Romancing The Strawberry

Here I am at 9am writing a review on vacation – know anything about me and you’ll realize my whole life is a vacation, but we’ll talk about that later or maybe you should ask me least the government finds out what I’m up to via yelp. In any case, yes I’m still drunk from last night and everything, including me standing on a chair screaming “If they tell me what to do with my vagina, what’s to stop them from telling me what to do with my hands!?” ALL started at Southwark over a Vesper and a bottle of Malbec – Yes, I know that the bitter cold is usually the driving force behind alcoholism in places like Philadelphia, but being out here from SF I was excited and wanted to get a head start.

Ok I’m totally craving some coca cola now, this is going to be bad. You might want to know the details of how I got into this mess. My parents and I were at a musical performance at the art alliance featuring my mother’s viola instructor and a few members from the Philadelphia orchestra. We watched the show in a little room with fine would floors. It had an old feel, so much so that I was squinting a bit to see if Jane Austen might be hanging around somewhere – ok this is not true, but it would have been really cool if I had seen her. Throughout the whole thing my stomach was making almost as much noise as the instruments and this, you can imagine, was making me rather anxious. I had planned my diet around when my mother would be coming home with a big bag of fresh Philadelphia pretzels, and alas she had forgotten. 

When we arrived at Southwark ON TIME for our reservation (my life was based upon the fact that that would not happen at that point) the waiter told my parents he thought it was his top priority to get me a drink post haste. I guess accidentally interrupting him and not realizing why was a great indicator that I was about to venture into the psychotic component of neurotic. Fortunately a vesper arrived. Then came a basket of fluffy garlicy bread. I was worried that there was no table salt, but fortunately this is Philadelphia and you don’t have to salt your food. 

We ordered the Oysters, the Steamed Clams ($9), the Roasted Potatoes ($5), the Halibut special (?), Beef ($29), and Sea Scallops ($27). The oysters were puny but pretty good. The second one I got was way more memorable than the first, but nothing can compare to the little babe I consumed at Absinthe months ago (he is still fresh in my memory with his fatty cheeks). The Roasted Potatoes were bomb, served with a roasted garlic aoli which was also similar to a honey mustard dipped. They were well spiced, and didn’t require any more salting. Texturally they could have been a little softer, but they were well spiced that’s for sure. Likewise the scrumptious clam dish was blasting with flavor – containing dry vermouth, shallots, tomatoes, in a dry chili butter broth – but I felt the chef missed out on the cooking times. This mystified me throughout the meal. Why instruct us on the art of unique flavor combinations and forget the impact of making your food tender? This didn’t seem to bother anyone else at the table. My mother requested more bread to soak up the chili butter sauce and I could help but follow. The taste of the roasted tomatoes, so cooked that they seemed frail, coupled with the slivery onions was orgasmic and could easily make me forget that the clams themselves were a little lacking in their ‘mouth feel’. 

We waited a good amount of time before our entrees came, diving into that Malbec I mentioned at the last minute. I was upset that it cost over $20, but was only from 2007 but at that point I guess it wasn’t such a pressing matter. At some point my mom got the impression that the people across from us were Republicans and we made a huge Obama toast, which actually resulted in us being saluted by the other table. Then my mom informed them that we were going to dress me up to Sarah Palin and go canvassing for Obama. I can say “I can see Alaska from my house” with stunning accuracy if I do say so myself. Hello Scallops. The pan seared scallops were elaborately laced with roasted baby beets, plums, and leeks. I’m actually not a fan of beets so the flavor was a bit too earthy for me at first, but after taking a few bites the sweetness of the plums added a new complexity and the sudden saltiness of the leeks turned out to be pure heaven – it was so thinly cut that I thought it was spaghetti squash!  The Beef was grilled grass fed sirloin steak with wild mushrooms, gigantic beans, dosed in a far superior arugala pesto than anything I’ve ever made – opps, do please go after that recipe! The meat, similar to my other complaint, was not tender but don’t think this meant it was not flavorful. Put that in my mouth while I was sleeping and you’d wake me up! The meat itself was oozing with flavor, added by the subtle taste of mushroom and the green flavor of the arugala. My mother’s halibut special was excellent in her opinion, but definitely not my favorite. 

We got dessert and a after dinner drink. Is that where I went wrong? I do not know. We were trying to hurry so we could catch the presidential debate. I ordered the Ice Cream Sandwich with mint chocolate chip ice cream served on shortbread and my mom ordered the Pear Cake with pached pears and brown butter ice cream. I thought the desserts were disappointing compared to everything else, and it is very rare that I have had that experience. Usually dessert is hard to mess up, and that chocolate cake down the road can often be the saving grace to a mediocre dining experience. This was not the case here, not to say that it was bad. The pear cake was served as three little cakes that looked more like cookies than cakes. The poached peaches accompanying them were not memorable. The ice cream in the Ice Cream sandwich was just not that great  - I must be getting spoiled at Mitchell’s and Bi-Rite back in SF. In the long run, though, it would be hard to shake our prior courses, we loved them so. 

And now the drinking part, well I won’t go to far into that except that we’ll be doing a lot more of that if McCain becomes president, and last night he was making me awfully angry. My friend from high school came over to debate about these issues. He was for McCain and the two of them began debating until four in the morning. Apparently I passed out on the couch, but when I woke up this morning the first thing I thought about was the left over beef in the fridge from Southwark. Thank god my dad can never finish his food. He is a true liberal, he always knows when to say no. 

You would never think that someone would want to get brunch at a place called Absinthe and not order Absinthe, but sometimes things don’t always work out as you think they will. While its big green sign written in cursive letters might make it seem pretty self explanatory, there is a reason brasserie is part of the restaurant’s name. Enter and you will be hit with the site of the long bar to your left, with its plethora of different colored bottles and busy bartenders. There are two dining rooms, the front being more casual and the back more intimate with its distance from the bustling bar. More importantly there is the smell of French food swarming through the air. This is not just a bar.

Absinthe is known for serving a terrific brunch, and my friends and I were able to get a table without a reservation. Had we gotten there later than 11 o’clock though we would not have been so lucky.

The bar was full of opera goers so we had to sit at a small table in the front dining room where we could easily see the bar. I ordered a Mexican Coffee with brandy. Its rim was covered with carmelized sugar and cinnamon making it special amongst the other Mexican Coffees I have tried. Our friendly server instructed us to watch the bartender caramelize the sugar and cinnamon at the bar. He pulled out a torch and a gigantic flame burst out of his hands followed by the intoxicating smell of burnt cinnamon that seemed to would travel throughout the restaurant.

After talking with our server for some time (I am the queen of indecision, especially when it comes to ordering food) we decided on several starters and three entrees. Absinthe has a gigantic menu even at brunch. Fortunately we knew what we wanted as far as the appetizers went, and the server seemed to agree with our choices. To start we ordered the Pommes frites ($6), the French Onion Soup Gratinee ($8.25), four random oysters on the half shell ($3 a piece), and a salad that came with greens, toasted hazelnuts, sliced strawberries and blue cheese($?).

It seems a crime to give away the best feature of a restaurant so early in a review, but I cannot help myself. It was the oysters. My friend, a vegetarian, had ordered the oysters for myself and the woman for whom this occasion was organized around; a collegue from the Chinese sector of her company who she was to entertain during her stay in San Francisco. The young woman, whose name was so foreign sounding that she laughed when I asked her what it was had no idea that the oysters were also meant for her. I bit into one and immedietly wished that we could continue with this understanding. The last of the two I bit into, a fat loose little thing, almost seemed to have an extra bit of meat tucked into itself as it expanded in my mouth. It melted on my tongue like buratta with a soothing juiciness that tasted like it had been dining on upscale sea salt all its life. The look on my face must have given me away as the woman giggled and picked up the last two remaining oysters.

Least impressive were the pommes frites, they came with elaborate dipping sauces but that didn’t make them any more interesting. The fries were skimpy and looked like stumps once they’d been mangled through a few times. I am surprised these are thought to be one of the restaurant’s specialties.

The salad was tasty, the greens fresh, and the hazelnuts were plentiful, easily discernable in a given bite. The blue cheese made what could have been just any salad into something more worthy of addiction. I found myself almost picking it off the plate with my fingers. Fortunately my table manners were restored to me, and I continued my attacking the salad with a fork. The French Onion Soup Gratinee was also delicious, but its broth was somewhat anti-climatic with the taste of beef stock taking full reign over the other flavors.

Things got more complicated when we picked out our entrees. I wanted to order the omelet with morels, spring onions, gruyere cheese and fresh herbs provided ($13) but somehow doubted that an omelet would really be able to bring out the morel’s unique flavor. Considering how expensive morels were this year, it seemed a shame to hide them in an omelet where they could risk being over cooked and under seasoned. I decided to go with the Fried Green Tomato Florentine that came with the usual poached egg but was also topped with a ’smoky’ hollandaise sauce ($15). The young lady ordered the omelet and my friend ordered the Banana-blueberry soufflé pancakes coated with syrup and whipped cream ($11).

As I suspected the omelet did nothing for the morels. Upon a bite of the omelet I got a punch from the gruyere which had become so soft within the hot dry egg that it had liquefied. The soft texture of the mushrooms matched well with the cheese, but they suffered from a lack of proper seasoning that could have more readily brought out their unique flavor and hollow texture. Instead they ended up tasting like any other mushroom.

I preferred my poached eggs, though the smoky hollandaise had a sweet taste that was far less enchanting than the creamy yellow hollandaise one usually finds. The egg tasted especially good on top of the buttery bread it was served with especially when mixed with the fried green tomato. I was told the tomato was cooked in cornmeal but I did not notice this. I then tried my friend’s pancakes, but found them disappointingly dry. I later watched her order more syrup. Maybe she felt the same?

Then came the cheese. Oh thank god for the cheese. We ordered the Pierre Robert ($8) a triple crème with a ‘mild buttery flavor’ served with strawberries. Creamy it was, almost melting on the plate. But I would debate about it being mild. While it was texturally quite soft, its taste was rather pungent leaving a sting in the back of my throat. I liked it anyway, but I would probably order something else next time.

Fortunately Absinthe’s menu is huge, with plenty of things to try. For these prices I was quite happy with our experience and look forward to visiting again. Hello dinner here I come, oh and let’s not forget about the oysters.