This week in Philadelphia Magazine’s Restaurant Club Newsletter.

• Thanksgiving Dining Guide
  Food lovers aren’t necessarily cooks (ahem), so eat out for Thanksgiving.
• First Bite: Breakfast at P.Y.T.
  How does P.Y.T.’s breakfast/brunch stack up?
• Dinner with… Dan Stern
  Victor Fiorillo caught up with Daniel Stern to talk about vegetarian scrapple at MidAtlantic and how he may owe us all a free dinner!
• And a happy birthday to Philly Mag Food & Lifestyle Editor, Ashley Primis!

Restaurant Club Newsletter [Philadelphia Magazine]

Jolly’s Dueling Piano Bar will be opening Friday. There will be 2 dueling baby grands, room for 125 and a menu put together by Brendan Smith of *Smiths. [Meal Ticket]

If Jose Garces decides to open a New York restaurant he says it will be an Amada. [Grub Street]

Meal Ticket has a slideshow and the menu for Grey Social,  French bistro spot that is promisingly swimming against the Old City current. [Meal Ticket]

Grey Lodge didn’t stop their refurb with new urinals, they also have gotten a glorious new sign. [The Grey Lodge]

Year after year Zagat polls diners to find out who is most generous. And year after year Philadelphia comes out on top. [KYW 1060]

Shinju Sushi at 930 Locust Street is moving to the former site of Aso Sushi at 719 Walnut Street. They’ll also get a cool new name, The Fat Salmon. [Meal Ticket]

MidAtlantic has started weekday lunch. [The Insider]

Sarcone’s Deli is adding a franchise in Delaware. [The Illadelph]

Rick Nichols visits Daniel Stern’s MidAtlantic and finds there is still plenty of whimsy and great tastes to pull out of the  farm-to-table, local and seasonal buzzwords.

Thus we have here not just local (and quite succulent) pork chops from Country Time Farm out in Berks County, but surprisingly tasty crab scrapple (yes, crab scrapple), informed by, but by no means beholden to, the old original. And chicken and dumplings with a French-accented, citified polish (richly roasted hunks of chicken, thyme-inflected gravy, cakey biscuits), not that gloppy country cousin found lounging at the smorgasbords that stretch obesely out Route 30 West.

Penn Dutch with pizzazz [Philadelphia Inquirer]
MidAtlantic [Official Site]

Daniel Stern’s MidAtlantic opens today in the Science Center at 38th and Market. The modern taproom features flavors from the roots of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Paesano’s in the Italian Market will have an expanded menu. Look for tripe with egg and a Paesano Burger topped with fries, balsamic vineagr, garlic mayo, pancetta and gorgonzola dolce. We thought we were done salivating over burgers but maybe just this one more. [The Insider]

Prohibition Taproom opens for lunch starting today.

Pommes Frites in Old City. The restaurant eating space at Chestnut and Strawberry is looking to break the hex with European Republic, an off-shoot of a popular Long Island fry spot. [The Insider]

Flying Monkey’s Locust Street location opened Monday. We will continue to not refer to it as Flying Monkey Deuce.

The Insider has Gemelli’s opening Euro bistro menu. The BYO opens next week in Narberth with Clark Gilbert at the helm. [The Insider]

Grub Street snaps shots of Fish, set to open at October 5th. [Grub Street]

Win Signature Restaurants might be expanding downstairs from Azie on Main in Villanova. Isn’t that the path Maia unsuccessfully went down? [The Insider]

La Fuente is the working name for the proposed Italian BYOB seeking zoning approval for 2nd and Fairmount. [The Insider]

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again. We love a good rendering. The Illadelph, who’s filling in for Kirsten Henri this week at Grub Street has a couple images of Daniel Stern’s new restaurants.

First Look: Renderings Of R2L And MidAlantic, Both By Chef Daniel Stern [The Illadelph]
R2L [Official Site]
MidAtlantic [Official Site]

MidAtlantic teased us a couple of weeks ago via Twitter that there would be crab scrapple on the menu.

Today, we have the full menu to analyze.

The menu is broken down into several sections:

• Snacks, Salads, Pickings and Tap House food
• Chilled Seafood
• Every Night Dinners
• Nightly SpecialsSustenance
• Mixed Grills, the perfect shared feast
• Sandwiches
• Sides

The every night dinners are 3-courses for $30 and individual menu items top out at $18.

As for crab scrapple, it comes  in cake form with a toasted mustard sauce and in the Crab Louis with lettuce wedge, buckwheat and brandy Louis dressing.

We’re salivating for the Welsh Rarebit fondue and the 1/2 dozen hardshells every night dinner.

Complete menu after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

It would appear that is at least one of the menu items on Daniel Stern’s MidAtlantic menu.

We caught the following via Twitter last night:

Dreaming about crab scrapple, aren’t you?

MidAtlantic3711 [Twitter]
MidAtlantic [Official Site]

Today the Bite looks at the offspring of Le Bec-Fin’s Georges Perrier and the new restaurants they are opening.

Beyond Le Bec-Fin [Metro Philadelphia]

Manayunk is getting a couple of new restaurants sure to generate some buzz. Former Sovalo head, Joseph Scarpone is opening a wine and panini bar called agiato. Ex Lacroix chef Matt Levin is setting up a barbecue restaurant on Main Street that will be called Rubb. [The Insider]

Resurrection Ale House names Union Trust alum Joe Chmiko as its chef. [Meal Ticket]

Drywall was recently delivered for Jolly’s Dueling Piano Bar, the latest incarnation of the piano bar that is aiming to open at 20th and Chestnut in mid-September. [Facebook]

Daniel Stern spills some beans about his two new restaurants, R2L and MidAtlantic. [Meal Ticket]

D.P. Dough is looking to sell its first calzone somewhere between August 10th and 19th. [DP Dough]

Pickled Heron was originally aiming for a spring opening. Now the French Bistro on Frankford Ave is aiming for late September. [Meal Ticket]

15% off is a good way to kickstart business. That’s the plan at Sakana Sushi Cafe. [Meal Ticket]

Spamps in Conshohocken is taking over Viggiano’s restaurant for a venture to be called Spampinato’s Italian restaurant. [The Insider]