Every major city has some sort of restaurant week, and Philadelphia is no exception. It happens several times a year, and enclaves within the city even have their own versions of it. I don’t participate in it too often as the menus can be very limiting and not worth the value. But sometimes, once in awhile, I partake. So for this last go-round, we went to Mercato. I’ve always wanted to go here. It’s a teeny little byob in midtown village that is always packed. And there’s certainly many reasons why.
The place is so small and the tables are densely packed in. You literally have to squeeze yourself into your seat. But it’s not a big deal. Since it was restaurant week, we pretty much got our pick of the menu and got to select one app, one entree, and one dessert.  Only the cioppino was excluded from the menu and the antipasti had to be shared between two as the app. Otherwise, it was all fair game. I appreciated that. Some complimentary bread with a flavored butter. Just wonderful.
M’s roasted portabella and arugula puff pastry with pecorino, pine nuts, and thyme citronette. Delicious!

Whole grilled artichoke with a extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and a zesty citrus aioli. Again, delicious! And I don’t even like artichokes. It looked so good that I had to try it. Even if I don’t traditionally like artichokes. I’m trying actively to expand my horizons. It was so smoky and great. And we fell in love with this aioli. I could have drank it.
The crispy skin striped bass with caramelized cipollini onions, artichokes and pancetta crisp, in a chianti reduction aioli.  Ooh baby. If I wasn’t such a scallop freak, I would have ordered this. In fact, next time, I will!
So as for me, with very little surprise, I ordered the pan seared diver scallops with a wild mushroom and english pea risotto, parmesan crisp, and drizzled with truffle oil. I’m a sucker for scallops and I’m a sucker for this dish. So perfect. The risotto was creamy and dreamy and super flavorful. I love anything with peas in it! I could have licked the plate. And were it not for all the other patrons within an eyelash of me, I would have.
For dessert I got the panna cotta with cinnamon apples. Loved this too. Loved every damn thing about this place. I can see why this place is packed all the time and gets rave reviews. It deserves all of its lauds. Service was pretty good considering there were only 3 servers for the whole joint and the place was mobbed. It’s cozy but not quiet. Because you’re so tightly packed together it’s busy and loud and bustling. But it’s still adorable. And the food is lovely. I want to taste every dish!

We had a company wide dinner my last night in Seattle at the Purple Cafe in Bellevue.  It’s a fancy schmancy local chain. We had a little party room over to the side and there was a special menu for us on little clipboards. It was freakin adorable. There was wine and some signature cocktails and a few appetizers – some mini crab cakes and a variety of dips, like hummus and white bean dip.

We had a choice of house or caesar salad and I went with the house green salad. It came with an apple cider vinaigrette and this salad was amazing! Everyone agreed that this salad was delicious. I mean it was just greens and a few cherry tomatoes and barely a slice of cucumber, but I just loved it.

We had a few entree choices, and as you may have guessed, I picked the seared mediterranean sea bass. It was served in a saffron broth with fingerling potatoes, olive oil poached fennel, and white and purple pearl onions. Um… I can’t even get into how good this damn dish was. Like seriously, it was too damn good. It was a huge, perfect, and flaky hunk of sea bass, perfectly seared. I mean it was so fresh and cooked just right that it would have been amazing without any seasoning or sauce of any kind. The fennel and the little onions were perfect complements. I literally left nothing on the plate. As if I hadn’t eaten in days. And I could have eaten it all over again.

If you give me a dessert menu, I will most likely pick creme brulee.  They actually had a pumpkin variety, but I went with my plain and boring vanilla. It was so teeny and cute and good. All in all, a surprisingly delicious meal! The service was quite fine considering how many people they were dealing with. And the wait for the food wasn’t super excruciating, but we did have to wait a bit. They treated us very well!

I was in Seattle for work and I only had one free night. Other nights were booked, booked, booked! So with my one night of freedom, I headed out for a quick bite at Dahlia Lounge in Belltown. In the same way that Philadelphia has Jose Garces, Seattle has this Tom Douglas fellow. He has a handful of restaurants in downtown Seattle and he’s an actual chef. He’s won a bunch of awards and is rather famous! I really had no idea, I just picked the place randomly!

The place is rather ginormous. Man, the tables did not stop! And I think there was even another dining room which I could not see. This is no teeny tiny mom-and-pop operation. I don’t know how to describe the menu. I would call it fresh and organic american, heavy on the seafood, and with a definite asian influence. Complimentary bread. This was the second place during my trip where they sprinkled sea salt onto the butter. Why doesn’t everyone do this? Because I’m definitely a fan. Is this a west coast only phenomenon?

I got a couple of little starters. In the front is the ahi tuna with yuzu kosho and avocado topped with some roe. This was only so-so. It tasted fine, but it wasn’t really all that interesting. I also got a Taylor shellfish oyster with a daikon mignonette. This was great! The mignonette I could have eaten with everything and the oyster was super fresh and delicious. I also liked the long and peppery breadstick that I got with these two dishes.

For my entree, I got the pan roasted alaskan black cod with braised escarole, black eyed peas, pickled green tomato, and smoked ham hock. This was delicious! There were two pieces of buttery soft and flaky cod that just melted in my mouth. All the non-fish parts were awesome too. I loved that there was ham hock in this because it’s a fish dish, yet there’s so much pork in it! And it all worked so well together. Ham hock was an odd touch, but much welcomed. The black eyed peas were fantastic and so were the tomatoes. And the braised escarole was the perfect green for this. It was a nice southern influenced dish. I could have eaten many more of these! I was at the bar and the bartender was nice and attentive. And my food came out super fast! So from what I could tell on this tuesday night, they run a pretty tight ship here!