Satay

Signature satay Hardena Waroeng Surabaya is open, though it may look from the curb as though nothing's cooking inside this tiny corner storefront at Hicks and Moore. Crack open the door to Ena Wijojo's modest luncheonette, though, and the exotic smells of Indonesia drift out on a breeze warmed with coconut, hot sambal chili, and tangy dark soy. The aromas alone are enough to dull the squawk of Jerry Springer on the inevitable dining room TV - but the flavors will carry you away at bargain prices.

Owning a Thai restaurant in Wayne is a lot like operating any small-town business. At least, the way Jumpoj Pinijavan, owner of the pint-size Mayuree Cafe, tells it, the customer comes first. Most are familiar with the Thai food, Pinijavan said, but tend to want it their way. On more than one occasion, Pinijavan has found himself writing down the same order - say, the famously spicy Thai red curry dish panang - and serving it three ways: mild, medium and hot. That's fine with Pinijavan, as long as the critical balance of hot, sour, salty and sweet - to name the key flavors of Thai food - doesn't get lost in translation, so to speak.

Amid the hustle-bustle of busy Baltimore Avenue, Touch of Siam restaurant offers quiet, elegant sanctuary with splendid food, gracious service and civilized surroundings. The gorgeous Thai restaurant in East Lansdowne has only 14 tables, each prettily set with pink napkins and tablecloths, fresh purple orchids in beautiful Thai ceramic flower vases, a candle in cut-glass holder, delicate pink-and-gray dishes and graceful black lacquered chairs with mauve seats. Walls with classy cream-colored wallpaper are decorated with Thai fans painted with colorful country scenes and small aqua parasols painted with flowers; recessed windows are filled with potted plants, and dinner music plays quietly in the background.

It perhaps goes without saying, but happy hour is one of the sublime pleasures of adulthood. Yet while everyone knows the concept of happy hour, I'll bet a lot of people never realized that happy hours were so closely regulated. In Pennsylvania, a bar or restaurant can only hold a maximum of 14 hours of happy hours per week and those hours must be posted seven days in advance. Until recently, an establishment could only host two hours of happy hour each day. Those laws were loosened somewhat in July, and we can now enjoy up to four hours of happy hour.

"For 18 hours, it is very intense," Jo Ann Morgano said of the whirlwind two days leading up to the open house that she and her husband, Ignazio, host every year for 40 guests. One look at Morgano's last-minute to-do list for the party would daunt even an experienced cook. The Marlton mother and marketing executive - helped this year by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law who were visiting from Cleveland - made stromboli and cream puffs from scratch, cooked and cleaned 15 pounds of jumbo shrimp, made 110 clams casino, fried smelts, skewered chicken for satay, tried a new recipe for crab pancakes bound with bechamel, cooked two roasts, made two sauces for the filet mignon and a cocktail sauce for the shrimp, made two vegetable dishes and a pasta, and assembled a beautiful tiramisu in a footed trifle bowl.

A lot can happen in two years. That's how long it had been since a visit to Siri's Thai French in Cherry Hill. Chef/owner Siri Yothchavit did more than just renovate the restaurant. She took over the storefront next door, adding a patisserie and another dining room. The change is a good one. From the outside, Siri's Thai French, located in a strip center across from the Garden State Racetrack, doesn't look impressive. But come inside, and the restaurant's handsome interior is an oasis of calm and good taste.

Despite the sign along Evesham Road in Cherry Hill announcing "open for lunch," at noon on a recent Friday, exactly one patron was studying a menu at Swanky Bubbles, cousin to the trendy Philadelphia champagne bar owned by brothers John and Vincent Frankowski. It didn't seem like a good sign. But 20 minutes later, when the lunch bell had sounded at nearby Virtua Hospital, trays of sushi, satay and salad streamed from the kitchen. Exotic cocktails flowed from the bar as well, no doubt a relief to the Frankowski brothers, who paid a whopping $1.6 million to assume the former Olive restaurant's liquor license when they opened Swanky Bubbles about a year ago. A recent Saturday evening was more vigorous - in fact, reservations would have been essential, had we not arrived late after a movie.

The average Chinatown noodle house offers food that is simple, straightforward and a bargain. That's nice, but Nice Chinese Noodle House is even nicer. The Chinatown newcomer's food is conspicuously fresh, the service swift, and the background music has a beat you can dance to. Asian-Latin versions of golden oldies kept our chopsticks clacking in rhythm at a recent meal at Nice Noodle. The cha-cha tempo must be good for digestion. Despite the impressive quantity of food ingested here for review purposes, we strolled back to the office feeling only comfortably overfed.

Over the years, David Chan has expanded his Mai Lai Wah restaurant from a basic noodle house to a place where you can get duck specialties and a host of other provincial Chinese dishes. So when he decided to put some additional emphasis on seafood, he opened a second place, on Ninth Street, just around the corner from his 10th and Race Street Mai Lai Wah Restaurant and Noodle House. The name of this other Chinatown entry is David's Mai Lai Wah II Seafood Restaurant. As the name implies, you have a large selection of seafood choices.

IF YOU'VE EVER flown cross-country (or longer), you probably know what it's like to sit in the waiting area, check out your fellow passengers and make a mental list of who you hope is not sitting next to you. Tattle's not talking about trying to determine who's wearing exploding underpants - merely who looks annoying. Who's going to chew your ear off for five hours or take your armrest or listen to their iPod so loudly you want to choke them with their ear buds. So imagine you're waiting and the call is made for travelers with young children, and you see that "Octomom" Nadya Suleman is on your flight.

It perhaps goes without saying, but happy hour is one of the sublime pleasures of adulthood. Yet while everyone knows the concept of happy hour, I'll bet a lot of people never realized that happy hours were so closely regulated. In Pennsylvania, a bar or restaurant can only hold a maximum of 14 hours of happy hours per week and those hours must be posted seven days in advance. Until recently, an establishment could only host two hours of happy hour each day. Those laws were loosened somewhat in July, and we can now enjoy up to four hours of happy hour.

IF YOU'VE EVER flown cross-country (or longer), you probably know what it's like to sit in the waiting area, check out your fellow passengers and make a mental list of who you hope is not sitting next to you. Tattle's not talking about trying to determine who's wearing exploding underpants - merely who looks annoying. Who's going to chew your ear off for five hours or take your armrest or listen to their iPod so loudly you want to choke them with their ear buds. So imagine you're waiting and the call is made for travelers with young children, and you see that "Octomom" Nadya Suleman is on your flight.

Signature satay Hardena Waroeng Surabaya is open, though it may look from the curb as though nothing's cooking inside this tiny corner storefront at Hicks and Moore. Crack open the door to Ena Wijojo's modest luncheonette, though, and the exotic smells of Indonesia drift out on a breeze warmed with coconut, hot sambal chili, and tangy dark soy. The aromas alone are enough to dull the squawk of Jerry Springer on the inevitable dining room TV - but the flavors will carry you away at bargain prices.

The true measure of a great cook is not what can be done with truffles and filet mignon, but whether magic can can be drawn from the humblest ingredients. It isn't hard to find a fabulous meal when times are flush. But when expense accounts stop flowing during an economic downturn, the lights would dim in the dining rooms of a lesser food city. Not in Philadelphia. To be sure, the high end may still be in for troubles. But our restaurant culture is so deep, so diverse and so resourceful that budget mavens still have a wealth of choices to feed their hunger for a stellar meal.

Despite the sign along Evesham Road in Cherry Hill announcing "open for lunch," at noon on a recent Friday, exactly one patron was studying a menu at Swanky Bubbles, cousin to the trendy Philadelphia champagne bar owned by brothers John and Vincent Frankowski. It didn't seem like a good sign. But 20 minutes later, when the lunch bell had sounded at nearby Virtua Hospital, trays of sushi, satay and salad streamed from the kitchen. Exotic cocktails flowed from the bar as well, no doubt a relief to the Frankowski brothers, who paid a whopping $1.6 million to assume the former Olive restaurant's liquor license when they opened Swanky Bubbles about a year ago. A recent Saturday evening was more vigorous - in fact, reservations would have been essential, had we not arrived late after a movie.

Random questions ran through my mind at the Royalton Hotel while sampling a cocktail called a "Purple Prince" at a listening party for 3121, the new album by the artist formerly known as a glyph. No. 1: Has there ever been a pop musician (outside of maybe Stevie Wonder) so skilled at genre-hopping that he's made everything he does - a killer guitar solo, an effortless falsetto, a super-tight funk jam - seem so easy? No. 2: In a quarter-century-plus career - stretching back to his salacious 1980 breakthrough Dirty Mind on through the new album's creamy "Satisfied" (in which he scolds, "turn off your cell phone, can't you see I just want to get you satisfied?"

Owning a Thai restaurant in Wayne is a lot like operating any small-town business. At least, the way Jumpoj Pinijavan, owner of the pint-size Mayuree Cafe, tells it, the customer comes first. Most are familiar with the Thai food, Pinijavan said, but tend to want it their way. On more than one occasion, Pinijavan has found himself writing down the same order - say, the famously spicy Thai red curry dish panang - and serving it three ways: mild, medium and hot. That's fine with Pinijavan, as long as the critical balance of hot, sour, salty and sweet - to name the key flavors of Thai food - doesn't get lost in translation, so to speak.

"For 18 hours, it is very intense," Jo Ann Morgano said of the whirlwind two days leading up to the open house that she and her husband, Ignazio, host every year for 40 guests. One look at Morgano's last-minute to-do list for the party would daunt even an experienced cook. The Marlton mother and marketing executive - helped this year by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law who were visiting from Cleveland - made stromboli and cream puffs from scratch, cooked and cleaned 15 pounds of jumbo shrimp, made 110 clams casino, fried smelts, skewered chicken for satay, tried a new recipe for crab pancakes bound with bechamel, cooked two roasts, made two sauces for the filet mignon and a cocktail sauce for the shrimp, made two vegetable dishes and a pasta, and assembled a beautiful tiramisu in a footed trifle bowl.

A lot can happen in two years. That's how long it had been since a visit to Siri's Thai French in Cherry Hill. Chef/owner Siri Yothchavit did more than just renovate the restaurant. She took over the storefront next door, adding a patisserie and another dining room. The change is a good one. From the outside, Siri's Thai French, located in a strip center across from the Garden State Racetrack, doesn't look impressive. But come inside, and the restaurant's handsome interior is an oasis of calm and good taste.

The average Chinatown noodle house offers food that is simple, straightforward and a bargain. That's nice, but Nice Chinese Noodle House is even nicer. The Chinatown newcomer's food is conspicuously fresh, the service swift, and the background music has a beat you can dance to. Asian-Latin versions of golden oldies kept our chopsticks clacking in rhythm at a recent meal at Nice Noodle. The cha-cha tempo must be good for digestion. Despite the impressive quantity of food ingested here for review purposes, we strolled back to the office feeling only comfortably overfed.