Reservations are available at Butcher & Singer this evening. Enjoy that $18, 24 ounce rib eye before everyone realizes it’s available.

Stephen Starr’s $5.95 burger deal has been going gangbusters at Butcher & Singer. The Illadelph reports that lunch is doing 1,500 covers a week with 90% ordering the burger.

Now Starr has a dinner equivalent. Starting tonight, you can order the 24oz bone-in rib eye for just $18.

Stephen Starr Ups The Ante, Offers A 24 oz. Rib Eye For $18 At Butcher & Singer [The Illadelph]

Philly Mag has given us a peek at 10 of its Food and Drink winners for Best of Philly and the winner for gourmet burger is Butcher and Singer.

And yesterday Starr tweated that the burger would be available at lunch for just $5.95. Grub Street hypothesized that maybe this was all related to Tommy Up’s Twitter smack talk but maybe it’s just in time marketing to capitalize on the Best Of win.

Whatever the reason, it’s worth biting into.

Starr Restaurants [Twitter]
Stephen Starr Walks Softly, Carries Big Burger [Grub Street]
Gourmet Burger: Butcher and Singer [Philadelphia Magazine]

Away evil spirits! Philadelphia Weekly guides you away from sickeningly sweet cocktails and towards these classics.

• Southwark
• La Bourse at Sofitel
• Mahogany on Walnut
• Parc
• Butcher & Singer
• Distrito

Spirited Away [Philadelphia Weekly]

It’s only Tuesday and already we’ve seen a lot of steak related items this week. Philadelphia Magazine biked from steakhouse to steakhouse Thursday to see if our cow palaces were packing them in. 

Union Trust, Del Frisco’s, Capital Grille, and Butcher & Singer were all visited between 7:30 and 8:30. Check out who was lively and who was hurting.

Foodonomics: How are our steakhouses surviving? [Philadelphia Magazine]

I’ll Eat You reviews Stephen Starr’s Butcher & Singer and provides the lowdown on the steak as well as a few chuckles. [I'll Eat You]

Philly Food and Drink gets to go to a press tasting at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House.  [Philly Food and Drink]

Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that little hole-in-the-wall pizza shops can do up a good pizza. La Rosa Pizza also delivers halfway across the city. [Drawing for Food]

If the taste of the mole burger at Snackbar can match its looks, they’ve got a winner. [Unbreaded]

Plenty of vegetarian options and a Lady and the Tramp goes to Italy vibe at Mr. Martino’s. [Veggicurious]

Mac & Cheese finds has some suggestions for ordering the mushroom po’boy at Local 44. [Mac & Cheese]

Fidel Gastro listifies the reasons he’ll be going back to Iron Hill North Wales. [Fidel Gastro]

Messy and Picky finds a good but pricey bagel at the Famous Fourth Street Delicatessen.  [Messy & Picky]

In Craig LaBan’s review of Butcher & Singer he states, “Butcher’s overly chirpy manager might restrain herself from incessantly interrupting meals to blather on about the retro nostalgia. Her uninvited monologues (four at my first meal) and forced introductions were a saccharine distraction.”

It’s one thing to say the service was cloying in general, but another to single out an employee. Should Craig LaBan have called out the manager for being chatty?

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Craig LaBan visits Stephen Starr’s Butcher & Singer and finds plenty to sing about at the red meat mecca.

Butcher doesn’t mess around with its signature commodity: The meat here was outstanding and perfectly cooked. This was especially true of the 28-day dry-aged porterhouse, which had a sublime tenderness and mineral complexity, even a faint sweetness, that wore just enough funk for a dry-aged connoisseur. Double-size it into a 32-ounce broiler-charred slab for two ($74), like the plump lovebirds behind me did, and indulge in a T-bone romance.

The rest of Butcher’s steaks are wet-aged, which I’m not typically fond of, but chef Shane Cash has mastered the technique (a little air-drying) to eliminate the common metallic aftertaste. Both the New York strip and filet mignon were exceptional. And the 18-ounce Delmonico, sourced from exclusive Four Story Hill Farm in Northeast Pennsylvania, was possibly even better than the porterhouse, with a buttery beefiness that revealed itself in waves of layered savor.

Three Bells – Excellent

Butcher & Singer [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Butcher & Singer [Official Site]

With Union Trust’s imminent opening it would seem that Center City’s quota of steakhouses has been reached. But questions remain, how will all these new spots do in this economy? Is the food any good?

Sunday, Craig LaBan will begin to answer the latter question as he reviews Stephen Starr’s Butcher & Singer.

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Don’t read CE Phood’s roundup of dinner at Apamate on an empty stomach. Candied sausage, oxtail, cheese and pepper on a plantain, Iberico ham thinly shaved & sweetened figs. It goes on and on. Luckily we’ve got Spanish wine in the rack. [CE Phood]

Phoodie gives out its 2008 awards in categories like person and restaurant of the year as well as the biggest disappointment. [Phoodie.info]

If Kitchenplay and a commenter are to be believed, you should “never judge a ghetto ass thai place’s food by the writing on the wall.” According to them, Plan-Eat-Thai at 1516 Tasker is serving up promising sounding Thai food behind a bullet proof window. [kitchenplay]

It’s good to hear good things about the latest items coming out of the kitchen at South Philadelphia Taproom. [CE Phood]

Veggicurious gives Local 44 the vegetarian once over. Mushroom ‘Po Boy, a dish even a carnivore get behind. [Veggicurious]

Vegging out at a Butcher & Singer seems a little crazy to us but hey, that’s Living On the Vedge. [Living On the Vedge]