Heverin.com

Address:
     901 West Butler Pike
     Ambler PA 19002
     (215) 643-6300
Web: http://broadaxetavern.com/
Cuisine: American/Modern
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We went to the newly opened and renovated Broad Axe tavern Friday night for dinner. The outside and the inside have been completely renovated. The interior is nothing like it used to look, it has been completely re-done. The cuisine is what I would call "American modern", it has a slightly upscale bar/restaurant fare with some international influence.

They have a tremendous beer selection, on draft and bottled. They have the standards on tap such as Guinness and Yuengling, part of their "Starting Eight", but they also have a rotation of other beers that called the "Changing Eight". They not only have a selection of wine, and other cocktails (quite a nice list of custom martini's and mojitos), but their focus on beer selection is great. Too few restaurants treat their beer selection as an after thought.

Erica and I split an appetizer of fried calamari which was good. Nothing over the top about it, a pretty standard dish. I had the Grilled Ahi tun and baby bok choy in a dashi broth. Erica had one of the specials, a scallop noodle bowl. For desert Erica had the Tripple chocolate brownie (OK, I had some too :).

The meal was pretty good. The seared tuna I had was well done, and had a nice flavor to it. The bok choy it sat on top of in the dashi broth was a bit bland. There just needed to be something more in the broth to stand out more in comparison to the tuna. I really like bok choy and it can have a great flavor to it. Unfortunately the dashi broth seemed to wash it out.

The service was great from when you walk in, through the entire meal. Our waitress made sure to check up on us regularly, and Eric the host even came by at the end of the meal to see how things went. It was a really nice experience and we look forward to going back there again.

- Stephen

Address:
         237 Saint James Place
         Philadelphia, PA 19106
         (215) 625.8800
Web: http://www.zahavrestaurant.com/
Cuisine:  Israeli/Middle eastern
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Last night we we out to dinner with Wayne and Katherine. This place is the top rated places to eat in Philly and for good reason. Outside the building is pretty non-descript. Inside it is a completely different atmosphere. Everything is open, pretty much in two rooms. From anywhere in the place you have a view of the kitchen working on orders. It is warm and inviting.

Service is tapas style, basically small plates which are meant to be shared and should be. The recomended starter and speciality for the table is the Salatim & Hummus with Laffa. The Salatim is a selection of different dishes from chick peas to beats enjoyed with or without the laffa. Their hummus was some of the best I have ever had. As we went through and placed our orders, our waiter Eric asked us if we were sure we had not been there before. He said we were hitting all the best plates in our ordering.

I spotted the Jerusalem Grill, which was a mixed offal - "all the good stuff". I wasn't sure what it waas, but I from the vague description, I had a pretty good guess. Eric confirmed that it was heart, liver and testes from different animals. Mainly duck and lamb. I rouned my order out with Kibbe Naya (raw ground lamb) and The Jaffa (Branzino - a whitefish). Fried cauliflower, stuffed baby peppers, The Read Sea (seared tuna) The Turk (ground beef), The Farsi (lamb), The Galil (eggplant) and Fried Kibbe.

Nothing I had disappointed. The Jerusalem Grill was tremendous. It came with a side of a mustard like sauce, more sweet then spicy and laffa. The spice was only needed as an accent as the heart, liver and testes were extremely tasty on their own. I had not had raw lamb before, but it had a great flavor and texture to it, again the spices not overwhelming and letting the food stand on its own. Everyone really enjoyed their food and a good bit of sharing. The only off-note was in the Turk which Erica ordered. It was just too much spice for here and she felt was overwhelming. Not from a heat perspective, but just being too much seasoning.

For a drink, I tried their "Tel Aviv Black & Tan" which was a half and half of Goldstar Larger and Malt. I followed it up with just the Goldstar Malt as the meal progressed. Overall both were OK. There were good beers, but didn't really blow me away. They just seemed to be good middle of the road beer.

We finished up the meal with desrt. Erica and Wayne got the Roasted peach which was a cashew baklava, a peach and white chocolate panna cotta. Katherine tried their drink "The new milk and honey", which I had a taste of. It was really good, not overly sweet and I am sure could knock you back without realizing it. I had the Konafi which has a shredded, crunchy phyllo dough on top of ricotta, rose water and pstachios. It was deliciously sweet.

It was a great night overall and I look forward to going back there.

- Stephen

Address:

2680 Dekalb Pike,
E. Norriton, PA 19401
610.277.5565, Fax: 610.277.5838

Cuisine:          Indian
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This is a very new restaurant near where a very good Japanese/Korean restaurant just went out of business. As the quote on the front of the menu says, "The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star" - Antheime Brillat-Savarin This is an apt statement for this restaurant.

Erica's friend Michelle was with us for dinner as well. To start, the atmosphere was a bit plain, not too much in the way of decor. Aman's was nicely decorated, just bland. Service was really good, both our waiter, and I assume the owner were friendly and defiantly out to please their new clientele. There were some small slips in service, but really just from a new restaurant finding its feet.

We started with some somosa's which were very good, along with some flat bread and sauce. All very tasty. Of course we had an ordre of naan with our meal. I got the Fish Tandoori (spicy) with Basmati rice and a side of Dall (it is like a bean soup or chili). The fish was something I had not tried before and was very nicely surprised at its taste, and texture. I had it spicy but not too much so. I rounded the meal out with some Masala tea which was excellent.

The portions were just the right size, and the presentation of the food was great. Taste of course is everything and Aman's was no exception. This is defiantly a restaurant which we will be going to again.

- Stephen

Address:

King of Prussia, The Pavilion
640 West DeKalb Pike King of Prussia, PA 19406
610-265-0660 Phone
610-265-0669 Fax

Cuisine:        Pan-asian
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Sat. evening Erica and I went to the Bamboo Club for dinner. Like the Cheesecake factory it is next to at the Mall, the wait was over an hour. On the upside they do take reservations (unlike the Cheesecake Factory), so you don't have to wait if you plan ahead.

All the food served is in generous portions, so you don't need to order a lot of food to get a full meal. All the food is reasonably priced, with dinners being just under $20 for the most expensive.

The cuisine is derived from Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Hawaiian cusines. Those cuisines are simply the basis for the food, the food is loosely based or inspired by those areas and are not so much directly taken from their traditional cuisine.

We had crispy crab wontons and Kwan's spicy soup to start. The soup was large enough for two, with scallops, brocolli, carrots, spinach, bamboo shoots, mushrooms and more. It was spicy but not overly so.

That was followed by our dinner, I had a halibut with a gingre garlic sauce on a bed of asparagus. Erica had a steamed chilean sea bass with mixed vegtables. As sides we had a Thai cucumber salad and Korean spicy cabbage. The cucumber salad was light and delicous. The spicy cabbage was not the Kimchi (which is Korean pickled spicy cabbage), it was simply sliced cabbage in a spicy sauce. It was terrific - Erica even enjoyed it and she is not one for cabbage generally

Both of our meals were delicous, and laid out well. The only negatives were that the bar service was very slow, not too responsive and the timing between the appetizer and soup and the main course could have been a little more even time out. After our appetizers we had to wait quite a while for our main meal. However, our server, Tyra, was very nice and responsive.