Thanks to Philly Grub and her legwork, I got to dine with some south philly food lovers at Salt & Pepper. They’re at their new location now, on East Passyunk. It’s decidedly much bigger than their previous incarnation. They were so generous and let us have a big table upstairs. There is a bar downstairs now, but they still offer BYOB on tuesday and wednesday nights. So take advantage of it!
I started with the gnocchi with asparagus tips and crispy prosciutto in a porcini sauce. Hot damn! Everything about this was delicious. I was wary because I don’t really like mushrooms, but I like gnocchi, asparagus, and prosciutto too much to not have tried it. Man, am I glad I did! The sauce was rich and lustrous and a perfect flavoring for the dense gnocchi, which was not overly chewy. And the prosciutto was just extra goodness! I licked my plate and could have eaten more! And it was a nice sized helping.
What would be the perfect follow-up to delicious rich gnocchi? Did you say a ginormous burger? Why yes! This burger is big, with a capital B. The patty itself is probably nearly an inch thick, no foolin. It’s loaded with caramelized onions and gruyere cheese. Gruyere isn’t typically used as a burger topping, and well, it has a distinct odor. It’s not a specifically stinky cheese, but it does have an odor. But it tastes just great. The burger is also topped with lettuce and a giant tomato slice and served with a side of french fries. This is a good burger, people, a really good burger. Although it’s kind of hard to eat just due to its sheer enormousness, it’s delicious and cooked to just how you want it. There’s nothing chewy about the meat either, the meat stays together when you’re eating it, but once in your mouth, it just kind of falls apart and melts. It’s definitely a contender for one of the best burgers in all of philadelphia. I ate half and then took the rest home, and it was just as good as leftovers. Something I noticed about the other entrees were that not only did everyone love how they tasted, but they were presented beautifully. And the portions sizes here are more than generous. What can I say, we had a great time here. The owner came by frequently and was more than accoommodating. He even comped us some pecan pie which was delicious, and not overly sweet. Definitely stop by for the burger, or anything else!

I hadn’t been to downtown Phoenixville in eons, and I knew it was all souped up these days, but I had no idea how cute it would be! It’s seriously cute. And there’s tons of shops and restaurants, including Majolica, a BYOB. This place is adorable. It’s warm and inviting, except for their metal table tops which are disturbingly frigid! It’s considered New American cuisine and it even made the Philadelphia magazine’s 50 Best Places to Eat Right Now list.
The meal started off with a complimentary amuse bouche of homemade potato chip with tuna ceviche and fennel. Delicious! This was definitely not a greasy chip from a bag! The salty and crispity chip went nicely with the soft tuna.
The menu is not large. As far as starters go, there are a few snacks, boards, salads, and flatbreads to choose from. We got one of the boards – pastrami cured salmon with cornichon, pickled mustard seeds, red onions, capers, and hard-boiled egg, with toasted pumpernickle slices. This dish was super cute and came out on this long wooden board. It’s definitely a DIY dish as you have to assemble your own little open faced sandwich. The salmon was quite good but we didn’t taste much pastrami in it. I really liked that instead of boring mustard there were whole pickled mustard seeds which popped in your mouth. This was a cute and tasty dish.
We also tried one of the flatbreads – scallop, sweet corn, smoked bacon, parmesan, and thyme. These are like long skinny pizzas. This also had lovely soft pieces of roasted garlic that just melted in your mouth. This was definitely good, but it wasn’t particularly exciting. None of the flavors were really wow, they were all just sort of good. Perhaps I just expected something a bit more interesting.
While we waited for our pasta entrees, they brought us a palate cleanser of cucumber sorbet. Mmm, this straight up just tasted like cucumbers. And I love cucumbers, so I thought this was totally awesome.
One of our pasta dishes was the fazzoletti pasta with duck confit ragout, parmesan, arugula . I don’t know what fazzoletti means, but from the looks of it, it’s just big wide sheets of pasta. This was super good and you could totally taste the duck fat, lots and lots of duck fat! It wasn’t gamey at all and the flavor worked well with the plainness of the pasta.
The winner of the night was the parisian style gnocchi with brussel sprout leaves, pancetta, apples, and truffle butter. This was unlike any gnocchi we’ve ever had. It’s not thick or chewy or doughy. It was crunchy-ish on the outside and the inside was just melt in your mouth. Turns out that these aren’t the potato based gnocchi that you might be thinking of. Parisian gnocchi is made with flour and specifically uses cream puff dough. Yes, while this is the same dough used to make eclairs and profiteroles, it can also be used to make a delicious pasta. This was so different and delicious! Service was good and everyone was friendly and accommodating. One odd thing was when we tried to get a reservation, they wouldn’t give us the time we wanted. Then when we got there, there were plenty of empty tables available. So what was that about? Do you not give reservations on the half hour? Other than that and the icy tables, it was a lovely dinner.

I was in Seattle for work so on one night, we went out for a big team dinner at Grazie Ristorante. My office is in the burbs so we stuck to the Burbs. This place is right next to a Taco Bell. It was funny because that was the night the news about the Taco Bell meat broke out. This is a big italian joint, and they have a few restaurants in the Seattle suburbs. Here’s the calamari fritti with lemon garlic aioli and basil pesto aioli. Good stuff!
This is the roasted prosciutto with fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, and grilled polenta. This was good but it was a bit skimpy on the prosciutto. It was mostly everything else, as you can see.
Here’s C’s tortellini gorgonzola. Not only is it filled with gorgonzola, it is also in a gorgonzola sauce with basil pesto and pine nuts. He also added chicken breast.
Here’s E’s filetto gorgonzola – beef tenderloin medallions pan-seared and finished with a balsamic gorgonzola cream sauce, frizzled onions, and served with garlic mashed potatoes. These garlic mashed potatoes were excellent! I made sure to help myself to some.
Here’s my crab and shrimp cannelloni. It is shrimp, crab, mushrooms, and ricotta wrapped in pasta, draped with béchamel, marinara, and dungeness crab. It looks like absolute slop, but it tasted just fine. We had a big table, and our server handled us pretty well. We were a rowdy bunch! We didn’t have to wait forever for our food to come out and there was plenty of food and libations to go around!