a weekend abroad

This weekend I drove down to Pennsylvania for my nephew's first birthday and made a few pit stops along the way; one of which was Philadelphia to spend some time with a few of my favs. Amara and I had planned our day around watermelon sake at Raw, some snacks & vino at Tria, and more small bites at Tinto [with a "power nap" & Curb Your Enthusiasm in-between]. Raw kind of foreshadowed the events, being that watermelon infused sake was not available at lunch time [what kind of B.S. is that?! I know there are numerous carafes of the stuff in the walk-in in the back... just give it to me!]; this unforeseen disappointment lead to over-compensating via impulse ordering of an extra roll, which we obviously did not finish. By the time we got to Tria we were pretty full and moderately lethargic, but we ordered the herbed ricotta with lavender honey and some Sauternes aka "liquid honey". Yum. After our afternoon endeavors we headed home to rest for a bit and then journeyed to Tinto, a Jose Garces restaurant. Prior to this "meal" I had experienced Garces' food once, at an Amis Industry Night, when he premiered his new taco truck; liquor + free tacos = disappointed taste buds. I know, I may as well say 2+2=5, it just doesn't add up. Anyways, back to Tinto- I ordered the first round of tapas: Pulpo, Anchovies, Braised Beef Shortrib, and Soft Scrambled Egg with Bacalao & Goat Cheese... the plates arrived dressed to the nines; unfortunately I have no pictures because I am without telephoto lense. Just playing- that's a bit harsh, but the portions were tiny, granted it is tapas, but I have had tapas in Spain, so I had an idea of what we were getting ourselves into. Now I can't say the food was bad, but I will declare that I was unimpressed. If you are going to tease me with barely one full bite per plate, then I want to fall in love with each different mouthful- instead I left uninspired and full but not satiated. Although it was inspiring to eat at Jose Garces' restaurant and feel I could have put out better food.  And I can't blame Garces himself; he is a busy man between his 8 different restaurants and celebrity chefdom on the Food Network, but one would hope to maintain tight reigns on all of their investments.

Anyways, the main point of this blog was to fill you in on what I have been up to during this absence of blogging, not to degrade Tinto or Chef Garces. On that note- I hope everyone enjoyed their weekends; I know I did!