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Today is our 30th wedding anniversary. My husband has been having dreams about the steak at Le Marais ever since our New York adventure, and we talked about making a return appearance. We also considered Max and David's, Philadelphia's only fine dining kosher restaurant. But the Phillies are in the playoffs and could clinch the National League title tonight, so we plan to have a late meal at the Expresso Cafe and Sushi Bar (7814 Castor Ave.) and enjoy a dairy meal while we cheer for our team in front of a wide-screen TV that beats what we have at home.
Although baseball isn't owner Sharon Abergel's sport, we're betting that even the Israelis who frequent this clean, well-managed hangout will be watching the Phils tonight. Before the Expresso Cafe opened in 2004, if you were hungry and kept kosher, there was no place to go after 9 p.m. Now, you can get anything from a rich dessert to an omelet until midnight. My only wish is that Sharon would open earlier Sunday morning (he opens at 10 - too late when my girlfriends and I want to gather for breakfast).
Everything at the Expresso Cafe is always fresh. The salads are tasty - no wilted lettuce or over-ripe veggies. My favorite main dishes are the Carpaccio - eggplant and feta cheese in filo pastry - and the Portobello Mushrooms with Mozzarella. My kids love the vegetable soup and the stuffed potatoes. My husband likes the sushi. I wish the coffee were stronger, but that is my problem with every restaurant that isn't Starbucks. The Expresso Cafe is clean and even the plates are attractive. I am comfortable taking my non-Jewish friends here, and all the women love Sharon. Some people don't like the sports on the big TV, but for me, this is a draw.
If the Phils make the series, we are thinking about paying a visit to JJ Elephant, a new kosher sports cafe in Chester Spring - not exactly the epi-center of the Jewish community. I haven't heard of anyone who has been there. They have coffee, teas and hot chocolate, baked good and soup - not a well-rounded menu. But the TV is bigger than Sharon's, so we may take the hour drive for a series game. Stay tuned.
When we're home in Philadelphia, we rarely dine at the finest places the way we do on vacation. But, still, it's nice to know that we have that option, and we're glad that there are restaurants where we're not ashamed to take out-of-town guests or guests who are not Jewish or don't keep kosher. It wasn't always like this.
When we moved here in 2000, there were two kosher places in the Northeast - Holyland Pizza and Dragon Inn. And there was an Israeli place with a certification that no one accepted, so it finally went out of business. Still, it seemed like paradise to us after eight years in Milwaukee, which only offered a dairy restaurant housed in the Jewish nursing home. The food ranged from boring to awful, and the place wasn't open on Sundays or evenings - the times when most people want to go out and eat.
The Dragon Inn was a typical Chinese restaurant. It was a step above pizza and sufficed for anniversary and Mothers' Day dinner. But it went out of business a few years later because of a dispute among the owners.
The Holyland Pizza eventually spawned the Holyland Grill - a meat restaurant several blocks away. Both places are your typical kosher equivalent of McDonalds. The food is fast, edible but not great and there is no atmosphere. But your kids can run around the whole time, and no one cares. Well, sometimes the food is fast, I remember a Thursday night at the Pizza about nine years ago with my aunt when we waited about an hour to get served. Fortunately she loved watching little kids run around. But it's not the time of place you want to take your boss.
My boss did take me there once for my birthday with the rest of our department. I think she was ready to call the health department by the end of the meal. I've never seen anything offensive there - hair in the food or insects. But it has that kind of atmosphere.The pizza at Holyland Pizza is very good. As is the calzone. A few times I've ordered the mozzarella sticks. They get them frozen, and they aren't always careful to cook them all the way through. They have recently added sushi to the menu, which my daughter and son-in-law report is the best in town.
Service is about what you'd expect. There is usually one staff person at the counter - a sullen teenager, often Israeli. They take your order as if they are doing you a big favor.
A couple of years ago, they remodeled. It was a definite improvement, but for some reason they carpeted the floor. Big mistake for a pizza shop with a million little kids running around.
Now that my kids are grown I never eat there. But we do takeout pizza because the pizza, as I've said, is really good. No one at my house eats sushi.
The Holyland Grill is an attempt to be a step higher in the restaurant food chain. Instead of ordering at the counter, they have wait service. The food is not fancy - schwarma, falafel, mixed grill, Philly steak sandwiches (without cheese) and fried chicken. The Israeli main dishes are not bad. The fried chicken is pretty tasteless. The vegetables are always overcooked, and the salad bar looks like it's been sitting around for too long. They also have a Chinese menu - after the Dragon Inn closed they hired the cook. I didn't care for the brown sauce everything was cooked in at the Dragon Inn, so I don't like it any better here. But the Sesame Chicken and Garlic Chicken are tasty.
Fortunately, we have many more choices now, which I'll start on next time. If you've eaten at any of these places and have your own opinions, please let me know.
