Real talk, Phoodie-delphians: Phoodie.info is a no-budget, yo-budget startup. We do it on the hunch that the Philly food scene is a wild jungle of see-ers, fools and mysterious miracles that makes the music scene look positively staid and boring by comparison. But rules are rules: And to do the legit restaurant review the right way, you have to go to a place three times, anonymously if possible and, most importantly, pay your own way. We have not the time or the funds to do that right now, but we are committed to going to every restaurant in Philadelphia ever, at least once. And then, this blog shall die. Until then, we present our new “psuedoreview” column, The Once-Over, in which Phoodie staff roll up on somewhere they’ve never been, and then dish.
After the jump, we gush over Tria in the Gayborhood…
It is with hot shame that we admit to you now: We’d never been to either one of the wine & cheese bar/public “quality of life” information centers known as Tria. And we regrettably must admit that we’ve also never been to their Fermentation School or their Sunday School, either. In fact, we were mostly unaware that we were walking into not just a cute streetside wine cafe, but something more approaching a place that actually tries to foster community, help brains and in general, do a whole bunch of stuff that restaurants are not supposed to do.
Pardon me if I just made any of that sound not fun. Quite the contrary: Tria is not pedantic. Tria doesn’t talk down to you when you ask what something is. Hell, they don’t talk down to you if you ask what five things are. Like the young Bruce Springsteen, Tria wants to liberate you, confiscate you; it wants to be your man.
And of course, guidance is needed: Tria’s menu is a three-pronged attack of the High Life: Wines, cheeses and beers. (Although beer is kind of the red-headed stepchild here, Tria’s beer list got a Best of Philly a minute ago.) There are some sandwiches and desserts, but frankly, don’t even mess with that stuff — the sandwiches we got were delicious (Prosciutto di Parma, Grana Padano and Fig Jam Panino as well as a Grilled Artichoke, Spicy Tuscan Pepper, White Bean and Bulgarian Feta Panino), but once the cheese came, we were really wishing we’d thrown caution to the wind and gone all cheese, all night.
Because seriously, dig this cheese list. Impressive, no? Better still, Tria is generous with the portions — or at least, more generous than you’d think. When you walk into a restaurant and order an $8 hunk of cheese, you’re more or less expecting to get screwed. But each selection is a more than fair size, accompanied with bread and a spread the Tria cheeseologists have specifically matched to complement said cheese. And this is where your inner cheapskate is completely vanquished: Yes, Ugly American, you could save money buying hunks of these cheeses elsewhere perhaps, but A) you’re not gonna get these fine accoutrements, and B) you’re hear to learn, bub.
And what did we learn? Well, among other things, we learned that…
CASHEL BLUE (County Tipperary, Ireland · Cow-P)
Overtones of buttermilk and herbs flow over sea salt creaminess
… is pretty much the only thing in this life worth living for, and that…
PATA CABRA (Aragon, Spain · Goat-P)
Trees and earth merge into mouthwatering, salty goatiness of pure white
… comes with this apricot baby food thing that is so wrong, but Sweet Fancy Moses, so right. People of Philadelphia, get into these cheeses.
Lastly, the wines. Even if the rest of Tria sucked, it would still be a great place to learn about wines, simply because they offer a great list, with everything available by the glass. We were all over the place with our selections:
· CÔTES DU RHÔNE VILLAGES, DOMAINE GRÈS ST. VINCENT, ‘06 (Rhône, France)
Organic and unfiltered “Jenny & François” selection: earthy yet elegant Grenache blend· MALBEC “SELECCIÓN,” ALAMOS, ‘06 (Mendoza, Argentina)
Sexy deep violet color with perfume and flavors of chocolate, cedar, cherry and vanilla· PINOT GRIS, A TO Z WINEWORKS, ‘06 (Dundee, OR)
Hip new wine co. crafts balanced bottles with ripe tropical fruits buttressed with clean finish· CHARDONNAY, COPELAND CREEK, ’05 (Sonoma Coast, CA)
Boutique Chard from cool coast of Sonoma: creamy, tropical fruit with Toasty French oak finish
And not a one did disappoint. It’s a rare thing when you find a spot that you want to go back to again and again, but we literally have not stopped talking about Tria since we went there a few days ago. The service was outstanding, the vibe was great, and the check wasn’t bad, either: $74 (before tip) for everything mentioned above. Will we be back? Let’s put it this way: We’ll probably be back there, sitting at the bar, by the time you read this.
0 Responses to “The Once-Over: Tria In The Gayborhood”