I haven’t eaten much in West Philly, save for a couple of trips to Dahlak and maybe some random visits around campus. I had a delightful meal at Marigold Kitchen last weekend. I can’t stop raving about the place. The place is in a row home, and it’s truly like you’re just eating in someone’s house. It’s sparse, yet warm and colorful. There is a room in the back that looks to be perfect for bigger parties, and then multiple two tops in the main dining area. It’s a byob, so don’t forget to bring a bottle. They’ll provide excellent stemware (damn, I just said stemware in my blog). Marigold got a new head chef fairly recently and the short and sweet menu has tons of southern influences.
J started with the cornbread with collards, ham, egg. Really great actually, and I’m not into greens much. I got the grits and shrimp. Holy crap this was good. I could have eaten a giant bowl. It’s not like I’m all that into grits, heck, I’ve probably tasted it maybe only a couple of times in my life. But when in Rome I say. These were smooth and cheesy with hunks of shrimp in and on top of the grits. Hot diggity. I practically licked the bowl.
For the main course, J went with hanger steak with cauliflower puree, cooked medium. Mmm… this was really good. I don’t even know what else to say. Sorry I can’t be more prolific. I went with the red snapper with rice, asparagus, spring onion. Damn, I’m out of words for this too. The fish was cooked perfectly, so the skin side was slightly crispy. I don’t even know what kind of sauce it was in, but I just love, love, loved it. Again, I practically licked my plate. I would have if there weren’t other diners around.
Marigold serves human-sized portions, as opposed to cheesecake factory portions, so there’s actually room left for dessert. J got the banana bread pudding with coffee ice cream and I got the apple tart with sour cream ice cream. I read that the banana bread pudding wasn’t that great, but screw that, it was tasty! As for my tart, it was excellent. The crust was crunchy yet flaky, and the sour cream ice cream? Does anybody know where I can buy sour cream ice cream? If so, please please let me know. It was awesome, just awesome.

The service here was great. The waitress was helpful, friendly, and attentive. The food came out fairly quickly. All the other diners looked happy to be there and seemed to be enjoying the food. I highly recommend this place to anyone. It’s a nice alternative to the more student-oriented spots in the area. That night, there was plenty of parking on the street, and not at all scary to walk around. So don’t be frightened, and venture out to Marigold for a surprisingly nice meal.

Sunday night, Balkan Express Restaurant hosted an orthodox new year seafood feast. This is a small Serbian restaurant in the Graduate Hospital area, just a stone’s throw from Grace Tavern. It is operated by an adorable husband and wife team. The husband is the chef, and they even smoke all their own meats and fish here. They are normally closed on Sundays, and were just open on this Sunday for this special fixed price meal.

We first started with some seafood appetizers. There was a mushroom top with caviar. I am not a huge fan of mushrooms, and I had never had caviar before (that I can remember), but I liked this! There was also a deviled egg type thing, but with a seafood filling. Also, smoked salmon filled with more seafood. All of this was very good. I’m not the hughest smoked salmon (or salmon in general) fan, but I even liked it. And like I said, they smoke this themselves! I would love to see where / how they smoke all this stuff.
Next course was a seafood chowder. Another good dish. After that was a calamari salad with honeydew. A strange mix indeed, yet still good! Fresh, light, and different.

The entree was a mix of various seafood dishes. Starting clockwise from the top, we have sturgeon with a caviar sauce. I’ve never had sturgeon, and this was a very meaty fish. It almost even looks like pork. I liked it, but I wasn’t crazy about it. Right of the sturgeon is moussaka. Loved it. In the middle was an artichoke top stuffed with shrimp. I don’t like artichoke, but I ate up the shrimps in the middle. The bigfish filet on the bottom right was red snapper. This had a fantastic brown sauce, it was a lovely piece of fish. The shrimp skewer was on top of some rice. Rice good, shrimp great! And finally, at 9 o’clock is a scallop wrapped with home smoked proscuitto. This was ok. I was so stuffed at this point, I didn’t finish all of my food. And that so rarely happens with me.

For dessert, we got some orange cake and hazelnut cake. These were both excellent. A great ending to a great meal. And as an extra added surprise. they also gave us complimentary champagne, in celebration of the new year, along with some homemade slivovitz, a serbian plum brandy. This stuff was super strong, even though since this was homemade, it was much weaker than commercially produced slivovitz. I felt privileged to be treated to some homemade serbian moonshine!

This was an excellent meal. The owners were so nice and the wife explained everything to us and spoke with us many times throughout the meal. The husband/chef even came out at the end and charmed us all with his hilarious anecdotes. I think their kid was one of the servers. Poor kid, being forced to work at his parents’ restaurant instead of being allowed to participate in regular teenage shenanigans. This was a long meal as well, clocking in at about 3 hours. But all the more better since it was shared with good company, food, and restaurateurs.

I’d been hearing about La Viola all summer long. Everyone had been raving about it. It’s not a new place, but it seemed that everyone was discovering it this summer. There are two locations, both on south 16th, the original La Viola and the bigger and slightly nicer Ouest location. Because we had a big party, we had to go to Ouest on the west side of 16th. Hence the name. Please keep in mind that the Ouest dining room apparently has more items on the menu and that dishes are about $1-2 higher than the regular La Viola. In the original La Viola, it’s much smaller and more crowded.

La Viola Ouest does not have a sign. So good luck finding it. It’s basically in a row home, so it’s a long and narrow dining room. It’s decorated very simply. Real Italians, with accents and all, are the waiters there. It’s a BYOB, so bring your own booze people! No corkage fee either, which is nice! They give you free sourdough tasting bread that is warm, and (hopefully) home-baked. I quite enjoyed it.
The prices are quite reasonable. These veal dishes above were $14, as were most of the other veal dishes. There were plenty veal dishes to choose from. I don’t know what the first one is, but it certainly looks damn fancy. Are those veal medallions? The gnocchi was only $9. What a bargain.

I went with the lobster ravioli. I absolutely love ravioli so I try to order it whenever possible. And I especially love lobster ravioli. There were only five, but they were large. I wished there were 50 more! So yes, I liked them alot. In fact, everyone loved their food! There’s so much to choose from here, I definitely have to come back and try more dishes out.

La Viola
253 S. 16th St
215-735-8630