, I will need the card back" I could've kissed him- problem solved. I didn't have to spend any extra money and the waiter got a pretty nice $14.00 tip.

R2L was the definition of a romantic and intimate restaurant with its ambiance, lighting, service, and spectacular views of the Philadelphia. We also enjoyed the chance to take selfies on the elevator ride...

#16 Sampan

Sampan for Brendan's 26th birthday! First, old. Second, you could say I am not the best at making decisions. I basically deflect most questions that involve decision making that come my way. Brendan highly dislikes this quality, so for his birthday I decided to make all of the plans and not tell him anything.  He highly disliked this as well, he may have asked me 12 times where we were going. It was pretty empowering I must say! So the plan was Sampan for dinner & then R2L for dessert and a drink (blog post to follow). Sampan is a contemporary Asian restaurant located at 13th and Walnut. I loved the decor inside. The bar was packed and there was a pretty large crowd sitting down for dinner as well. I always get weird about going out to eat on a Tuesday night. We passed way too many people walking to the gym on the way to the restaurant. But once we walked into Sampan that guilt was erased. There was a great vibe in there. Plus it is located right in Midtown Village amongst other great bars and restaurants like El Vez, Opa, McGillans, & Barbuzzo, so we were not alone in our Tuesday night outing.

I should also mention that Brendan works with someone who has an in at Sampan. If you're reading this Shannon, THANKS! We got completely treated the entire time. The waitress kept bringing us food we didn't order saying "Compliments". We were confused at first, wondering if everyone gets these complimentary dishes but hey, keep 'em coming. Typical that on Brendan's birthday, that I planned, he is the one getting us hooked up with free food. Among this free food was Edamame Dumplings and Tuna Rice Crackers. The edamame dumplings were amazing, definitely a great combo of two Asian dishes that I love. The tuna rice crackers were a little above our adventurousness. Especially for Brendan, he is not a seafood fan. It was a blob (for lack of a better word) of tuna over warm rice crackers. I guess his hunger got the best of him because he actually ate one! So proud!

Sampan is meant to be a small plates type restaurant. The waitress described the menu like "On the left hand side you have our smaller dishes, and on the right hand side you have our dishes that are more entree sized, but the point is to order 4-6 dishes and share among each other". For no reason at all, this stressed me. So do you want us to order one small dish and 2 entrees? or 4 small dishes? Someone tell me what to dooo! Emphasizing my fear of decision making even further.

 We came to the conclusion to order 2 small dishes and 2 entrees. We started with the Chicken Mustard Satay. So good, had a kick to it, too! We also got the Seafood Lettuce Cups. They were basically lettuce wraps with HUGE shrimp and noodles inside. Also really good.

For the entree portion of the meal, I got the Shrimp Pad Thai. The only other time I had Pad Thai was at a BYOB Thai restaurant in Scranton where my roommates and I brought jugs of wine and basically only went there because we could drink for cheap. (Surprisingly, Scranton was slightly lacking in their BYOB eating establishments.) Anyways, the pad Thai was truly great. The combo of the light noodles (Brendan asked if they were onions.....) and peanut flavor was spot on.

Brendan ordered the Crispy Szechuan Chicken. This dish basically reminded me of sesame chicken. Also delicious and went well with the pad Thai noodles.

The total bill was $79. For all of the food we got I am not complaining at all. We had such a great time here. The menu wasn't huge so I am not going to rush back here, we got to experience mostly everything we wanted to on the menu, but I would recommend to others! I also would like to apologize for my lack of food descriptions. Great & good & delicious can get a bit dull, but all I know is that I liked everything.Thanks Sampan!

#15: Liberte Lounge at the Sofitel Hotel

If I was meeting a friend for dinner and drinks on a Tuesday night, I would most likely not choose to go to a hotel bar. There are enough great restaurants and bars in the city that I don't feel a need to sit in a hotel lounge. But, apparently the Center City District thought it would be a good idea to give me 7 hotel bar gift certificates. In an effort to start using some of these, I chose to go to the Sofitel Hotel bar last night with my friend Colleen. I had been to this lounge about 6 months prior when my parents stayed at the Sofitel after a night out in the city. I didn't really remember too much about the place, must have been the chardonnay haze that night. However, last night when we walked in I was pleasantly surprised. The lounge just gave off a very cozy and comfortable vibe. We chose to sit in the bar area, not the dining area. We sat in two big lounge chairs with a small table in between. It was exactly what we were looking for- a perfect environment to chat and catch up on life.

The waitress we had was the most proper woman I have ever met in my life. After we ordered our wine she said "Could you ladies please provide me with your identification cards when I return with your wine?" At first I was like, what is she talking about? She was dressed in a knee length black, long sleeved dressed and her hair pulled back into a tight bun. She also said "bon appetit" a lot. Really pushing the French impression here.

Instead of the typical bread before meal fashion, we were given salted almonds and wasabi  beans. The almonds were just amazing. I knew from the first almond that I was going to love the food here (is that weird?) It was a nice variation pre-meal.

We were provided 2 menus, 1 bar menu and 1 dining menu. Luckily we were able to mix & match and order off both. We kind of went all out with appetizers. I figured that since we were ordering off the bar menu for our meals, that it would be a stretch to get to $50 so appetizers were acceptable (..boy was I wrong). I was very intrigued by the Kale Chips that were on the bar menu. They indicated on the menu that contained 0 calories. Everyone recently raves about kale, but I've never tried it. Mostly because it intimidates me. You look like lettuce, but you're not. So since kale is 'in' and I like chips, we ordered them. For some reason I expected them to look like potato chips, but no go. It looked like a spring mix salad but it was crunchy. We were a bit confused by the concept, but we ate them. They basically tasted like salt and olive oil. Fine by me. We also ordered 'Pan Steamed Prince Edward Island Mussels' to start. They were covered in lemon-saffron sauce with tomatoes and onions. Really, really good. I approved.

For our meals we both ordered sandwiches off the bar menu. I ordered the Salmon Sliders and Colleen got the Marinated Swordfish Wrap. The salmon sliders were delicious. Although there were only 2 sliders and a side salad, it was enough for me. Probably because of the appetizers. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm a mayo fan and the green onion mayonnaise on the toasted brioche was great (how many 'ews' are sounding throughout my followers circle right now?). Colleen's swordfish wrap was good, nothing special. She said it would have used some more flavor, maybe just a little salt & pepper. The wrap was filled with avocado, tomatoes & baby arugula with citrus aioli.

Now on to the bill....For some reason I was in disbelief that the bill was $100. From now on I will never complain about an $85 check. When you break it down and realize that you each order 2 glasses of wine at $12 a pop, it makes sense. All in all, we each paid $35 with tip so it really wasn't thaaat bad. I was really pleased with everything that I ate at the Liberte Lounge. I would highly recommend this place- and it looks like they have good happy hour specials from 5-7pm. I can also attest that this place is pretty bumpin' on a Friday night.

37 more to hit! Bon Appetit!

#14: AKI Japanese Fusion Restaurant & Sake Bar

Welp, my baby sis is going to college in a few weeks. I was 6 when she was born, so I remember mostly everything about her childhood. I remember when my parents brought her home from the hospital, I remember her face scratching phase (my other sister has the scars to prove it), I remember her favorite bathing suit with a hippo named "Henry" on it, and I remember when she swallowed my hair clip and we had to take her to the hospital. If Shannon actually read my blog, she would hate me right now.

We all love to go out to sushi together, so Regan & I decided to take Shannon to AKI to celebrate her graduation and her new journey to college. It is right at 12th & Walnut, which is one of my favorite areas of the city. Since it is pretty far from Fairmount, we drove to AKI and paid $12 to park in a lot right across the street. In my book, this isn't bad at all. Definitely as much as a cab and/or public trans would cost for 3 people.

I tyipcally try to sugar coat places I don't like in the beginning of my blog. I talk about the decor and the atmosphere, blah blah blah. But its taken me 4 days to write about this place and I don't feel like going through all of that today.

We decided to go with the "All You Can Eat Sushi" special. $24.99 per person and we could order anything we wanted off of a special menu. I guess we thought we were really hungry and that we would be getting our moneys worth. We started with some appetizers. I got a side mixed greens salad w/ ginger dressing, Shannon got Miso Soup, and the Regan got Vegetable Spring Rolls & Edamame. The edamame, soup and salad were good, pretty basic and what you would expect. The Vegetable Spring Rolls were good, just tiny. I find this to be a trend in sushi restaurants: apps that are impossible to share.

We then put our first and only order of sushi in with the waitress. We ordered California, Shrimp Tempura, Spicy Tuna, and the Golden Dragon rolls. We intended to order more than this, but after you wait 1 hour to get 4 rolls,  you are less than enthused to continue ordering. We even had trouble finishing those 4 rolls. I was feeling a bit sick (not going to go on the record and contribute that to the sushi but... ). And there was a a "Rules" section on AKI's All You Can Eat Sushi Menu that specified that you MUST finish all of you're sushi or you will get charged. Okay so there were no capital letters, I am paraphrasing a bit. Anyways, we were feeling really pressured to eat all of the sushi even though we were stuffed. And if you've eaten a lot of sushi before, you know that once your full from sushi, you can't even think about attempting to force another piece down your throat. So this was the state we were in. I felt like my 9 year old self having to finish all of my milk before I was allowed to leave the table. We tried hiding some sushi under other food and under our napkins- if I had to pay even MORE than I already did for this sushi, I was not going to be happy camper. I even  had my speech ready if they were going to charge us.

Long story short- they didn't charge us extra, but we still didn't get our money's worth.We ended up paying $85 for the $45 worth of food we ate (I am cringing in this moment). Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and in the end we probably shouldn't have gone with the all  you can eat special.  Like I've said in past blogs, we're not huge sushi people. My sisters actually only like 3 types of rolls between the two of them. That being said, the sushi we did get was basic. In no way should it have taken 60  minutes to make 4 of the most common rolls. The sushi was fine but I've definitely had better, fresher sushi in the past.

My justistifications for AKI sucking so much:
1. It was Wednesday, they are a participating SIPS restaurant, the sushi chefs could've been backed up. But we went at 8pm. And there were only 4 other tables filled in the place.
2. There was a pretty large table there that arrived at about the same time as we did. But you're a restaurant in the city on a Wednesday night in the summer, have your crap figured out.

I personally would not choose go back to AKI. Maybe I would sit at the cute bar and have a few rolls, but there are much better sushi places in the city. 5 stars for convenience, 1 star for service, 2 stars for sushi. Luckily, we made the best of it and still were able to enjoy ourselves. I'm due for a positive experience at a restaurant on my list- cross your fingers for me people!

#13: Tequilas

I have been looking forward to trying Tequilas ever since I got my huge packet of gift cards. I picked up the envelope at the Center City District building and couldn't even wait until I got home to start opening it up and looking at the restaurants while driving (I do not recommend doing this). Anyways, Brendan and I made a 6pm reservation at Tequilas on a Wednesday night. We were thinking we might get to use some Sips deals while dining, but no go. (For all of my out of town blog readers, Sips is basically a happy hour special that a number of Philadelphia restaurants and bars participate in on Wednesdays from 5-7pm in the summer.) The bar was in a completely different room than the dining area and it was PACKED for Sips. It looked fun at first, but then a line formed to just step into the bar room, and that did not look fun. So, we sat in the dining area and got no deals, which was pretty apparent by our bill at the end of the night.


Tequila's is an authentic yet modern Mexican restaurant located on the corner of 16th and Locust. The place is really cool inside, decorated with some impressive wall paintings. A lot of skeleton creatures...

I liked the feel of the place. The dark lighting, plants and wall decor really transports you to feel like you are in Mexico. That being said, I am going to have to attribute my awful pictures to the dark lighting. And to the fact that it was packed from wall to wall (even in the dining area) so using my flash was very obvious, and we tried to avoid it at all costs. Brendan tried holding the tiny candle on the table to the food while taking pictures, but it didn't exactly do the trick.


I am not sure if it was because it was Sips or what, but the place was very, very crowded. We felt a bit rushed by our waiter, which I don't really want deal with ever, especially at 6pm on a Wednesday. No, I do not want to order my meal at the same time that I order my drink. No thanks. I digress.


I ordered a basic margarita. $10- no big deal. I kind of expected a decent size, or the absolute best margarita I've ever had, if I'm paying $10 for it, but it wasn't. Brendan ordered a Mexican beer, which I actually really liked. It was comparable to a Corona I would say.

To start,we ordered Empanadas Del Dia. "Handmade corn tortillas, filled with the freshest ingredients selected each day by our chef." Well, the chef picked beef . I would've preferred something more exciting but they were still really tasty and a perfect appetizer.

Now on to the entree round. Brendan ordered the Molcajetes. It was beef tenderloin served in a lava rock bowl, covered with a spicy salsa made from tomato, garlic and chile de arbol and accompanied by corn tortillas to make your own tacos. It also came with a side of guacamole, beans and rice.Brendan is easy to please and loved it. I thought that the beef was a bit chewy and rubbery, but it was fine. The corn tortillas were light, fluffy, and tasty. The presentation was pretty amazing, too. I recently got my Dad a molcajete for Father's Day to make guacamole and basically I have been using it more than he is. So overall, I am a fan of the molcajete and I think it really makes the presentation.

I was deciding between two dishes, the Chiles Rellenos and the Enchiladas Playa. When this becomes an issue for me, I usually ask the waiter and see what he or she recommends. Our waiter, clearly did not have time for my questions and quickly said the Enchiladas. So that is what I got. They were stuffed with crabmeat and shrimp, served with creamy poblano and chipotle peppers sauces. This dish was a lot for me on a Wednesday night. I could only finish one enchilada. However, I was impressed with how fresh the seafood was.

Tequilas was an overall good spot. The portions weren't huge and the atmosphere was fun and exciting. The waiters carried the drinks around on the top of their heads and on their fingertips which was entertaining to see. I will say that it was pricey and I was expecting more. I've heard great things about Tequilas and have been really excited to try, but it didn't exactly meet my expectations. I think that the service and the food/drinks not being up to par probably had a lot to do with the amount of people in the bar taking advantage of the specials. Anyways glad to go and glad to start hitting the 30s to go in my gift cards!