Here's your mission should you choose to accept it: Take your hands off the keyboard, push your chair away from your desk, stand up, grab your jacket and head to Center City. It's long lunch day, and Jones is calling your name.
There is something refreshing about a restaurant that perpetually keeps an item called Thanksgiving Dinner on the menu. On a cold and snowy day in February? Get some Thanksgiving Dinner. On a balmy August evening? Slip into the chilly air conditioning and get some Thanksgiving Dinner.
Best of all, on a cool November afternoon, just weeks away from Turkey Day, step into the warm, inviting atmosphere that restaurateur Stephen Starr does so well and get some Thanksgiving Dinner.
It may not be the way Mom prepares it, but there's no doubt that Jones knows how to get the job done. The dish looks like the perfect plate of leftovers.
The mashed potatoes are warm and creamy, with a light brown gravy pooling at the edges. A pile of crispy stuffing made from good, crusty bread and fresh rosemary sits below two thick slices of moist turkey and a tart cranberry sauce made with whole cranberries.
The icing on the cake is a small stack of caramelized carrot sticks. It's like a real Thanksgiving - with sides and all.
The best part of this meal is the way all the elements come together to form the perfect warm, creamy, salty, savory, rosemary, tart, crisp Thanksgiving bite.
On the way out, the restaurant's oversize glass doors definitely seem heavier with a bloodstream full of turkey-induced tryptophan.
Glance at your watch, then set off to your next destination a few blocks away. Moving will feel good. Those mashed-potato-and-gravy calories aren't going to burn themselves off and make room for pie without a little help, right?
