There may be hundreds of restaurants I’ve yet to try in Philadelphia, but sometimes, I just want to be lazy and stay a bit closer to home. So we drove up the street for a nice and easy dinner at Tiffin in Wynnewood. I really like the feel of this place. It’s completely casual and free of pretension. And considering it’s on the main line, that can sometimes be very hard to come by. And it’s a BYOB people. Score! We got one of the monthly appetizer specials, the Tandoori Broccoli. It is broccoli marinated with herbs and spices and cooked in the traditional clay oven. It wasn’t anything great, just smoky broccoli. But we both love broccoli so we enjoyed it.

I think my whole reason for ever eating indian food is for the naan. It’s just some of the best bread you could ever eat. Some onion and garlic naan that we housed. I think I prefer the garlic naan here a little bit more than the onion one, because the garlic one is slightly more crispy. The onion one is a bit more soggy.

We went smart and just split the Chicken Korma as our entree. For anyone new to indian food, this is an extremely safe dish to try. It is big hunks of chicken breast cubes in a creamy cashew sauce. The sauce is incredibly rich and creamy, after all, it’s made with ground cashews. It has a nice and mild flavor, and won’t offend anyone, especially if you have an aversion to flavors you may traditionally associate with indian food, such as curry or cumin. It’s a perfect dish for dipping your naan into. It’s as if they created it as a vehicle for the naan to enter into my gullet. Yeah, I’ll say it, the chicken korma was my naan delivery device. And it was an excellent naan delivery device.

I had to make another trip to chicago, and my first night there, I stayed in the northern burbs. We were both starving so we decided to go eat right away, even though it was hella early for dinner time. Who cares. When I’m hungry, I need immediate sustenance! I saw some good reviews for The Captain’s Quarters, which was about 50 yards up the street, so we headed there. This place is corn and kitsch, personified, but I loved it. It’s a fisherman’s theme all the way, and hilarious, with stuffed fish everywhere, awesome oil paintings of ship captains, with pipes and all. You have to love those chairs!

Yes, it’s a seafood restaurant, but you can get your typical turf dishes as well. Judging by the menu, this place is run by greeks, so you can even get some greek dishes, as well as many pasta dishes.

You get a side salad with any entree. There was nothing exciting about this salad, but I was happy to eat some fresh greens.

J got the pasta bolognese, and he loved it. He cleaned his plate!

I got the pasta with shrimp in lobster sauce. It was thick fettuccini with large grilled shrimp, tossed in an incredibly rich lobster sauce. This was very good, but it was beyond rich! It was as if they took super thick lobster bisque and basically used that as a sauce. It was very tasty, but probably not for everyone. Subtle it is not! And it was a giant bowl, so I had plenty left over. Since it was so early, there were very few of us there, just the early birds, and our server was super nice and friendly. If you’re ever up in these parts, definitely go check it out!

The Captain’s Quarters
3566 Milwaukee Ave
Northbrook, IL 60062
(847) 298-5091

We decided to go out for drinks in the burbs. Since K and I live in Ardmore/Havertown, I decided that Verdad in Bryn Mawr would be a nice option to try. It hasn’t been there that long, I think it’s now occupying the spot where Carmine used to be for what now seems to be a split second. Verdad bills themselves as latin influenced tapas. So it’s small plates here. It’s a pretty nice place. The people inside seemed fancy. We were certainly classing down the joint, ha. They have tons of tequila, sangria that you can see in these big jugs, and beers on draft as well.

I got a passion fruit margarita, which was rather awesome.It wasn’t super sweet, it was nice and boozy, and yet had plenty of passion fruit flavor. The girls both got the caipirinha, and they were also nice and boozy. They don’t skimp on the booze, which is nice, since the drinks are priced accordingly, and with main line prices.

K was feeling a bit peckish so she ordered the tortilla soup. Now I’ve had my share of mexican tortilla soup in my day, but this one was strange. It looked like creamy tomato soup, with some tortilla strips thrown on top. That’s not normal. There’s not nearly enough tortilla strips. The avocado is pretty invisible. It was just lacking… content! And K wasn’t crazy about it. At the end of the night, she realized it was pretty crappy. So the one food dish turned out to be disappointing, but I was definitely a fan of the drinks. I would certainly return for cocktails!