The best things we ate this week
This week our writers made stops in Old City, Queen Village, and Center City.
Wagyu hot dog at Almanac
This Wagyu hot dog is one of the finest bar food snacks in the city. Well, it’s a snack if you share it with a friend as I did. A remarkably juicy dog on a pillowy bun, slicked with tonkatsu sauce and dusted with great handfuls of shredded katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and nori, it’s the perfect thing to soak up the booze from one of Almanac’s complex cocktails. Almanac, 310 Market St. Second Floor, 215-238-5757, almanacphilly.com
— Kiki Aranita
Smoked pumpkin tortellini with lobster at Southwark
I had my best meal in years the other night at Southwark, the Queen Village standby riding a fresh gust of momentum from its recent recommendation by the Michelin Guide. The bar’s Queen of Cups cocktail was a cold-slayer supreme — a steaming hot toddy variation with Jameson whiskey, spiced apple syrup, and a gloss of brown butter floating atop this lemony brew served in a vintage tea cup. The thick Stone Arch pork chop with charred cabbages was impressively moist, and a hearty white ragù with ground pheasant and chestnuts was the most interesting Bolognese I’ve eaten all year.
But the star of the show was a delicate appetizer featuring tender nuggets of lobster, braised leeks, and tortellini stuffed with smoked Marina di Chiogga pumpkins pureed with mascarpone and brown butter. I’ve seen that pairing of lobster and leeks elsewhere around town lately (a real beauty at My Loup) but that extra wisp of applewood smoke in those dumplings, tossed in fennel-tarragon butter, gave this elegant dish a welcome rustic edge. The impressive pasta craft of those tortellini was also a nice reminder that chef Chris D’Ambro and Marina De Oliveira’s other newly Michelin-recommended restaurant, Ambra, shares a kitchen with Southwark for alta cucina dinners right next door. Southwark, 701 S. 4th St., 267-930-8538, southwarkrestaurantphilly.com
— Craig LaBan
Egg chicken 65 at Amma’s South Indian Cuisine Center City
Chicken 65 — the fiery South Indian snack that traces back to Hotel Buhari in Chennai in 1965 — gets a luxurious spin at the sumptuously appointed, newly relocated Center City location of Amma’s South Indian Cuisine. (It’s in the former Max Brenner space on 15th Street, just below Walnut.) The dish starts with pieces of chicken marinated with red chilis, ginger, garlic, curry leaves, and other spices. After a dip in the deep fryer, it gets topped with soft-scrambled eggs. The crispy heat and crunch from the chicken and the richness of the silky, fluffy eggs provide a pleasing balance. This variation is available only at the Center City location. Amma’s South Indian Cuisine, 1500 Walnut St., 808-762-6627, ammasrestaurants.com
— Michael Klein