Justin K.'s Profile

First off, Mugshots has a good selection of fast and good food. Also I understand that the eggs, meat, etc are from local farms. So far, so good. Also, I'll give the place points for having a pretty chill vibe. With good music and comfy sofas, it's a cool place to hang out at on a Sunday morning.

However.... the service is A-W-F-U-L. My girlfriend and I have been here several times and each time, the staff actually seems to get meaner and meaner. They are condescending, they act like you are inconveniencing THEM, they are rude, and they are slow. The service is bad enough that we might boycott the place. One of our friends actually has boycotted the place for this vey reason (crappy service). Maybe we'll even take it a step further and open a competing coffee shop in Fairmount (all we have to do is serve drinkable coffee with a smile!)

If you do, however, want to enjoy Mugshots' good food and have better service, then I recommend heading to the Manayunk Mugshots where the staff is much, much nicer.

Panda Heaven is an oasis of Asian food in otherwise non-exotic Reading.  I actually can't think of another place in Reading to find sushi, so Panda Heaven does earn some points with that distinction.

I sort of felt overwhelmed walking in here... the place has all sorts of jungle looking decorations coming at you from all directions.  It's a curious setup, but I guess they really are trying to create a "Heaven" for "Pandas?"  A bit odd but I gave it a chance.

I was then presented with about 6-7 different menus.  Restaurants sometimes overwhelm you with tons and tons of options, but this was almost comical.  One menu for Chinese, one for sushi, one for drinks, one for specials, and some others that I didn't even look at... geez, it took me about 10 minutes to figure out where to start.

When I finally did make it through the "jungle" of food options, I did enjoy my food.  I got an octopus appetizer that was good but not great.  It did lack some flavor.  I then got an eel roll which tasted fantastic and a Dragon roll which was out-of-this-world tasty.

So, the food was good.  The service was super-impersonal though.  And as for the crazy plant decor?  I survived the meal and fortunately they didn't scare me too much.

Noble is a phenomenal restaurant.  If there weren't hundreds of other restaurants in Philly that I was planning to try, this is the type of place I would return to every week.  I'm a big decor/ambiance person, and this place definitely pleases the senses in a great way.  Where nearby Helium Comedy Club emits a lot of energy, this place offers a quieter and cozy to enter, enjoy some unique adult beverages and calm down for the night.  With whitewashed stucco walls, big wooden beams traversing the ceilings and very cool skylights showing off the night sky above, Noble could definitely make for a nice feature in Architectural Digest.

Their Gnocchi Parissenne is to die for-- it's a must have dish here.  It's so smooth yet tasty... hard to think of better gnocchi anywhere, northern Italy included.  The smaller portion of this makes for a nice appetizer, and you definitely can't go wrong with their Sweet Potato/Mango soup.  With curry flavors mixed in, it's perfect for a cold winter night.

My girlfriend and I also shared their Walu fish dish (with chorizo) and Duck dish.  Both were incredibly tasty.  Noble's chef is a culinary alchemist, and overall, this place is truly a golden find.

While scanning for a potential Valentine's Day restaurant on http://OpenTable.com, little did I know I would stumble onto such a cool little restaurant located on a quiet stretch on Front Street in Queen Village.  I didn't hesitate to give Saute 5 Yelp stars... the staff was exceptionally hospitable, the food was top-notch yet affordable, and the dining room was warm and intimate.  Basically, Saute helped me look real good on Valentine's Day!

Zack, the place's general manager, greeted us when we arrived, offered my girlfriend a rose (again, helped me look good :) and made sure we felt at home the entire dinner.  He helped us pick a great bottle of Acrobat Oregon 2008 Pinot Gris.  One reason I love dining at these smaller, intimate dining spaces like Saute is because of the personalized service we receive from managers like Zack.

Particularly awesome were the risotto dishes here (between our appetizer and one of the entrees, we had two different risotto dishes) and the 12-day aged NY Strip steak that were on the special V-Day menu.  Another pleasant surprise were the Italian dough balls (I believe they were called Zeppole?) w/chocolate and caramel sauces that we had for dessert.  Zack also offered us a complementary cucumber sorbet w/chili flakes before dessert, which served as a tasty, interesting palate cleanser after finishing off a very flavorful steak.

Overall, Saute is a great date place on a quiet back street... treat your significant other and/or friends here and you'll be sure to impress!

Since moving to Philly last year, I have had one "four-bell" restaurant at the top of my list to try, and that is VETRI.  We decided to finally check Vetri off our list on a recent, otherwise idle Wednesday night.  The Vetri experience exceeded any expectation I could have imagined... far and away the best restaurant I've ever been to in Philly.

It's an unassuming restaurant on a quiet part of Spruce Street, just off Broad.  Inside is a wonderfully simple and intimate space.  The calming pastel walls and soft, wooden beams and panels make you feel comfortable, as if you were welcomed into the home of a dear uncle living in Tuscany.  Peering into the kitchen, you see how small that space is as well... it really does feel like home here.

The service was truly outstanding the entire night.  Bill, our sommelier, was so kind and patient.  My girlfriend, friend and I are far from wine snobs, and he seemed to understand this and found us the perfect wines without pompousness so often found at high-end restaurants.  My favorite wine of the night was a Scarbolo "Campo del Viotto" Friuli 2006 Merlot... it was the best of 4 different glasses I tried that night. Co-owner Jeff Benjamin stopped by at one point to check on us, which was also comforting.  Our main waitress and other waiters were incredibly attentive the entire evening (I believe we were there for 4 hours!)... one person on staff even ran up to Broad St. to buy my friend a pack of cigarettes.  Outstanding, outstanding service!

I haven't even talked about the food yet.  We decided to forget about costs and make it a night to remember, so we created our own tasting menu-- that is, we essentially ordered and shared (almost) the majority of the menu.  Here's some of what we had:

-Antipasti: foie gras pastrami, golden sweet onion crepe (highly recommend), spinach gnocchi (must have), persimmon salad, and cauliflower flan (recommend... very unique)

-Main dishes: chestnut fettucini w/wild boar ragu (amazing dish... very Northern Italian!!), roasted turbot (very tasty fish), and my favorite dish of the night, veal served on a warm stone.  The veal was so juicy, tender, and flavorful... and how awesome to eat it off a stone.  I had the option to cook it further by simply turning it over after 5 minutes or so.

We wound down our evening by sharing desserts (honestly, I forget what exactly I had other than it had tons of chocolate and, surprise surprise, was exceptionally good). I had a glass of madeira wine, which was fabulous.

If we weren't among the last guests in the restaurant, we might have stayed all night and helped the staff shut the place down.  We clearly turned our dinner there into an all-night, pricey experience, but I think it's very possible to go there and have a relatively short and simple meal as well.  Regardless, Vetri is a very special place that I hope to return to again and again and again during my time here in Philly.

My ideal Sunday consists of leaving my place to walk down to Main Street Manayunk and into La Colombe for a cafe mocha.  With high ceilings, artsy and tiled tables, and towering windows looking out on Main St, it's an awesome place to sit down, people-watch, read the paper and start the day.

I'm no coffee connoisseur, but their coffee just tastes great.  They offer a simple menu... almost too simple.  Don't come here if you want lots of options; their drink selection and food offerings strike me as pretty bare, but the quality of the joe seems to make up for it.

La Colombe Manayunk is especially great in the summertime.  They throw the windows open and Main Street seems to literally pour in and out of the cafe.  Starbucks and Saxbys can try all they want to replicate the European cafe, but La Colombe makes it happen!

My girlfriend treated me to dinner here for my birthday, and Lolita did not disappoint.  Lolita is a perfectly small, dark and intimate space that is perfect for a weekend meal and forgetting about everything left behind in the outside world.  It reminds me of many of the quaint BYOBs in Greenwich Village NYC, and I'm thrilled to know now that we have our own, quaint BYO-T (T=tequila) here in Philly.

We ordered the blood orange margarita to accompany our Sauza tequila... refreshing and delicious.  Jill ordered the duck, which was outstanding, but I ordered the carne asada, which was divine beyond words.  I saw that other Yelpers have raved about this dish, and listen to them and me, it's true... the carne asada is so tender, so flavorful, and so juicy... it will surely make its way into your dreams.  I lived and worked in San Diego/Tijuana back in 2005 and tried many authentic Mexican restaurants... this carne asada still topped any that I've had before.

Bravo to the chef on preparing such tasty, well-presented meals for us.  It was a birthday dinner to remember!

Vino was absolutely phenomenal.  I would have rated last night's dinner six stars if possible... definitely one of the more memorable meals I've had.

There are so many good things I could say about the night.  First off, the free parking and location in the Piazza was great... very accessible and easy in-and-out.  The staff was exceptionally friendly the whole night.  The decor was so cool... huge black and white vintage portraits up on the wall under dim lighting.  They were playing a very eclectic mix of music... from Gypsy Kings to 40s big band to mellow techno music.  The tables all have these wonderfully comfortable tall leather chairs.  All this and we didn't even get served dinner yet!

We did order though... glass of house cab for me, which was good; and Jill had a Stella, off a surprisingly long beer list for an Italian restaurant.  I cannot recommend their bruschetta enough... it was made with a sweet bread and brown sugar on top... absolutely the best bruschetta I've ever had (Italian restaurants in Italy included).  I had their ribeye w/mashed potatoes and pom frites.  Jill had their stromboli with prosciutto, ham and other tasty meats with a butternut squash dip.  The meal was out of this world.

I hope to return here again and again in the future... you certainly can't go wrong eating here yourself!

If you're looking for a crowded gym with an odd layout inside, and even worse parking experience outside, you should sign up here.  Another reviewer put it well... just maneuvering the parking lot here is an adventure in itself and can sometimes be more stressful than driving on the Schuylkill at rush hour.  The gym, overall, has the feel of a tiny sweatbox where the machines always seem to have a queue.

If you do sign up for a membership via LA Fitness, just be careful to read the fine print about whether or not you're free to jump around other LA Fitness locations.  I originally signed up for a single-club membership at a club in Reading, PA, and also signed up for a year-long contract with a personal trainer.  All this = a lot of money being paid to LA Fitness each month.  Even still, the manager at the Andorra club tells me I now have to pay an extra $100 to be allowed into his club.  This manager was so passionate about me paying up the $100 that he even followed me all the way into the locker room one evening to confront me after avoiding him. Talk about a frivolous and dumb way to really frustrate a loyal and high paying customer.  

If you run into a young guy with a wrinkled uniform who parades around like he owns the place, that's probably him.  Please give him my regards and let him know I simply moved my business back to another LA Fitness, and that I'm thoroughly enjoying spending my $100 on much better things.

I love hole-in-the-wall places with great comfort food, and Tommy Gunn's is just that.  This tiny, unassuming joint at an odd corner of Ridge Ave. offers up some of the best BBQ I've ever had.  I ordered a pulled pork sandwich, baked beans and the remarkable fried mac-n-cheese... it's cardiac-killing goodness the size of a hockey puck... it was phenomenal.  The staff was young and friendly... the outdoor seating was nice... and I was even lucky enough to grab one of the 3-4 spots in their tiny parking lot.  All-in-all, everything made for a simple yet great eating experience at a truly unique place!