Chad T.'s Profile

Outstanding beers, super-tasty food, great service (on my visit, though others seem to have had problems), and great tunes.

I'd add another two stars if they'd just put something on their walls or ceiling-- ANYTHING to dampen the noise.  It'll shatter your head on a busy night.

Beautifully maintained, reasonably priced par 70 18-hole golf course with pastoral farm views.  I played with a friend and his father and we all found ourselves taking pause to marvel at how absolutely beautiful the surrounding vistas are.  The course is relatively flat but is laid out nicely.  The carts run well (gas), the snack cart is well-stocked, and the clubhouse has a full bar, food and a pro shop.

I'm looking forward to playing Honeybrook again soon...

The Spring Mill Cafe is an out of the way, romantic dinner spot.  If you were dropped on their front-porch, you'd sooner believe you were at the General Store on Walton Mountain than just around the corner from Conshohocken.  

The setting was picture perfect, the staff was knowledgeable, friendly and helpful, and the food was outstanding.  We especially liked the pate platter.  The homemade country pate and the truffled chicken liver pate were the stars of the meal.

My rack of lamb was perfectly prepared, and my wife's duck was amazing, right down to the crisped skin.

Unfortunately we didn't have time for dessert, but after an outstanding first experience, I expect we'll be back very soon...

The beer-battered green beans alone are worth the trip-- we had to get another order to satisfy our need for deliciousness.

Great beer list, very cool decor, awesome drinks including a dee-lish punch served in a glass boot.

I took off a star for the bland (though very high-quality) ale mussels.  The broth was lame, and the bread they served it with had that gas broiled taste...  Given how good everything else was, I think this was an outlier...

Overpriced, much less selection than you'd expect given the size of the building, terrible Chinese food, filled with Main Line attitude, and topped off (or bottomed-out) with Chaddsford Winery's over-sweet plonk.

Pass.

Whenever I see City Hall at night from afar, I imagine a towering cyclops staring out across the city at me with its jaundiced, rheumy eye.  Waiting.

... City Hall is 100% drama.

The Troc books great bands (thanks for giving Robert Earl Keen a place to play in Philly!) and has a great location, my rating focuses on the state of the venue's preservation.

The Troc is a beautiful old venue that is absolutely falling apart.

Please please please reach out to Penn's Historic Preservation program to get some guidance on applying for preservation dollars lest we lose another great old theater.  You'll also be saving yourself some lawsuit dollars since it is only a matter of time until some plaster slips through that net on the ceiling and impales a reveler or two...

In the five months since my wife and I moved from Philadelphia to the 'burbs we haven't found any restaurants in our new neighborhood that could stand up to comparison with old-favorite BYOBs like Melograno or Matyson.

Bottom-line: Sola's chef uses top-quality ingredients to put together innovative dishes that taste every bit as good as they look.
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First-off, any restaurant that surprises me with an amuse bouche is going to put a smile on my face.  Sola served a smoked mussel that a friend of mine described as "covered with goodness, with a little more goodness on top."  It woke up my mouth and provided an interesting contrast to the syrah we were drinking.

I started with the oyster sampler (four oysters paired with complimentary flavors-- a Cape May Salt with a fresh diced tomatoes and salsa, a Oregon Kumamoto with sweet uni and blood orange juice, a Connecticut oyster with caviar and a foie gras reduction, and one more that escapes me).  While the pairings somewhat overpowered the oysters' individual characters, the flavor experiment was a lot of fun and each preparation came together nicely.  The oysters were each presented on a bed of seaweed salad-- nice touch.

My entree was roast New Zealand rack of lamb served over pureed, stewed fennel (mashed potato-like) edged with a diced tomato salsa.  The cut was generous with the extraneous fat trimmed so only the moist, tender medallions remained.  There was a bed of what appeared to be an apricot preparation that served as an occasionally sweet change from the comfort-food paring of lamb and fennel.

For dessert we shared a mini homemade pumpkin cheesecake that was creamy and perfectly spiced.

Entrees at Sola are priced from the low $20s to the mid $30s, but the quality merits or exceeds the price.  Corkage is $2 per bottle and is justified by the restaurant's nice stemware.

Having already over-indulged in my description, I might as well mention the tableware-- it is all beautiful.  Whoever is buying the utensils (the butter knives!), the dishware, the wine glasses and even the sugar vessels is spending a lot of money to establish Sola's ambiance.  They've done a great job and it really adds to the experience.

I've taken a star away because my wife's duck entree-- which was, again, a great cut beautifully presented-- was far, far too rare.  I would have sent it back, but my wife chose not to.  That aside, our weekend house-guests really enjoy their meals, and Sola left us all with full bellies and big smiles on our faces.  

We'll be back!

Chung Sing gets a solid three-stars for decent "Pennsylvania-style" Chinese food (in all of the places I've lived, only in PA do you consistently get those crispy noodles before you even order) at a laughably low price.

Really?  $7 for a cup of soup, a heaping plate of food, tea and dessert?

The food isn't remotely authentic, but it hits the spot when you're really hungry, don't feel like cooking, don't feel like changing into nicer clothes, and don't want to pay much.

I enjoy the Chinese diner kitsch and like being close enough to the other tables to eaves-drop, so watch out-- I might just be sitting over your shoulder.

If you love good smoked fish-- I'm an absolute sucker for whitefish salad in the morning-- go to Famous 4th Street.

I've had better whitefish salad at Noah's Bagels; Rachael's is a big disappointment.