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Posted by foodzings | 03 Aug 2008 | appetizers, malaysian, noodles, philadelphia, soup | 0 Comments

I don’t know why it was so late, but we ended having an extremely late dinner at Banana Leaf on Saturday night. All I know is, I was starving by the time we got there. And even so late, the place was still hopping. You know I love this place. I could eat here every day for a year and not ever eat the same thing, and probably not ever have a bad meal. The menu is extensive and everything I’ve ever had has been good.

R got a thing of wonton soup. She’s a girl with simple soup tastes. Instead of the typical big thick skinned type wontons, these had little shu mei like dumplings. She liked this soup a lot, and it pretty much filled her stomach. Poor planning.

We started off with the chicken satay. This was an appetizer and I was expecting maybe 3 skewers or so, but out came 6. Kind of a lot for an appetizer, no? These are so good. So damn good. It seems like it should just be a meal on its own.
R picked the malaysian style spare ribs. Ok, so these weren’t spare ribs, first of all. They were more like little teeny rib tips. They were coated in some seasoning, so that when you ate them, they left a lot of gunk on your teeth. Not bad at all, but just forces you to floss and brush extremely thoroughly afterwards. These were good, but we barely ate these.

I picked the seafood lo mein. These were supposed to come with a heavily flavored egg sauce, but there was nothing of the kind. It was pretty much your regular lo mein, but with skinnier noodles. Good, but nothing unique.

Service here is always pretty good. It took much longer than normal for our food to come out, but I blame that on the chicken satay, which had to be grilled by the dude in the front, and the spare ribs, which probably required a bit of prep. We ended up leaving so much food, that when the waiter asked if we wanted to take it home, and we said no, he kept questioning us. As if we were crazy. If I had been going home directly after, I would have seriously doggy bagged it, but because I wasn’t, it would have only ended up stinking up my car. I felt pretty bad about it though.

Posted by foodzings | 31 Jul 2008 | gastropub, philadelphia, sandwich | 0 Comments

Before heading out to a show at the FU on thursday night, I met up with B for a quick bite at the Royal Tavern. I’d been wanting to go here for awhile, but just never had a chance to make it. On a thursday night, this place was totally packed. We were lucky to get a high two-top.

The place is a long and skinny. There are christmas lights that hang all year long. And it’s unbelievably loud. It’s as if because it’s loud, everyone has to keep talking louder in order to hear themselves. But if we all just talked normally, then it wouldn’t be that bad. But unfortunately, everyone is just screaming. It was still fine, but damn, it would have been so much better if it wasn’t so crazy loud.

B got the tempeh club, one of the vegan options. This was a thick and hard to maneuver sandwich. Came with fries and a pickle.

Somehow, I ended up getting a vegan sloppy joe. How we both ended up getting vegan dishes is beyond me, as we’re both avid meat eaters. This was good, but also pretty difficult to eat. The fake meat kept falling out everywhere. I had a fake sloppy joe stain on my skirt all night. Fries were good though. The pickle was fabulous. Service was ok. Our drinks were always filled, but it was a bit hard to get the check.

Posted by foodzings | 28 Jul 2008 | mexican, philadelphia | 1 Comment

I don’t remember the last and only time I went to El Vez. It was years ago, and I only had drinks and perhaps some nachos. I just remember it being very colorful. And I didn’t remember the food, or the drinks. E and O wanted to go there on Sunday night, so we trekked on over on a muggy evening.

They have a big bar in the middle, with a kick ass tricked out bike on top that spins. I totally want to take this bike home with me. They also have a photo booth. And on the far edge of the restaurant, there are booths, but theses are fancy booths, with really funky velvety fabric. I could have rubbed this fabric forever.

Guacamole, and lots of it. The original. Everybody loved it. Good chips too. Yey for El Vez chips.

J got the chipotle chicken tacos. I dug the presentation on this fancy plate. The tacos were tiny though, and I appreciate anything topped off with shredded radishes. He also got a side of rice and beans, which came with pickled onions on top. He wasn’t all that into the rice and beans.

O got the mahi mahi tacos and the grilled corn on the cob with lime chipotle and queso fresco. He liked the tacos, but he said the corn wasn’t all that great.

E got a special, which was some kind of veal dish. I’m guessing veal enchiladas with a verde sauce. She said it was good, but she didn’t eat too much of it. And J refused to try it because he won’t eat veal. Boo.

I got the lobster and crab enchiladas. Oh boy, were these good. It came in a wondrous red gravy/sauce thingy, thick and sweet. It had good chunks of lobster and crab and I just really liked it. I was a bit surprised at how good this was.Service was good, but we felt slightly rushed. Well, maybe not rushed, but they were a bit too eager to clean the table, as if they were too attentive. It was early on a Sunday and the place was fairly empty, but they still wanted to move us along. Perhaps they were just bored and needed something to do, so they just decided to clean up lots and quickly. The food was good, but you know, a swanky mexican restaurant isn’t exactly my scene. Give me a dirty tacqueria over a stephen starr restaurant any day of the week, but I still had a good time and good food here. I wasn’t drinking that night, but everyone else was drinking plenty of mojitos for me, but I could definitely see myself coming back here for a drink or two.

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