La Famiglia

La Famiglia Ristorante: Philadelphia's Best Italian Restaurant
8 S Front St, Philadelphia, PA 19106 (215) 922-2803 www.lafamiglia.com/

I lifted the title of this review from the official Google search for this restaurant, and the top of the results lists the La Famiglia website as Philadelphia's Best Italian Restaurant. A bit pompous on their part, proclaiming themselves the best, but after eating here I have to agree.

Opened in 1976, La Famiglia has been serving the Philadelphia community for almost 30 years.  Given that according to the Small Business Administration, "About half of all new establishments survive five years or more and about one-third survive 10 years or more." it says something about the experience provided by dining at La Famiglia that has withstood the test of time.

Upon entering the restaurant, the establishment at once has an aristocratic, old money feel. This restaurant is not for the faint of heart, or wallet. It is also a two to three hour affair.  The waitstaff doesn't even bring the menu out until 15 minutes into the meal as you are given various amuse bouches and an extensive wine list for leisure reading.

If Noah Webster made a wine dictionary, this would be it. It's no wonder La Famiglia won the Wine Spectator's Best of Award of Excellence, 2013.  This wine list was thicker than a Bible or a Dictionary for that matter.

I arranged the wine list next to the flower vase at the table and salt and pepper shakers to give some sense of proportion.  There are literally hundreds perhaps thousands of bottles to choose from, and given the tour of the wine cellar I took later, each and every bottle is accounted for.

The first course (complimentary) is a standard bruschetta.  Excellent.  Sliced tomatoes, crisp and crunchy with buttered toast perfectly browned that all melts together in your mouth. A+ One of the nice things about this restaurant is if you really like the amuse bouche you can order another round of it at no charge, which was a nice touch.
I have to take a second and comment on the china.  Sterling silver cutlery and ornately decorated china make the meal so much more pleasurable. It gives a warm, family dinner style to the meal, I assume in keeping pace with the restaurant's name.

Gnocchi Gorgonzola — $16.95 Homemade gnocchi with Gorgonzola cheese, cream and crushed almonds. This was a fantastic creamy dish with a little accent by the addition of the crushed almonds.  I cleaned my plate in less than 5 minutes. Delicious.  For your information: Gnocchi are various thick, soft doughs that may be made from semolina, ordinary wheat flour, flour and egg, flour, egg, and cheese, potato, breadcrumbs, or similar ingredients.  Usually served as a first course in place of soup.

Insalata con Arancia e Finocchio — $9.95 Mixed greens with fennel in a lemon extra virgin olive oil dressing, garnished with fresh orange slices.  Also delicious, very citrusy though.

Vitello al Pistacchio — $26.95 Pistachio crusted veal medallions served with cranberry in a light madeira sauce. This was amazing.  I practically licked the plate. Madeira Sauce is a classic sauce made by adding Madeira wine to a basic demi-glace (rich and deeply flavorful sauce made by half basic brown sauce and half brown stock reduction). The Madeira sauce is an excellent accompaniment for roasts and steaks.

Special: Veal wrapped with Italian eggplant.  Finished with a touch of eggplant cream sauce. Eggplant and veal certainly is an interesting mixture.  It was not bad by any means but certainly not a combination I would make myself. The veal was tender and sauce was adequate and creamy.  Nothing too crazy here.

For dessert: Creme caramel, vanilla flavored flan. Interestingly enough, this is a dessert of Spanish origin so I was surprised to find it on the Italian restaurant dessert menu. It was very good and the caramel sauce was fantastic. Presentation was a bit on the plain side, but it certainly made up for it in taste.

Of note: 

A fully stocked bar adjacent to the main dining area.

Bottles of fine spirits adorn the mantles.

Gorgeous overhead lights

This is a view of the wine cellar with hundreds and hundreds of bottles of wine.  I am standing just outside the restroom facing the beginning of the wine cellar.  Some bottles are visible in the far right of the above picture.

Inside the bathroom.  Marble and ornate decor everywhere. Certainly one of the best restaurant bathrooms in my opinion.

Look at all that tile and marble.

A detail showcasing the wine cellar. Chairs are set up along the walls so one can enjoy a glass or two admiring the general splendor of the area.

History of the Restaurant (Per La Famiglia Website)
The Sena family tradition of culinary excellence dates back to early 1947 when Carlo "Papa" Sena began to cook in postwar Naples. The family carried this experience across the Atlantic and opened La Famiglia in 1976 in the shell of a Colonial tea warehouse. With the help of his family, and a lot of hard work and dedication, Carlo turned La Famiglia into one of Philadelphia's top culinary institutions. Since their father retired from the kitchen in the early nineties, Carlo's two sons, Giuseppe and Gino have maintained the first-class image of La Famiglia that its long-time patrons recall from the early days. Those who consider themselves to be La Famiglia loyalists can still find that same level of service. Today, La Famiglia stands as the finest Italian restaurant in Philadelphia and a major landmark on the city's vibrant dining scene. It has earned an international reputation as one of the finest examples of gourmet Italian cuisine to be served outside of Italy.

Osteria

Osteria
640 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19130 (215) 763-0920

I give you, Osteria. A seasonal Italian menu permeates the rustic feel of this place with a huge beautiful wood brick oven centered open kitchen serving up homemade pizzas as the centerpiece.  This is the second restaurant in the famous Vetri family of restaurants after of course Vetri, which I have also reviewed here.
Osteria opened in 2007 and has since become one of the East Coast's most famous Italian restaurants garnering much critical acclaim. Chefs Marc Vetri and Jeff Michaud certainly do the restaurant justice. An osteria in Italy was originally a place serving wine and simple food. Lately, the emphasis has shifted to the food, but menus tend to be short, with an emphasis on local specialties such as pasta, grilled meat or fish, and often served at shared tables. Ideal for a cheap lunch, osterie (the plural in Italian) also cater for after work and evening refreshment. Osterie vary greatly in practice: some only serve drinks and clients are allowed to bring in their own food; some have retained a predominantly male clientele whilst others have reached out to students and young professionals.

Very appropriately, the restaurant signage incorporates a bottle of wine in the process of being uncorked to suggest the Italian origins of the name.

Simple flowers decorate the wooden tables to give the restaurant a rustic feel in keeping with a traditional osteria theme.

A spacious dining area with open air vistas onto the patio and an enclosed glass seating area give one the feeling he is outside in an open air market.

The meal begins with a mix of breads, the most notable being some cheese-bread sticks laid on the top of the various housemade breads. Of course, olive oil accompanies the bread.

I would be remiss if I did not mention this cocktail.  It was one of the best I've had this summer. Osteria makes their own limoncello to give their Sicilian Lemonade the most delicious flavor.

Sicilian Lemonade: house made limoncello, fresh mint, lime.

Limoncello is made from lemon zest, or peels without the pith, steeped in rectified spirit (pure ethyl alcohol 95% ABV) until the oil is released. The resulting yellow liquid is then mixed with simple syrup. Varying sugar to water ratio and temperature will affect the clarity, viscosity, and flavor.

To start the meal off we chose the special: Osteria's take on a classic Italian dish: the bruschetta.  It was not quite as amazing as I had hoped given the hype over this restaurant.  However, I was already on my second mouth-watering Sicilian Lemonade, so I didn't really pay too much attention to this obvious faux pas. The bread was a little too charred for my taste and the tomatoes were either soaked in juice or were just saturated too long because they were literally the consistency of an over-ripened peach. They didn't taste bad by any means, but I'm used to a little more crunch  to my tomatoes. This is of course personal preference talking here as I'm sure others would love some squishy tomatoes but I like a little crunch in my bunch of veggies.

Next up, in my quest for being a culinary-adventurer, I decided on the grilled veal sweetbread spiedini with stonefruits and pine nuts. The term "spiedie" comes from the Italian spiedo meaning spit or spiedini referring to cubes or balls of meat cooked on a skewer.  Hence we are able to see the sweetbread (spiedini) served on a skewer (spiedo). Sweetbread of course refers to thymus (also called throat, gullet, or neck sweetbread) or the pancreas (also called heart, stomach, or belly sweetbread), especially of the calf (ris de veau) and lamb (ris d'agneau), and less commonly of beef and pork. Since veal is generally produced from young male calves, I'm assuming I was eating pancreas, but it is of course impossible to tell. The sweetbread itself is very chewy and largely tasteless which is balanced by the sweetness of the stonefruit and pine nuts. The pine nuts are the small yellow seeds visible while the stone fruit are the orange fruits surrounding the skewer.

My dinner companion's mozzarella cheese balls with tomato sauce was decidedly better than the sweetbread.

Not much to say here.  They were competently prepared, in my opinion, presentation was a bit lacking, but overall, tasted good.

Grilled wild Alaskan king salmon with zucchini, herb oil and salmon terrine. Terrine is a French forcemeat (mixture of ground, lean meat emulsified with fat) loaf similar to a pâté, made with more coarsely chopped ingredients. So in this dish, the terrine would be the pink half circle wrapped in the zucchini skin. The salmon itself was a bit raw for my taste. I like the fish to be pink (medium preparation) while this salmon seemed at any moment ready to swim off my plate. I also prefer the salmon to be descaled , but that is personal preference.  It wasn't bad, but as my friend would say, "I was eating it because it was there." He also commented that it looked a bit raw to him as well.

While my batting average of the evening stood at 0-2, this was decidedly the redeeming deus ex machina of this culinary performance.  This was the smoked creekstone farm brisket with peach and radicchio. The bitter, spicy taste of the purplish radicchio was balanced by the sweetness of the peaches. A true ambrosia.  The brisket was tender and sweet--a true feat considering its origins.  Brisket is a cut of meat from the breast or lower chest of beef or veal. The beef brisket is one of the nine beef primal cuts, though the precise definition of the cut differs internationally. The brisket muscles include the superficial and deep pectorals. As cattle do not have collar bones, these muscles support about 60% of the body weight of standing/moving cattle. This requires a significant amount of connective tissue, so the resulting meat must be cooked correctly to tenderize the connective tissue. This was hands down the best dish of the evening and any foodie should get the brisket.  It will be a boisterous uproar I predict when this specimen is taken off the menu.

Although already stuffed, gluttony is one of the chief virtues of any food critic. And I would chastise myself later if I passed up a raspberry and pistachio linzertorte with lemon verbena gelato. Wouldn't you? Dessert was no doubt delicious but I was so stuffed at this point it made hardly any difference.  It is difficult to do anything bad when you mix raspberries and pistachio.  Of note, the Linzer Torte (or Linzertorte) is an Austrian torte with a lattice design on top of the pastry. It is hard to see due to the confectionary sugar, but it is present. Lemon verbana is a leafy plant that adds a fresh, lemon flavor to any dish, in this case, the gelato.

In Other News: 

High ceilings cast a nice glow and ambiance to the restaurant.

A private dining area seats 50 for parties or special events.

Bathrooms are clean and nicely furnished.

A gorgeous glass-enclosed patio lets diners enjoy a natural lit dining experience.

The open bar and kitchen area gives restaurant patrons a sense of honesty in the food being crafted.

A lighting detail featured on the high ceilings.

Featured on a wall panel:
La vita è troppo breve per bere vino cattivo. Life's too short to drink bad/cheap wine.

The bar area, detail.

The Oceanaire Seafood Room

The Oceanaire Seafood Room
801 Aliceanna St, Baltimore, MD 21202 (443) 872-0000 www.theoceanaire.com/

While in Baltimore, MD for the weekend, I checked out the restaurant scene along the Inner Harbor. With an array of hot spots to choose from like: Ouzo Bay, Cinghiale - Osteria, Da Mimmo, and Wit & Wisdom, it required a lot of thought to choose the proper restaurant to review.  What made it easier however was the very apparent "Saturday night wait times" at the first 3 restaurants we checked out of 45 min+, so this reasonable wait time of 15-20 min was the best we could do on short notice. So without further adieu, I give you Ocean Aire: The Seafood Room.

The dining area carries high ceilings giving the restaurant a very "Ocean Aire" ambiance.  There are realistic looking plastic models of various sea fish around the restaurant.  I sometimes derived a childish grin by musing to myself what if these fish could see their friends being served to hundreds of people below every night.  Certainly not the best of fates, but decidedly better than Prometheus for you Greek mythology fans.

The restaurant hosts a delightful raw bar with fresh oysters daily complete with a full wine selection nicely arranged on contemporary modern steel shelving above. A sleek plasma screen fills guests in on the Orioles progress in the 3rd inning.

I had to take a picture of these table decorations. It looks like  a cross between an emergency alert "blue alert" system and the lights you would see on the side of a ship for visibility.

I'm thinking they were going for the latter of the two, but in any case, it was entrancing--much to the chagrin of my dinner companion, I more than once zoned out staring into the deep blue abyss of our table lamp.

Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail: House made Cocktail Sauce: 19. Ah yes, we decided to start things off with the shrimp cocktail.  Classic appetizer choice.  Of note here was the amazing quality of the homemade cocktail sauce.  It had a certain je ne sais quoi that was at once sweet and sour with lemon but pleasing.  It's tough to put into words.  Just remember, when in Baltimore at the Ocean Aire, get the shrimp cocktail.

While on the menu, this dish is denoted as "Chopped House Salad" come on Ocean Aire...you can do better than this. Sure it was tasty and the house dressing sweet, ya-de-ya-de-ya, but the presentation just plain sucked. Throw a little garnish on there, arrange the lettuce in the shape of a fish.  Do something besides flop it on a plate. In its defense, it was delicious and I cleaned my entire plate and incidentally, I'm sure it looked much worse where it ended up compared to its appearance on my plate.

"Cup of Clam Chowder" Well, that trite description on the menu certain described what it was we got.  Clam chowder was tasty, nothing to write home about, but nothing to sneeze at either.  I am wondering if it is because we ordered from the restaurant week menu that the descriptions/preparations were less ornate than what I would expect from such a restaurant.  Compare for example, the shrimp cocktail dish which was not on the restaurant week menu to the two items after it (house salad, clam chowder) that were on the restaurant week menu. While I try to write an unbiased a review as possible, I can't help but notice the less attention to detail and finesse these restaurant week selections received as compared to something off the regular menu.

Black and Blue 16oz Double Cut Pork Chop. Caramelized Onions and Blue Cheese Butter. Well I can't say I'm not surprised here. This portion was hefty enough to satisfy a linebacker of the Minnesota Vikings and it was still on the restaurant week menu.  My faith in humanity has been restored.  Perhaps they were skimping on the other dishes to set this behemoth before me as the peak of my meal. A delicious blue cheese butter mixed well with the caramelized onions (underneath the hefty pork chop).  Overall, this course alone is enough to fill you up and I don't think I was able to finish it all not due to poor taste but just due to the hefty slab of meat set before me.

Chesapeake Bay Style Crab Cakes: Creamy Mustard Mayonnaise.  Very tasty dish, soft, fluffy crab cakes were full of meat and the mayonnaise was a nice finish.  Lemon wedge, check. Everything here to make a great crab cake dish.

Not much to say about these chocolate chip cookies.  They were good. It is hard to mess up chocolate chip cookies though. They tasted freshly baked and were served very warm so the chocolate melted in your mouth.

The sorbet was disappointing. It tasted watered down almost like water ice and not a sorbet.  It was some sort of melon flavor which was not all that great and to be honest, largely undetectable--that's how watered down it was.  As my friend put it, "It's one of those things you just eat because it's in front of you." Certainly, one would not go out of their way to get it.

Of Note:

Excellently themed restaurant with amazing "sea-worthy" decor. One of the major redeeming qualities of this place was the decor and general ambiance.

Hallways that look like corridors in a ship.

Clean, well maintained bathrooms.

Clean and sanitary "heads" --seaman's term for a toilet.

The exterior, revolving door with the restaurant name tiled into the brick patio.

An alternate shot of the interior.

Incidentally, I discovered the most delicious Riesling EVER. Dr. Loosen, "Blue Slate." Kabinett Riesling, Mosel.  It was so good, my friend who only drinks on the rarest of occasions, broke down and had a glass (or two).

Ocean Aire also is open for group parties and events.