It usually happens in November: My annual meal odometer turns 20,000 plates, and I begin to feel nostalgic.
OK. It only seems like 20,000 dishes - 2,000 is more accurate. But with a new year of exciting new restaurants only weeks away, I am still hungry to recapture my greatest flavors of 1999. In the same way that one puts together a scrapbook of photos to bring closure to a wonderful vacation, I'd like to memorialize my finest bites in ink.
I think back to the 50 or so restaurants that I've reviewed in 1999, plus some I didn't. I stop by bakeries, sandwich shops and stores. And suddenly, the foodstuffs fall onto the page, illuminating a diverse and often spectacular year of eating in and around Philadelphia.
There were some meals of true transcendence, moments that ensconced themselves for me as landmarks on the city's dining scene.
At Vetri, in the intimate Spruce Street townhouse that launched Le Bec-Fin, Ciboulette and Chanterelles, Marc Vetri opened my eyes to new heights in Italian cooking, capturing real elegance from authentic rustic flavors. I recall the soulful depth of wild-boar ragu caught in the dark twirls of his chestnut fettuccine, these days tinted with chocolate. I can still taste the incredibly light orbs of green spinach gnocchi with brown butter and shavings of smoked ricotta cheese melting away on my tongue.
On 15th Street nearby, chef Guillermo Pernot gave Philadelphia its most thrilling new restaurant, unveiling at Pasion! the exotic tastes of Nuevo Latino cuisine. His nightly improvisations on ceviche - marinating raw tuna in gingery coconut milk; glazing sea bass in sweet soy and rice wine; pinwheeling shrimps in chile-flared squid ink - captured the blaze of spontaneity on a bed of ice.
On a more classical note, the elegant formal soup course at Deux Cheminees remains one of the unique fine-dining experiences in Philadelphia.
"Some people are right-handed, others are left-handed," explains chef owner Fritz Blank. "I'm soup-handed."
The historian chef takes his potage seriously indeed, with a seemingly inexhaustible repertoire, from creamed spinach with liver dumplings to pepperpot with pumpkin and seafood, each ladled into bowls tableside from gorgeous ceramic terrines. My favorite is the impossibly rich crab Marguerite, a frothy she-crab soup laced with a dram of Scotch.
