Last year Drexel launched an online food magazine, Table Matters that took a lofty look at food and food writing. This year Table Matters is back with a Philadelphia focused site. The student run online magazine takes a look at Philadelphia’s food and drink scene through the youthful eyes of budding foodies.

Among the current highlights:

• “Water Option” Pizza Joints
• How to Read a Wine List
• MidAtlantic – Stern’s place baffled me. Again. And again

Table Matters [Official Site]

Craig LaBan only wishes he could like MidAtlantic the restaurant as much as he likes MidAtlantic the concept. But too many gaffes leave that as an impossibility.

But rarely have I seen such a fantastic idea stumble critically across the finish line over a needless array of elemental cooking gaffes, from a recurring salt problem to sloppy plating and dishes that taste like concepts still in the works.

What is the point of making such tasty beef hot dogs, coarse-ground and aromatic with fennel and clove, if they’re so awkward to eat? Mine were buried under a mountain of potato chips, pickles, and wads of fermented cabbage so messy, it looked as if it had been plated by a bucket, not a chef.

One Bell – Hit or Miss

MidAtlantic [Philadelphia Inquirer]
MidAtlantic [Official Site]

Organ meats are showing up on more and more menus. Is it going to be showing up on your kitchen table anytime soon?

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The offal truth: Organ meats & their ilk ascend the food chain [Philadelphia Daily News]

Craig LaBan sets his sights on Daniel Stern’s MidAtlantic. How will the University City restaurant that features Pennsylvania Dutch inspired dishes fare?

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David Snyder visits MidAtlantic and finds Daniel Stern’s new West Philadelphia restaurant lacking in focus. But that’s not to say there isn’t some highlights on the menu like the hot dog platter that might be the dish of the month.

My favorite dish was Wednesday’s “Nightly Special,” a duo of hot dogs, for which the kitchen grinds beef neck, brisket and short rib together with a special spice blend to fill inch-and-a-half-thick hog casings. After being grilled off, the dogs are cradled in pillowy unsweetened doughnut rolls and served with house-made chips and thick country sauerkraut. Pickles and house-made horseradish mustard may overwhelm those looking for a more subtle bite, but the dog’s brilliant flavor and texture (and that wonderful bun) scream signature.

Amish Mash [City Paper]

Adam Erace loves the fun vibe of MidAtlantic but can’t say the same about the food.

That salad arrived alongside the dry MidAtlantic burger, which came topped with horseradish cheddar, a senseless split link of beef sausage and pickles, which I’d requested on the side. The compact donut roll bookending the burger was playful in theory but sobering in execution, devoid of the airiness you’d expect from a donut.

Coming from Stern, a serious technician whose food normally never looks less than exquisite, this was a curveball. But then again, Stern, presumably occupied with the fast-approaching R2L opening, wasn’t even at MidAtlantic the weekend night I dined. Chef de cuisine Steve Lamborn (the original sous at Gayle) runs the show here, and there are glimmers of Gayle in his cooking: a textbook-perfect fry on the buttery panko and Ritz cracker-crusted Long Island oysters and salsify batons; the cleverness of pan-seared crab “scrapple” cake composed of crabmeat and barley, far better than any traditional crab cake I’ve had in recent memory.

Pass the Dutch [Philadelphia Weekly]
MidAtlantic [Official Site]

This week in Philadelphia Magazine’s Restaurant Club Newsletter.

• Hot Toddy Guide
  Come in from the cold to drink these warming cocktails
• Food for Thought: We’re So Euro
  Why we’ve become the test market for European chains
• Where We’re Eating
  Looking for some place new to try, new restaurants from Ambler to Old City

Restaurant Club Newsletter [Philadelphia Magazine]

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]