Messy and Picky

We've been cooking from the Horizons cookbooks for a while now (both books available for purchase at Horizons, just ask the host upstairs), and it's pretty great. However, the restaurant itself is a little on the expensive side for us, so it's taken us a while to get over there for a sit-down dinner. We […]

Messy's first experience with Golden Empress Garden occurred a little while ago when Picky was out of town. Having received about a million copies of Golden Empress' menu in that packet of mostly useless coupons that comes in the mail, Messy decided it was time to give it a try. Messy has not had good luck with Chinese restaurants in Philly so far. Only the ones that are vegetarian-only have satisfied her. Unfortunately, those ones haven't entirely satisfied Picky…

Before we went to Lovash, we had not had the best luck finding awesome Indian food in walking distance. We went on a cold weeknight, and hardly anyone else was there. We were promptly seated by an adorable (in Messy's opinion) waiter, one of two who provided excellent service throughout the meal. He put us […]

We've been to Jamaican Jerk Hut twice, both times for outside gatherings on beautiful days. Although the inside of the restaurant is somewhat cramped, the patio and garden are spacious and welcoming. On our first visit, we were served free chips and some kind of spicy mango salsa-esque dip…

We ended up at the Pontiac Grille because there was a man outside handing out 10% off coupons. Messy was seriously craving a frozen margarita, and there was a sign out front proclaiming margarita were only $4. With open air windows looking out on South Street, it seemed like the perfect choice. Unfortunately, after being seated at the window, we learned that no frozen margaritas were available, although they did have every conceivable flavor of the non-frozen variety. Messy opted for the pina colada flavor, and it was really good, in an overly sweet, artificial kind of way…

We went to La Fourno on a particularly cold night, and we were immediately warmed up by a brick oven hard at work. Our friendly hostess lead us past a large counter with tons of pizzas into the rear portion of the dining room which was very cozy — intimate, even! — with barely any lighting aside from candlelight bouncing off of the exposed brick walls…

We ended up at Alyan's due to lack of seating space at Maoz Vegetarian on South Street — and we're very glad we did! We dined with our two vegan friends and we're happy to report that all of our meals (three falafels and one shawarma, a lamb and turkey rotissere broil sandwich) were delicious. (Guess who had the shawarma?) The hummus and falafel sandwiches were hefty enough on their own, and they were served with mixed salads on the side. We can't imagine how big the 'platter' size, which costs $4 more, is in comparison. The schwarma was also a huge sandwich, overflowing out of the foil wrapper. It partially exploded over Picky's hand…