Twisted Tail

Good dinner at the newly minted Twisted Tail on Headhouse square the other night. Nice list of bottled beers, and a good sampling of drafts from Yards & Stoudt's to Rogue & Left Hand brewery. The drafts are available in normal sized pints, along with 1/2 and full gallons, if you're really feeling thirsty. I had a few Left Hand Sawtooth ESB's that were tasty, but a bit flat.

What you should really be coming here for is live blues music & the bourbon. I have never seen a collection of whiskey and bourbon like the one that The Tail has assembled here. It's as extensive as Village Whiskey and definitely cheaper. They also make a decent old fashioned, which always scores points in my book, but their mint julep is what really defined the experience here. Just enough fresh mint so you know it's there, but not so heavy a hand with it that it masks the good bourbon lying underneath. This is an OLD drink that your grandparents used to drink on Derby Day, and for good reason. It tastes like spring and gets you well on the path to inebriation, quickly. Muddled mint leaves, a tsp. of sugar + bourbon = delicious. Try one - it'll change the way you think about brown liquor.

a proper mint julep

Onto the food!  We had a small dinner - split a salad, then an entree each - so as not to be sporting the proverbial food baby before heading out to meet friends later on. The bibb & bacon salad was great, and large enough for two. Boston lettuce, blue cheese crumbles from Point Reyes creamery in California, ripe red tomatoes and warm, delicious bacon for a salty, creamy, crunchy salad. A great place to start dinner.

We ordered the St. Louis ribs & cedar plank salmon for entrees. The ribs were tender and nearly falling off the bone, with just a hint of sauce brushed on at the end of the cooking to give them a nice crust. Served with "wicked greens" that seemed to be either collard or mustard greens braised southern style with a ham hock and dressed with some good vinegar. The tang of the greens, with the hint of smokey ham, cutting through the sweetness of the ribs offering a perfect foil to the pork. There's good reason these have been paired on the same plate for decades.

The fish was tender but a bit mild. I tend to think salmon should taste like, well, salmon. The best is always fresh, snatched out of the hands of a hungry bear trolling class II rapids in Alaska. This version was likely of the frozen variety, snatched out of the back of a food service truck that was scoping a salmon farm in New Jersey. I did really enjoy the braised broccolini though; the skinny, somewhat bitter cousin to standard broccoli was the most distinct flavor on the plate. All served alongside some pickled kale that was curiously good. Tasting like it had just a light pickling, maybe 2-3 days, it was a clever take on a tough to like vegetable with a bad rep.

My only knock on the menu at Twisted Tail would be the pricing. With appetizers ranging from $5 to $12 [$7 for fries, really?!?] and entrees hovering around $20, it's not cheap eats. With two drinks each, we dropped about $90 for dinner. Not that there's anything wrong that ("they've got a good team over there") but based on the setup of this place as bourbon bar and blues joint it seemed pretty expensive. There's nothing particularly fancy about the menu: ribs, a burger, chicken, salmon, blue fish, shepherd's pie, lamb shoulder and a "cowboy" steak make up the entrees. Southern style cooking involves making the best out of cheap ingredients - necessity breeds innovation. The cooking and presentation here are good, but basic and simple. This is not fine dining, so don't try to charge for it.

Is this a bar that serves food? Or a restaurant that has a bar? I think that question has yet to be answered. While the management figures that out, I would stick to the upstairs bar for bourbon, live blues and the killer old school shuffle board table. Twisted Tail is a great place for drinks and live music on a Saturday night - something Philly seems to be lacking lately. On these points alone, it's worth a trip and even the $5 cover for the band. Hold off on the dinner plans for now though.

Food Baby rating - It's a girl!

The Twisted Tail

509 South 2nd Street
Philadelphia PA 19147
Phone: 215-558-2471

http://www.thetwistedtail.com/home.html
Email: info@thetwistedtail.com

Hours: Mon-Sat: 11am-2am
Sun: 10am-2am

Burger Challenge Round 2: Village Whiskey

Round 2 – Fight!  To get a hostess to pay attention to you.  Fight! To get a table.  Fight! For elbow room in the ridiculously small bar area while you wait for your table and overpriced whiskey.  A night at Village Whiskey can sometimes feel more like Mike Tyson’s Punch Out with you being Little Mac and Iron Chef Garces playing Don Flamenco.  They don’t take reservations, and your entire party has to be present to be seated (don’t even think about having a random straggler). There are only a dozen or so tables available inside, so if you come on a rainy night like we did, be prepared to wait.

Deviled eggs....yumm

Lucky for us, a college friend just happens to be a server at Village Whiskey (thanks Troy!) and we did get some comped snacks while we waited, and waited, for the table. A plate of very good deviled eggs kept us going while we sipped on excellently made Old Fashioneds. 

On a side note here, I have to say I am a huge fan of the resurgence of the deviled egg on menus around the city. I remember watching my mom make them for family parties and thinking to myself how revolting they looked and smelled. Now that I’m all grown up and sophisticated, I have realized the utter delight that a great deviled egg can be. Rich and a bit decadent, hitting different parts of the palette depending on the filling mix, they should always be served cold, a bit salty, a creamy yokey middle, and never limp or watery. These were perfectly done, classic devils. No fusion or experiments here – just a tried and true classic. 

And that’s really what Village Whiskey is all about too; tried and true classics that everyone can identify with. Unlike Garces’ other concept restaurants with tapas in every possible form and progressive, edgy interiors, VW leans toward the old school in every way. Prohibition style cocktails, mixed by bartenders who know the value of good ice and what bitters can do for a drink alongside an impressively large (albeit impressively pricey) list of bourbons. Servers dressed in classic whites with long aprons and black skinny ties. A menu of full size plates that are all America with burgers, bbq pork, turkey and chicken sandwiches.  

Chicken sandwich w/ long hots, shrooms & provolone

The chicken sandwich, on a good crusty roll with long hot peppers, mushrooms & sharp provolone was very good, and for $10 a decent value for dinner. It'd be nice if they included more than just a few veggie chips as a side, but I guess they're trying to steer you towards the $5 duck fat, $7 duck fat + cheddar sauce or $12 shortrib & cheddar fries. Cooking in duck fat is a bit trendy these days, but it is also usually pretty tasty. I like duck in all forms (see also: peking duck, duck rolls, duck hunt, duct tape), so frying taters in the fat seems like a good idea to me. But it's not. At least not in this example. Cut thick like steak fries you get at a Jersey diner, these guys were so crunchy that they were closer to potato chips. And you didn't get any of that duck taste you're hoping for. I was really disappointed. Next time I'm in (with an expense account) I might go for the shortrib & cheddar fries, along side the Whiskey King burger with fois gras on top. But for $26 the King was not on the docket for this night. And this being the burger challenge, we had to go for the straight-up, honest Village Burger that gets all the glory.

Duck fat fries w/ cheddar sauce

And onto that burger. The signature dish on the menu, the Village Whiskey burger has been on “best of” lists since they opened their doors. A mammoth half pound patty, cooked on a flat top, and served lovingly on a sesame roll with tomato, boston bibb lettuce, and thousand island dressing.  Choose your own additional toppings of cheese, caramelized onions, mushrooms, avocado, long hots, bacon, fried egg or even horseradish crab salad. The burger comes in at a pretty good deal for only $11, but just adding cheese tacks on another $3.50, with the other fixins running from $1.50 to $5.50. It’s an effort to squeeze  the thing down to an edible size, but soooo damn good when you do. Mine was cooked perfectly, a nice sear and caramalize on the meat, and medium in the middle. The cheese was still warm and melty, the lettuce cool and soft, and the tomato was thick and ripe. VW also makes their own pickles, and you get to sample one with each burger. The roll was fresh -  firm enough to hold up to the task of containing this bad boy but soft enough to not get in the way. I give this burger high ranks on taste, presentation and toppings. It's also an affordable price at a place where you feel like a high roller for just getting a seat. Well played, Jose. 

The Village Burger

Food Baby Rating: It's a Boy! 

Village Whiskey

118 South 20th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103

215-665-1088

www.villagewhiskey.com

Sunday-Monday 11:30am-11pm

Tuesday-Thursday 11:30am-12am

Friday-Saturday 11:30-1am