The World That We Knew Review Philadelphia Inquirer
A Look Back at Friday Saturday Dominicus's Start Review
With the final days of Friday Saturday Sun under owners Jamie and Weaver Lilley coming up chop-chop. We reached into the Philadelphia magazine archives to discover the 42-year former eating house'southward first review.
The review is by eating house critic Jim Quinn, who in the October 1973 issue of the mag reviewed Friday Saturday Sunday and Thursday Also (as it was known) likewise as Astral Airplane and Frog, two other restaurants that history shows were part of what nosotros now refer to equally, Philadelphia's first restaurant renaissance. Fifty-fifty in its earliest days, it was clear that these restaurants were something special.
Waiter, In that location's a Long Hair in My Vichyssoise
The original Friday Saturday Lord's day and Th Also from the October 1973 Philadelphia magazine.
The War Babies are greening the gourmet restaurant scene.
"We can change the world!"
That's what all those revolutionary rock groups sang back in 1968—the twelvemonth the concluding of the State of war Babe generation graduated from higher to observe Richard Nixon elected President, the war in Vietnam standing, and non a single decent medium-priced eating house in the city of Philadelphia. In those dark days, a dinner date meant a visit to a Chinese, Italian or seafood restaurant.
Well, fourth dimension passed; and some things inverse more than others. Rock groups gave up revolution for space ships and pancake makeup. The war turned into a permanent end-fire violation. Richard Nixon remains (nominally, at to the lowest degree) the President.
The War Baby generation may have changed most of all; from educatee radical to young professional, increasingly domestic. Houseplants replaced political posters; real antiques crept in amongst the junkshop Tiffany; and Julia Child converted every macrobiotic cook in boondocks.
And when the War Babies discovered that at that place were no places in the urban center to satisfy their budding gourmet lusts, they but cruel back on the tactics of participatory republic and opened their ain. In the past year, Several new, medium-priced restaurants have opened, almost all of them collectively owned and operated (sometimes on a part-time basis) past the War Baby generation.
Old schoolteacher and dancer Tom Hunter is the simply full-timer at Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Thursday Too. The other partners include Jeanine Autret of the Daily News, advertisement's Arnie Roberts, photographer Weaver Lilley, carpenter Bud Bretschneider, onetime psychologist Jay Gubin and ironically, Anne Perrier, married woman of Le Bec Fin's George.
Grown-up War Babies Robert Selke and Reed Apaghian find operating Astral Plane a full time job. Selke's a former schoolteacher and Apaghian decided at that place were better ways to make a living than waiting for Actor's Disinterestedness to telephone call.
Earlier Frog's Steven Poses learned how to melt in the kitchens at La Panetière, he taught at the Greentree Schoolhouse. And his blood brother, Frederic, left a cushy job as a financial analyst with Allied Chemical in New York for tearing up Boston lettuce. Both had been in the Peace Corps.
The atmosphere in these places is casual, friendly and homey. There is no dress code, but there are lots of those pretty hanging plants called Wandering Jew (such an embarrassing anti-Semitic name that they are frequently re-christened Creeping Jesus). The chairs and tables, the plates and silverish, are all mismatched; in that location'due south rock music on the tape deck; and the cooking is inspired amateur rather than professional, cookbook gourmet rather than French. Best of all, the food tastes expert.
Hither's what I think of these iii new restaurants. They're bundled roughly in lodge of price and quality —from best and cheapest to worst and well-nigh expensive.
Friday, Saturday, Dominicus and Thursday Too (B-)
Named after the days information technology'southward open up, this pretty little restaurant serves a complete dinner for almost $6 a person. That's about as much as you'd expect to spend, postal service-freeze, in Chinatown or South Philadelphia, for less food and a lot less atmosphere.
At FSSATT (to give it a convenient acronym) bolt ends of fancy cottons have been sewn together in long strips and draped beyond the ceiling tent-style, giving the identify the air of a set for a camp musical based on the Sheik of Araby. There are lilliputian plasticized tables, light-green plants, and no paintings on the walls (always a blessing in a restaurant). It's hard to call back, looking at it, that this was once the ugliest coffeehouse in the city.
The oversupply is very immature, and very casual, and still small enough so that FSSATT does not take reservations: But that will probably change. There is no bar, so bring your own wine–and bring it common cold, if it's white. They'll open up it complimentary.
Garlic soup (85¢) tops the listing of appetizers. Information technology's a thin gruel heavily flavored with garlic, served with a big chunk of toasted bread floating in it and covered with what seems to be powdered cheddar cheese. Mix it all together and information technology's only mildly interesting. Country Pâté ($1.25) seems as if information technology was made in a blender, and is not the mesomorphic little liver loaf you wait; only it is splendid anyhow, flavored with Madeira and fabricated with pork also as chicken liver, giving it a subtly bitter winey flavor. Ceviche ($1.50) is raw rock fish, marinated in olive oil, pickled peppers and coriander and so information technology has the texture of cooked fish. It is the most expensive titbit, but you can afford to splurge here and information technology is extremely good. Squash soup ($1) is also excellent: a sparse cream soup with the color and flavor of yellow squash, like a lighter and meliorate flavored vichyssoise. All the appetizers are large for the price.
There are both hot and cold entrées—and, possibly because of the temperature of the kitchen, the hot ones seem better. Mousseline of flounder ($four) is a big patty of excellent flounder forcemeat, served over tasty oily rice with an accompaniment of buttered squash. Considering the size and cost, information technology is an outstanding deal. Curried chicken ($three.25) is besides big and very good: iii pieces of breast and a drumstick, served in medium hot back-scratch sauce, with bits of fresh fruit, coconut and a tangy footling splat of homemade love apple chutney. Chili Elizabeth Taylor ($3.25) sounds like a Gourmet Magazine special—inexpensive nutrient gussied upwards and fussed over— but it is too much fun for that. A little Horn & Hardart chicken pot pie pot is filled with lean footing beef, topped with a dozen or so fiery chili peppers, then a lid of good cornmeal dough, and baked til information technology's done. The beans are served on the side: black beans, topped with a tomato onion mixture that is near, but not quite, as spicy equally the tomato chutney. Mix and friction match every bit you lot swallow along—it is all powerfully hot, and delicious; the erstwhile Mrs. Burton eats it with beer, which is probably a good thought.
There is some mildly disappointing food at FSSATT. Mousse of chicken ($3.75) is prettily served, with excellent accompaniments of cold string beans and tomato wedges covered with a slurp of mustardy sauce. But the mousse has the homogenized texture of the land pâté—or would, except that it seems to be melting all over the plate. A big soft scoop of ugly jelly (the colour of the stuff yous skim off the meridian of your chicken stock), it is covered with a very practiced sour cream mayonnaise and fancy capers. If y'all like the texture of baby food, yous might discover this stuff edible before information technology turns to gray water in the bottom of the plate. Shashlik ($3.50) is an occasional special, and is nothing more than than large chunks of cheap lamb, overlemoned and overcooked, served on a bed of kasha. The kasha is fantabulous, for kasha, with a texture like wild rice instead of the usual oatmeal; only it'southward still the dullest starch since grits. Salmon en croute ($5.l) is a fatty slice of salmon loaf in good crust, served with mustard flavored mayonnaise. Sometimes it tastes like salmon and sometimes like unsweetened staff of life pudding, only information technology's e'er besides warm.
The waitress volition tell yous that the desserts are made haphazardly, past whoever feels like doing it. That is the kind of information that usually strikes terror in a diner's heart, but at FSSATT the desserts are excellent. Somebody on the staff really knows how to brand fancy tortes and always feels like doing it. At $ane they are extraordinary. Coeur de la crème is a sweet-sour little lump of fresh tangy cheese, like the French double-creme, served in a sauce made from fresh blueberries. The fancy rice pudding is mixed with chunks of pineapple and served with raspberry sauce. Both are excellent, but served a fiddling likewise warm. Crème caramel (85¢) is the unmarried disappointment, pocket-size and bland. Good French roast java (35¢) keeps coming as long as y'all are willing to sit around and drink it. All this uncrowded eating house seems to need to attract mobs is a good service-fridge—and maybe a change in policy to a $vi price fixe menu, so people realize how cheap it really is. FSSATT, 261 S. 21st St., KI half dozen-4232. Dinner Thurs-Sat 5:30-10. Brunch Sun 11-ii:thirty, Differ Dominicus 5-ix:xxx.
Astral Plane (C+)
The closest matter in center city due west to the South Street Renaissance, Astral Plane attracts a mixed crowd of hip fiftyish businessmen, aging hippies and unreconstructed hippies. If yous sometimes think these are all the same person, indistinguishable except by the accident of historic period, y'all can tell the difference in two master means: the kind of wine they bring to dinner (imported French, a half gallon of Gallo, and Boone's Farm Strawberry, respectively); or their feelings virtually Adlai Stevenson (adoration, disenchantment, and never-heard-of-him, in the aforementioned order).
2 vintage bathroom sinks have been turned into elegant planters exterior; inside the walls are covered with gorgeous trash, plus a few real and surreal antiques. Beaded evening bags, art deco fans, and faded souvenir pillows along the church pew that serves every bit a banquette make this place seem like an elegantly freaky home with a political party in progress. There is a $1 charge for opening your wine, and Astral Plane is no more successful than FSSATT at getting it cold. They should driblet the charge or purchase some ice buckets.
The food is a combination of proficient basic ingredients and imaginative recipes—sometimes too imaginative. Heavenly Hash ($i.l) is a mixture of bits of melon, sour cream, and bite-sized marshmallows. It is an amazing, and, to me, incomprehensible combination that seems sweet and soft and vaguely horrible—similar a cure for the Stone Munchies, and non palatable (unless you lot feel exceptionally heavenly—or hash-ish). Stuffed cucumber ($ii.50) is extremely skilful, a big cuke, hollowed out similar an Indian canoe and filled with lots of fresh crabmeat, good mayonnaise and capers. This is big plenty to serve equally an titbit for two, and is worth the coin. Petite salad (85¢) is also large for the toll, and very good: fresh romaine, raw string beans, tomatoes and Chinese edible bean sprouts in a adept, and very non-French, dressing. Cream of celery soup (85¢) is small, merely it tastes deliciously of existent celery and real cream; zucchini cheese (85¢) is a mixture of fresh zucchini, parmesan cheese and chicken stock. It tastes something like sour minestrone, and is not about equally good every bit the foam of celery.
Soft-shell venereal ($5.50), an occásional special, is ii freshly sautéed crabs, prettily served with a side of couscous (a North African version of grits, which tastes good), and a few fresh snow peas. It is not large for the toll, but it is very proficient. Curried chicken ($4) is two plump supremes of much better chicken than you go at FSSATT, made with a much worse recipe. The chicken is well-cooked, merely the sauce is bland and greasy, and the chunks of apple cooked along with it gustation similar candied mashed potatoes. There are also a few nutmeats and even a couple of grapes strewn in the sauce, as some other indication that the chef sometimes refuses to let well plenty alone.
Desserts are big, expensive, and designed for people with a genuine or self-induced sweetness molar. Flaming nut sundae ($1.60) is two scoops of Hagendaas, chocolate syrup, organic peanut butter, chopped nuts, and a banana—topped with a carbohydrate cube that burns all the while you eat information technology. similar a scale model of the eternal flame. Vanilla poached eggs ($ii) is small simply spectacular. Slices of vanilla ice cream are topped with tiny canned apricot halves and laid atop pieces of date-nut bread, it really doés look like poached eggs, even upwardly close; so if you discount half the price for blueprint and execution, it'due south a deal. Coffee (55¢) is served mixed with cinnamon. The combination isn't unpleasant, simply in that location'south no reason why the menu shouldn't warn you. Or why y'all shouldn't exist able to get a cup of plainly quondam coffee if you desire to. But the cream bullpen is filled with real cream (something you won't find at many Philadelphia restaurants, regardless of price); the candle-lit room is filled with odd little objects (similar a tiny Aunt Jemima salt shaker, left over from the bad old days); the service seems genuinely friendly and the article of furniture is gargoyle-glorious. Add a little raw sugar from the saccharide bowl to that funny tasting java, and try it again; you could exercise a lot worse, and pay a lot more. ASTRAL PLANE, 1708 Lombard St., KI 5-4935, Dejeuner Mon-Fri 12-2:30; Dinner Mon-Lord's day 6-11.
Frog (C)
Frog is a deep dark eating house, filled with light-green formica tables, old Grand Rapids dining room set chairs, paintings that await like B+ projects by PCA undergraduates—and lots and lots of nifty plants. The plants are fancier than those at Astral Plane or FSSATT; older, more expensive, and sometimes more attractive, even though they're showtime to show signs of wear. The customers are like that, too. You lot might hear the couple next to you discussing traffic bug of the Main Line or Roosevelt Boulevard exit from the expressway. Or discussing what I-95 will do to townhouse values. They are a cheerful, talkative bunch, and Frog, the merely eating place of the four without its ain Muzak, is sometimes a piddling also loud.
Start with drinks. At $i.25 they are strong and extremely well-fabricated. You can order California wine by the decanter with dinner, just it's a improve thought to brand the bartender work and order Sangria ($six.25 a big pitcher), which is freshly made and stiff enough to double as an later-dinner brandy.
When Frog first opened, it had an unpretentious menu-similar FSSATT, with slightly higher prices and a slightly more elegant atmosphere. The atmosphere is withal intact, but the chef has for some reason started loading up the menu with standard French eatery standbys—some of which are ho-hum and some of which are only not well-made.
Croustade of shrimp ($2.75) is good, but banal and very small for the price. 5 medium shrimp are advisedly curled around each other atop a proficient pastry beat out, and covered with what the menu calls hollandaise–although it tastes like an ordinary White sauce. Onion soup ($1.25) tastes every bit if the chef fabricated it advisedly, With gruyère cheese instead of the ordinary emmenthaler and proficient beef stock and lots of browned onions, then threw in a spoonful of raw flour. It nevertheless tastes good, but information technology's not worth the money, Blueberry soup ($one.50) is a small-scale bowl of what looks like blueberry yogurt thinned with milk. The blueberries are fresh, only the soup is bland. Mussels in mustard sauce ($one.75) are served in their shells, covered with a smear of expert mustard sauce—only so quondam they seem almost feral, like the gustation that fills your oral fissure when your dentist drills at a cavity. The waitress noticed that I did non finish the mussels, and took its price off the neb without being asked; so Frog gets loftier marks for service. She too insisted there had never been a trouble with the mussels before, and maybe she's correct. Only sense of taste the mussels advisedly here (and anywhere for that matter) before yous swallow.
Duck à fifty'orange ($5.25) is standard French restaurant food that tastes much better than standard. Information technology is large, lean, tender and tasty. In that location could be a trivial more than of the extremely good sauce on the plate, and less of the highly-spiced pepper-flavored rice which doesn't go with the duck and orange flavor. Sweetbreads ($4.75) come with either a lemon butter sauce or a specialty of the house, "au whisky." The waitress tells you what the au whisky sauce is—a heavy foam sauce. There is no appreciable taste of booze, simply there is too much flour; it'south similar eating melted playdough. The sweetbreads, however, are very good and very well-cooked; they would be first-class flavored with lemon and butter,
French filter coffee ($i.50 för two) is expensive just so well-served that it'south worth the money. A glass decanter with a little stainless steel plunger that pushes downward the grounds, niggling glass cups in metal holders, information technology goes very well with the excellent desserts. Hard-to-discover fresh fruit (like raspberries) is served with existent whipped cream. There is also a very good almond cake ($ane.l) and an extremely good crème caramel ($1.25) that costs 40 cents more than the same item as FSSATT and is worth every penny. Frog is actually intent on delivering good value for coin spent. Fifty-fifty the staff of life is real French, with good sweet butter served in a tiny soufflé crock. If you stick to elementary recipes, practiced value is what you get. FROG, 254 South. 16th St., PE 5-8882. Lunch Mon-Fr 12-2; Dinner 6-x, Sat six-11, sun v:thirty-9.
Source: https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2015/08/12/friday-saturday-sunday-first-review/
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