Food and Drinq

For many around here, Benihana was their first Japanese dining experience. It certainly was the first chain to do teppanyaki-style cooking. The Pennsauken location (5255 Marlton Pike), the last in the Philly region, recently reopened after a renovation that brings it into (at least) the late 20th century. The redesign darkened the ceilings and floors and added red, something we all need a little more of. Oh, and note the slight resemblance to Haru, at Third and Chestnut Streets in Old City. No coincidence. Both are owned by Benihana.

Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery, but the Center City District -- the special-services outfit that works on quality-of-life issues downtown -- is feeling a bit ripped off. The South Jersey Independent Restaurant Association has been running ads for its own Restaurant Week promotion that are “confusingly similar” to the Center City District’s ads. So says the Center City District's lawsuit, filed Thursday 11/1 in U.S. District Court in Philly.

Center City started its Center City Restaurant Week in 2003. The “SJ Hot Chefs” started theirs two years later. Soon after the Jersey group advertised, Center City complained about the look. The suit says the parties had cordial conversations. Right after the SJ Restaurant Week, which wrapped 10/26, the legal daggers came out.

Here are ads for both promotions. The Center City's is at left; the South Jersey version is at right. You be the judge.

The CCD’s Paul Levy says he was “amazed” that the dispute “had to go this far.”

Maybe you'd agree on that point, too...

Fabio Scarpelli, a native of Florence, Italy, has taken over the shoebox-size space near Little Fish in Bella Vista that previously housed Dessert (806 S. Sixth St). Golosa -- it means "gourmand" -- opened the other day, and the concept is dessert. If you're a fan of chocolates (both the candy form and Italian hot chocolate) and imported pralines, you are in luck. Lots of specialty coffees and teas. Atmosphere is romantic, but the space is tight-tight-tight and it's cash only. Hours are Tuesdays to Saturdays from 4-11 p.m., Sundays from 2-9 pm.

Here's the menu. Download file

When last heard from in January, Jonathan Newman quit his post as chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board after Gov. Rendell employed what Newman called a "heavy-handed, political" method to install former State Senator Joe Conti as the LCB's $150,000-a-year CEO.

Newman, 45, a lawyer credited with adding luster to the LCB with his well-thought-out Chairman's Selections and an overall push toward customer service in state stores, is back in the wine business.

With Newman Wine & Spirits, he's become, in effect, a wine broker. He told me that he and his associates will find great wines and cut a deal to buy the entire stock at a discount price. He'll offer this wine to his retail network -- selected stores in other states -- at great prices.

He said he would not deal with Pennsylvania's LCB after January 2008, when he legally could start a business relationship with his former employer. He said he's chosen not to deal with Pennsylvania.

He'll have exclusive retailers in New Jersey and Delaware. When he started the Chairmabn's Selection, he said, retailers in those states would be upset because Pennsylvania frequently offered those wines more cheaply, even after Pennsylvania's absurd taxes and 30-percent markup.

So if he's offering great wines at lower prices in bordering states, in effect, he'll be competing with the LCB.

Under his system, these stores will have a 25-mile zone of exclusivity on his own products. Among his partners are Kevin McClatchy (an owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates), Don Caldwell (of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Cross Atlantic Capital Partner), and wine writer W. Blake Gray.

The key to the business, Newman says, is "knowing who’s sitting with excess." He expects to make his first wine buys after the holidays.

The business will be based in suburban Philly, with an office in California.

Photo: Associated Press

Saturday (11/3) night was the last night for Washington Square, the Stephen Starr restaurant at 210 W. Washington Square. It opened with a bang in mid-2004, with design by New York's Rockwell Group (awesome courtyard seating) and menus from New York-import chef Marcus Samuelsson. But unless you sought drinks in that awesome courtyard, you just didn't go recently. Business fell off fairly rapidly after its mid-2004 opening; heavy construction in both the Ayer Condos (in its building) and next door at what became Oceanaire didn't help. Samuelsson left after six months in some sort of huff; nobody got his idea of "global street food." Starr tells me that the restaurant will be retooled into something else for an opening next spring. I keep hearing "Indian" as the concept. Starr says that all 50 employees have been absorbed into his other restaurants.

Dave Magrogan, who rolled out his first Kildare's four years ago, is retooling the concept under his new corporate chef, Brian Duffy, who recently left The Shanachie in Ambler. New menu is best described as "Euro gastro-pub." Or "New Celtic." Either way, they're also serving that french fry-like French Canadian treat called poutine.

They've started with the location on Head House Square in Philly, and will put it on in Manayunk by the end of the year. All told, Kildare's has six locations.

Here's the menu

Last year, Dave Magrogan of the Kildare's pub chain opened an old-fashioned oyster house in downtown West Chester. He's planning a second one, in Delaware, at Dover Downs Hotel & Casino, which is expanding its casino.

This will be the second Philly-area restauarant onboard at Dover Downs, as Public House (the hopping Logan Square joint) signed on last month.

An Italian restaurant -- no name yet -- will be the project's third restaurant.

Openings are targeted for August.

Philly police want to find an employee of the Fishtown bar Johnny Brenda's after an incident Saturday night outside Standard Tap in Northern Liberties, which share ownership. Nick Cooney of the protest group Hugs for Puppies says he and other Puppies were demonstrating when an employee threw coffee on a middle-aged protester and dashed back into the Tap. Cops from Civil Affairs, who monitor Puppies' protests, went into the bar to get his info for a police report; Cooney says employees refused to give him up. It's believed that he works at Johnny Brenda's. Cooney says that he and Tap owner Paul Kimport have had "a few good conversations" about foie gras. More on this as it develops...

Francophiles like to brag that the area around the Sofitel at 17th and Sansom is a little French district, what with the Sofitel's French ownership and La Creperie, La Cigale and La Colombe around the corner. To which, we say "la la la." The city's true center of French dining is becoming Sixth and Bainbridge, home of Beau Monde. It's a block from Coquette, and not too far from Cochon. The reason for all this prattle is a Gallic project we just heard about: Bistro La Minette, on Sixth Street, near Bainbridge. It's the building with the gigantic Dalmatian mural. Chef-owner Peter Woolsey, who did time at Washington Square, Striped Bass and Le Mas Perrier (after a few years in Paris at Lucas Carton) hopes to open his "city French bistro" in March; he's applying for a liquor license. Alas, the Dalmatian has to go, to Woolsey's dismay. "I know it's a Philly icon," he told me. "But it's peeling and graffiti-ed up at the bottom and it doesn't go with our decor."

See Week 2 of "The Making of Zahav," in which we chronicle the creation of a restaurant, at http://go.philly.com/zahav. If you checked out the entry earlier Thursday, go back: We've just posted a video.

Alison Barshak (of Alison at Blue Bell) last night (11/18) signed a lease for her second Montco restaurant. She'll take over the old Marita's Cantina at 424 S. Bethlehem Pike in Fort Washington, which is at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue near the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Fort Washington exit, four miles from Blue Bell. Concept: What she does now (new American), but "we'll be able to stretch more," she says. The name is not final, but will include "Alison." It's certain that the restaurant will have a bar, wine lockers, private dining and 100 seats, which means walk-ins will be easier to accommodate than at Alison at Blue Bell, which has 65 seats indoors. The new place, which she hopes to open in the spring, also will accept credit cards.

The career of the Lafayette Hill-bred Barshak largely follows Philly's current so-called restaurant renaissance. Then barely in her 30s and self-taught, she opened Striped Bass in spring 1994 with Neil Stein and Joe Wolf after jobs at Rollers in Chestnut Hill, Apropos in Center City, and Central Bar & Grille in Bryn Mawr.

When Barshak quit Striped Bass in June 1996 to follow love out West, the news shocked the town. In 1998, she opened Venus and the Cowboy on the Parkway, which lasted 10 months and was saddled with litigation, as the beau who had worked with her on the restaurant sued her. Barshak retreated to New York City, where she was executive chef at a swank seafood restaurant in Rockefeller Center. She returned to the area in 2001 with Alison Cafe in an old country store in central Montco, before opening the larger Alison at Blue Bell in 2003.

Copyright 2007 Photo by Courtney Grant Winston

Our restaurant-creation series "The Making of Zahav" continues with the first attempt at obtaining a liquor license. And surprise! It won't be easy.

Most colorful Philly lounge feature since the pods at Pod: the 10-foot diameter, 9-foot long, 5,500 glass fiber-optic chandelier hanging on the second floor of the new resto-lounge Vango, on 18th Street near Chestnut. It's a truly international project. It was designed by Gersil N. Kay, of Philly's Conservation Lighting International, using German Schott glass manufactured in Eastern Europe, assembled in England, powered by Danish projectors, installed by Lebanese Americans, and programmed by a specialist from New Jersey. Nine colors at the touch of a button.

Paraguay is a tiny country, so it seems fitting that Arbol Cafe -- the city's first Paraguayan cafe -- is small. How small? About 10 seats, plus a swell outside dining area. BYOB, of course. And cash only. It's at Second and Poplar Streets in Northern Liberties, across from Standard Tap (entrance is at 207 Poplar). Open from 7 a.m. till whenever weekdays, and 9 a.m. till whenever on weekends. (Whenever has stretched till 7 p.m., but call first: 215-284-5788.)

Owners are Oscar Acuna, a Paraguayan expat who's worked at kitchens all over town for the last eight years, and his wife, Beth. Occasionally, you'll see their 3-year-old daughter, Lailah, who will charm the heck out of you.

There's coffee and the usual baked goods at the counter. Acuna's menu is tight and light: There's a sandwich called lomito, which has steak, egg, smoked turkey-ham, letuce, tomato and cheese on brioche. Another sandwich, the palmito, is most interesting, as it's a mixture of crushed hearts of palm and mayo on crust-free white bread. Breakfast sandwiches include "broken eggs" (poor photo below), which Acuna cracks over the pan while allowing the yolk to run into the white for a marble effect; the yolk sets completely.

Weekend brunch specials include delicious meatballs (it's called so'o apu'a); good ol' arroz on pollo; and asado a la olla con kiveve (a boneless beef short rib).

Every so often, the irrepressible Chef Joe Poon pops up. On TV, leading culinary tours through Chinatown. At food shows.

Poon flew into the radar in 1984 when he opened Joe's Peking Duck House on Race Street in Chinatown. He got out of restaurants for awhile, but in 1997 opened a Chinese-fusion place called Joseph Poon at 1002 Arch St. He got bored, shut it down. A year later, he briefly opened a restaurant on the second floor of 1010 Cherry St. That lasted a few months as he decided to teach. The space is still open and Poon has the itch to create. So....

Poon will do prix fixe dinners from Dec. 23 to March 31. The schedule includes a nightly holiday dinner (Dec. 23-Jan. 1, $35 per person); 10-course Chinese New Year banquets (two seatings Fri-Sat-Sun nights from Jan. 4-March 30, $36.50 per person); and a one-week-only Restaurant Week set menu (Jan. 26-Feb. 1, $35 per person).
Details are at his website.
Reservations: 215-500-9774 or jpoon18250@aol.com.

Photo by April Saul / The Philadelphia Inquirer

Today's the day that partners Steven Cook and Michael Solomonov pick up the keys to their new restaurant. Demo work begins next week. Check in here for Part 4 of "The Making of Zahav," in which The Inquirer follows the creation of a restaurant.

This morning's Jersey edition of The Inquirer contains Sam Wood's report of a Burlington County couple who are suing T.G.I. Friday's. They claim to have found the carcass of a dead mouse in a side dish of cheddar mashed potatoes they ordered from the Friday's in Marlton in 2005.

The couple filed a lawsuit only days before the expiration of the two-year statute of limitations.

The Burlington County Health Department, which inspected the restaurant shortly after the alleged discovery, reported that it had found no evidence of mouse infestation. The report said a Friday's manager had said that a green onion placed on top “may have resembled a mouse’s tail” and lumps in the overcooked potatoes “may have been mistaken as decomposed mouse remains." The report concluded it was “unlikely” that a mouse could have gone unnoticed in the mashed potatoes.