While Mike is in LA, I’m in exotic NJ for the holidays. I’ll fill everyone in on all the Polish Christmas food, or at least my families particular twist on it (upcome: crab salad, herring mix, mushroom soup, etc…) In the mean time, here’s a fun little site of weird food reports from around the world.

I am currently off in LA, doing good Food Monkey research into In and Out Burger, Hot Dog on a Stick, and many other fine aspects of West Coast cuisine.

Stay tuned for a full report after New Years.

…and they saw that it was good. They said to make it sour as hell we promised that we would. When losers says it kinda bland we know that it’s a lie,cause the gods made pickelicious and its never gonna DIE. (Sung to the melody of any Manowar songs, AKA The Kings of Steel)

If you’re anywhere near NJ, like say, Delaware, and like pickles or anything tangy, you absolutely have to visit Picklelicious in Teaneck. (big up to my home town). Half sour, whole sour, pickled tomatoes, hot sweet peppers, and onion relish, all homemade and at decent prices. (Avoid the pre-packaged mustards and chips though.)

(Note: In all my time in the blogosphere posting at FoodMonkey, this is my first post that can be categorized as fruit/veggie. I’m proud of that.)

I recently had the opportunity to dine at Le Bec Fin, generally accepted as Philadelphia’s finest restaurant. This very upscale spot that can easily run $200/person with wine. Since this was a celebratory dinner, (and not one I paid for) I’m sure it surpassed that. A full-review follows after the pictures:

Menu

Inside

Website

The overarching theme of my experience at Le Bec Fin is that they seem to do everything exquisitely well, accept actually cook… the wines where fantastic, the amuse-bouche and hors-d’oeuvres were all great, the cheese selection and unlimited deserts were both earth-shattering. Even the service, which could easily be stuffy in an upscale place like this, had a certain ease to it that was unusual, and their smiles felt genuine. One key to the fine service was that they keep the service-to-patron ratio unusually high, with about 5 people serving our party of 30. The only issues were the actual main appetizer, fish dish, and meat dish — the heart of the meal. These dishes, which I’ll describe in more detail shortly, where not bad per se, but they lacked a certain richness that one expects from fine French cuisine. It was as if the chef had scaled back his butter and salt, leaving each dish, while fantastically executed, a little neutered.

Amuse-bouche and hors-d’oeuvres: tempura shrimp – crispy, tender, not a hint of grease; foie-gras with a touch of green grape preserve – the jelly offsetting the richness with it’s sweetness; cucumber panna-cotta with pickled cauliflower – truly amazing, refreshing to the palate while playing with interesting flavors.

Appetizer: trademark crab cakes – easily the low-light of the meal. One would think that if you call something your “signature” dish you’d take extra care with it, but the crab-cakes were fishy. Not quite long-john-silvers from the freezer fishy, but still bordering on unpleasant.

Fish Dish: Poached halibut with red tea, apple, mushroom, rutabaga and chestnut stew with allspice – the halibut was flaky and moist, but neither the flavor of the tea nor of the apply really came through. Similarly, the stew could have used a bit of “bite”.

Meat Dish: Domestic rack of lamb, white lentils cassoulet style, natural jus - just like the halibut, the lamb was cooked perfectly, but left we desperate for a bottle of A1 sauce, or anything to bring out the flavor. (Before I start getting gastronaut hate mail – yes, I know fine dining is about clear and clean flavors, and I agree, but this was clean of any flavor, including of the lamb itself.)

Dessert: Oh god - Too drunk and full to think straight at this point, I had 3 of the many many desserts from the never-ending tray. Tempted to go to the bathroom with a feather and rock-out roman style, I had the caramel cheesecake (one of the best I’ve ever had, which is saying a lot, as I’m a cheesecake addict), the coffee-cake (again astounding) and ended with simple, yet delicious strawberries in port wine.

Now we know the truth!!!