Faial Restaurant, Smithfield

I guess I’m just bad with gift certificates. Don’t get me wrong, I love eating for cheap (or free!) but it seems to take me awhile to get to a place if I haven’t been before and know that I will like it. I think we had gift certificate’s for Faial’s for at least six months, maybe nine, before we tried it the other night.

A few years ago, too, I had been there for a Mother’s Day brunch with about a dozen of us, but I don’t remember much of the experience. Since I didn’t remember much about the menu, I looked online. Faial’s is a mix of Portuguese favorites, but the menu consists mainly of various seafood and pasta options, with some cuts of beef as well. The food is mostly Mediterranean in style, meaning it has Spanish, Portuguese and Italian influences. The restaurant’s name comes from the island of Faial in the Azores, and is not, such as I thought, someone’s last name.

The other prelude I had that set my expectations a bit was the fact that the gift certificates came from my 80-some odd year old aunt. This told me that the restaurant might just be the family friendly type of place that it turned out to be. The decor, once we arrived, was described by my wife as “mid-range hotel”. I don’t think she meant this in a terribly bad way. Simply, that while the name and prices may suggest a high-end affair, the location (Smithfield) and the decor indicated that it was a down-home kind of place, without pretension. Sure, there wasn’t style or panache, either… but we weren’t there for that.

The bread for the meal comes up with a warm ramekin of their signature red sauce (available for carry out in jars). Faial sauce – widespread throughout the menu – is not really describes anywhere on the menu, so I’ll do my best to get it’s ingredients right: a tomato-base with butter, garlic, paprika, wine? and spices. Unstirred, the top layer of the sauce is oily with butter, while the bottom was thick and chunky with garlic. It was also surprisingly spicy – surprising mostly when I think of my family enjoying it, a group not known for a love of spicy food.

The plates being passed around us looked large, so we opted to go right for an entree. My wife got the Paehla ($26), which is usually a bouillabaisse of seafood and rice. In this case, though, it was a 1/2 lobster, shrimp, scallops, mussels & littlenecks, served over our seafood rice, topped with  Faial sauce. It was huge, and it looked really, really good. It seems to be a favorite, too, as we started to notice many other people at other tables with this giant dish in front of them.

Carne de Porco

I got the Carne de Porco Alendejana since I felt like I should get something Portuguese at a Portuguese restaurant. The dish was meatier than I anticipated, but I should have known, as Portuguese main dishes are usually very meaty. This was slow stewed pork pieces with littlenecks and roasted potatoes drenched in a thinned-out Faial sauce ($18). The meat was very tender and basically broke apart with the fork. The sauce was a great compliment to all the elements on the plate. I think I tackled maybe about a third of what was on the plate, and had plenty to take home. (It was great over rice the next day.)

Since we had just gorged ourselves but tried to exercise some version of restraint, we treated ourselves to coffee (decaf for her, espresso for me) and a flan dessert. The coffee was good, but the flan was, well, it had dollops of canned whip cream and rainbow sprinkles. It was strange… flan should not come with sprinkles in my mind, but maybe I was being uncultured and close-minded. Flan doesn’t always mean elegant, I know – there are flan-flavored jello puddings, after all, and it really just means caramel custard – but I felt like in this setting it should have been treated with a little more respect.

The very strange flan

The service was pretty solid, I have to say. You get the impression that the staff see quite a few families and parties large and small come through there on any given night. When we had tried to go on a Saturday, the place was already booked up with reservations. The only thing that annoyed me was that my empty beer bottle seemed to linger on the table after all the dishes had been cleared and we were enjoying coffee and dessert. I know, it’s such a small thing…  I guess if that’s all I have to complain about, than it was really almost nothing.

Overall, a thumbs up. I can’t say I will be “in the mood” for Faial very often, but if we think about it, we’ll go back and try something else off their very extensive menu.

La Laiterie, Providence

For almost a year now, Beth and I have had a gift certificate – a wedding present – to La Laiterie. Many of our friends have been and love it, but for whatever reason we just haven’t gotten around to going. Nothing against the place of course… we both love things artisanal, and both love cheese and all things dairy. So Saturday, after a long week and a long day, we decided to treat ourselves courtesy of someone else. Thanks Rachel and Billy!

Now I don’t want to start things off on the wrong foot, but I do have to say… when we arrived, the greeter told us that they had seats at the bar, but it was a 45 minute wait for a table. On the website, they say reservations only for parties of six or more. We gladly sat at the bar, but could’t help but notice an empty table for two that remained empty until we received our second course. Hmmm…

The wife is pregnant, but I couldn’t help but try a cocktail on the menu, and luckily she is not interested in limiting my obsessions, so I ordered their Sazerac. She dabbled in bartending herself, and makes one hell of any number of drinks, and was the one who originally got me interested in this classic cocktail. Rye whiskey is accompanied by Peychaud’s bitters, a little sugar water or cube, and a hint of Absinthe substitute – in this case, Pernod. The cocktail originated in New Orleans, and is said to be one of – or the, depending who you ask – oldest mixed drinks. The bartender made a very nice, smooth version of the drink with Old Overholt rye, an inexpensive bottle (around $15) that lacks the acidic bite that most other cheap whiskies have. Served with a lemon twist, the drink was delicious and put me in the mood for some great food. I only wish the glass was chilled.

La Laiterie specializes in rich, rich food. I sort of knew this, but I was soon to find out how rich and decadent they can be. Luckily, we made the wonderful decision to order small plates instead of an entré. We were craving variety, and I took this chance to be adventurous in our selections.

Le Jardin salad

She started with the Le Jardin salad of young vegetables and fruits. Apple slices, watermelon radish (again, the wonderfully colorful radish makes an appearance), herbs and roasted pecans tossed in a light vinaigrette. Beth loved the lightness of it all, and the ingredients were fresh and flavorful.

Baby brussel sprouts with mini chips with beef tongue in the background

I started with a small plate of beef tongue and beer-braised onions atop a crusty slice of italian toast ($3). The onions were soft and sweet with a great caramelized finish, and the beef tongue was surprising. I never had it before, and didn’t know what to expect. What I got were thin slices, three or four, of the meat that must have been skillet fried. The meat puffed up, so it was light and had the aroma and texture of Canadian bacon. I concluded that this must be beef’s answer to bacon, and told myself if the opportunity presented itself again, to make sure to give it another try.

I also had a small oblong bowl of roasted baby brussel sprouts ($4) served with fingerling potato chips with a pepper aioli. The rich earthy flavor of the brussel sprout here was made milder by their baby size. The little chips were cute and had a nice texture and mouth feel. I’ve been a convert to brussel sprouts lately… they have a strong flavor, but they are one of the best roasted or pan fried vegetables I’ve had.

Cheesemonger's mac and cheese

Nothing prepared us for what would be our main courses, though, except maybe the aroma of cheese that wafted by whenever a server brought someone what Beth was going to have – their artisanal mac and cheese ($10). Oven-baked in a single serving casserole dish, the cheese perfection had a crusty top but a gooey center. Penne were coated in what I can only assume was four or five different kinds of cheese. Oh my god it was a comforting bowl of heaven – certainly worth indulging in again and again.

Chicken livers and onion rings with house bacon and pan jus

My dish was another adventurous one for me – their seared Vermont chicken livers in a bacon pan au jus served with onion rings ($11). Holy hell. Again, I was a chicken liver virgin. While the beef tongue was surprising light, due no doubt to its delicate preparation, the livers were heavy and came in a serving size that forgot what it meant to be a small plate. Easily a meal in itself, the livers were so good that I had to finish them all. You heard me, the livers were so good I could not stop eating them. I never thought I’d say that.

The onion rings were massive as well, and deliciously greasy and fried with a beer-battered crust. They didn’t slice an onion, they chopped half a large vidalia into three huge chunky rings, breaded them, and deep fried them to a nice golden brown. When dipped in the au jus they were just oozing flavor.

The consistency of the livers surprised me, much as the beef tongue did. Soft, yielding to the fork, but rich like a dense cut of beef. Maybe not all livers taste like this – I’ve heard that beef liver tastes minerally – but these actually tasted more like beef than anything that came from a chicken. A dense, meaty flavor, and cooked well enough that I didn’t notice any inconsistency in the texture or any rubberyness, either.

After all this rich, delectable food, you’d think we’d throw in the towel, but no, we plowed ahead and surveyed their dessert menu.  It’s a shame they don’t list it on their website, as there were many choices we didn’t make that are worth mentioning. What we got was – if I remember correctly – a banana hazelnut torte with home made chocolate ice cream. Divine.

My rating… thumbs way up. Such a delicious delight of a meal… small portions, well-thought out flavors and pairings, and most of all, an over-the-top decadent richness to everything we tried. We will definitely go back to try more.

Franklin Fountain, Philly, PA

Later on, the day after our brunch at Silver Diner, we pointed the good ole GPS to Philiadelphia, which we were embarrassed to learn was a mere five miles over a bridge from the hotel. We were embarrassed only because on our previous trip to Monster Mania, we neglected to stray too far from Cherry Hill (yes, there was a previous trip).

Adam Richman and Man Vs Food has led us to some pretty great places in the past, namely the HukilauCafe and Helena’s, both while we honeymooned in Hawaii. Given the opportunity to retrace more of his steps while on a little mini-vacation was something that we couldn’t pass up.

The interior of Franklin Fountain

My wife decided that she wanted ice cream and Franklin Fountain was going to hit the spot. Started by some Philly entrepreneurs, the ice cream shop is more like a shoppe, and they say on the website that it is more like 1911 than 2011. It’s true, too… we wondered about how original the place was, as it felt like they merely kept an old place going for the past hundred years. The tin ceilings, marble counters, apothecary-style oak cabinetry, ornate old-timey register and even the uniforms – all the details take you back in time. The flavors sort of do, too, with mostly classic no-frills flavors steeped in history, and even a few local favorites, like teaberry. Other sundries available for purchase, like the candy, postcards, bottled sodas and such enhance the old general store feel. Candy cigarettes! Bubble gum cigars! Licorice pipes! Fun small batch sodas with strange flavors and great-looking labels! Home made chocolates!

The ice cream menu is extensive, but not overwhelming, We opted for their specialty sundae, the Mount Vesuvius, a heap of vanilla bean ice cream, topped with warm chunks of home made brownies, home made hot fudge, home made whipped cream and sprinkled with malt powder. It was plenty for the two of us, as the ice cream isn’t your light and fluffy grocery store variety, but rather a thicker, rich and creamy variety with a smooth consistency. It actually tasted like milk and cream – imagine that! The hot fudge was thick and sticky, The brownie chunks were just plain awesome… fudgey, warm, and pleasantly square. The whipped cream was great, too, and I appreciated the malt powder as well. It added to the old-timey feel and kept everything from becoming too sweet. .

In short, next time we are anywhere near Philly, we will be back to the Fountain for another decadent ice cream selection, whether it be ice cream weather or not.