182682 Tue Nov 09 15:49:34 -0800 2004 20 15 Pennsylvania 0 980268 If this post gets redirected, so be it... I just wanted local Foodies opinions on Starr. I know the board is speckled with Starr references, but I just wanted to amalgamate opinions to develop some trends, be it positive or negative. My own opinion: the man has certainly helped Philly's social scene and has attracted a number of talented chefs to the area, and that is not to be scoffed at... As for his restaurants, well, it depends on your view of dining out. He has a wide range, which I think accomodates all types of diners, foodies to hipsters. Some are too glamy, but others are just goof fun. Specifically - I think Buddakan is a tasty restaurant foremost, but it's also an enjoyable evening. The food is not excellent across the board (I really thought the fried rice was overpriced for its simplicity), but pick the right dishes (see appetizers) and you'll have an excellent meal. Although I've heard some people have merely passable meals at El Vez, my own experience there has been excellent. I specifically remember a cheese and chorizo dish being especially tasty, along with mahi-mahi tacos. It's also quite fun. If you want a cozy restaurant experience, simply walk across the street and plant yourself in Lolita. Tue Nov 09 15:49:34 -0800 2004 0 ACM 1 980278 Starr. The man himself has executed a great vision and done wonderful things for philly in terms of Variety of restaurant. Starr Food. CONTINENTAL 1 Small bites for hipsters who arent particularly interested in food....and people looking for a simple cheap meal. Best Signature dish : Calamari salad. Worst Signature dish : Polenta gnocchi with truffle oil BUDDAKAN 1 PAN asian food that while tasty lacks the balance of authentic asian cooking. Translation....way too sweet too cold (apparantly precooked according to Mr.passmore) and too many silly deep fried garnishes. Best Signature dish : Ponzu Chicken. Worst Signature dish : Tempura salmon cream cheese maki. TANGERINE French Morrocan food, zero morrocan influence except for menu terminology. Great place to drink. Worst signature dish : harissa gnocchi with celery root. POD Just a hall of smoking mirrors.....colored mirrors I might add. See Buddakan above. worst signature dish: Edamame ravioli. ALMA OF CUBA Excellent attempt at nuevo latino. best signature dish : lamb picadillo worst signature dish : salmon with lentils and horseradish. Dish they shouldnt mess up but they always do : Lechon asado...why.....too fatty...render the fat. MORIMOTO Good modern Japanese. best restaurant in the company period. menu needs to change occasionally however. Would be nice if Omakase was not composed of menu items. best signature dish : chicken noodle soup worst signature dish :all the desserts prior to the hiring of the pastry chef kid from SALT. EL VEZ Modern Mexican with other Latin Influences. Pushy bartenders. Best signature dish : Tacos Worst signature dish : Duck confit flautas Dish they should get right the most : Guacamole. Most perplexing issue : margarita mix ???? AnGELINA....soon to be ANGELIQUE I predict they will make it frenchie again... Not quite easy to copy Babbo or Lupa. Soulless overpriced food, bad value for italian Best signature dish : Grated parmesan Worst signature dish : rabbit WASHINGTON SQUARE Global street food of which none is actually street food. Coolest place to hang if temp is over 55 degrees. Best signature dish :Churros Worst signature dish : foie gras ganache STRIPED BASS excellent refinement of Mr Steins legacy. BEST FOOD IN THE COMPANY. Best signature dish : FROG LEG garlic soup. Worst signature dish : None yet. CONTINENTAL 2. A total cash cow. Food is mediocre at best drinks are worse. Smart marketing Best signature dish :Calamari salad worst signature dish: Lobster mac and cheese. Barclay PRIME ! Cool modern steakhouse. Good food great atmosphere. A reason not to go to lugers ?....NO! Best signature dish : Kobe sliders Worst signature dish : Kobe cheesesteak. Tue Nov 09 17:35:14 -0800 2004 980268 0 Newgirlintown 2 980335 NewGirl- Very funny post. I am surprised at the lack of interest in this topic as I was just talking to a fellow hound about the sheer number of his restaurants and extreme mediocrity of the food (maybe with the exception of a few dishes at striped bass) First of all, his restaurnts are not very user friendly or service oriented. They all ahve a corporate feel. You call Buddakan for a reservation on a Sunday and they tell you they are booked for 6 weeks solid....all buzz. The taste of the food at Buddakan is so similar to Morimoto and Pod. The new continental has food that is not edible even after 3 martinis. At Barclay prime, a cosmo is almost $20 (maybe a special cosmo...don't recall) Two White castle type burgers are $16. Side of Lobster for $58!!! $3 for sauces after spending $40+++ on an good steak. Twenty dollar bottle of wines for $20/glass. I was given a gift certificate to Striped Bass and I do not like that restaurant, I wanted to use it to try Barclay Prime or Buddakan and I was told by several Starr people that they just don't and can't do that. Does Stepen have great vision......I think the next few years will see if the house of cards will stand or collapse as there remains a certain target audience that I believe is not large enough to accomodate these similar venues. Do you know, Does Mr. Starr own or rent his properties??? Just curious. Wed Nov 10 17:21:44 -0800 2004 980278 0 Ken 3 980341 Stephen Starr mentioned in an article I read that building owners try to negotiate a percentage of his profits into his leases, so I guess that means he rents. I live in the midst of Starr restaurants in Old City, but have yet to go to one. Some of them seem kind of intimidating, too clubby for food. Also, too much work--I eat out almost every day, sometimes twice a day, and making an effort to call for reservations is pretty unnecessary with so many good places to just walk into. Wed Nov 10 17:56:45 -0800 2004 980335 0 gina 4 980351 New Girl, your review of the star group is so on it's scary. I would only add the overpriced wine lists. The bass is the first restaurant to get real glasses for wine and china for that matter. Give me a no-roll handblown glass over a libby i can drop on the floor anyday. But this city wants entertainment like bikes with lights, golden fat budda's and bathrooms that we can all wash our hands together. Let's not forget that we are allways being told we have to share our food. Should we not get some type of buttons that say. "I will share my food" so we can keep the servers from saying if we know "the system". Do I hear Stepford? Star owns some restaurant locations but other places like the budda and tangerine rent with a percentage of the gross not net going to the landloard. The pod is owned by the unnv of Penn. and they pay the bill when it's slow. Thu Nov 11 00:27:03 -0800 2004 980341 0 joepassmore 5 980359 CORRECT ! I have dined all over the world From Tetsuya to Michel Bras to Gordon Ramsay To Per Se (not to Brag but to prove my point)...and the single most annoying deceptive statement that servers make anywhere is that BUddakan/Pod tangerine speech "You are aware we serve family style and the food comes out when its ready". The only and singular reason they say and do it is that they can precook most of the food, hire less talented cooks who cannot time or Temp food and they send out the food whenever its ready so they move people in and out quickly. I never eat at Buddakan or tangerine because I am personally not a sharing person nor are most of my dining pals, I want my own app and entree and i dont want to even se my entree till my app plate is gone. Thu Nov 11 10:25:44 -0800 2004 980351 0 Newgirlintown 6 980361 let's not forget when the servers bring the food if the apps have been lucky to be cleared you have to make room for the server to place down the food. Is this when their tip starts to become mine? Sadly Buddakan is the most popular restaurant in the zagat guide. That "is " the image of Philadelphia. Thu Nov 11 10:49:04 -0800 2004 980359 0 joepassmore 7 980378 It is? I remember it was up there, but I thought it was a tier down, below LBF, the Fountain, Django and such. You're probably right. Still, it doesn't bother me all that much. Most people I know who'd go to the trouble of owning one also know enough to take it with a grain of salt. Thu Nov 11 17:10:41 -0800 2004 980361 0 Capaneus 8 980381 Suprisingly in Zagat Food 29 Paloma Food 28 Le Bec Fin,,Django, Fountain, Birchrunville Store, Paloma, Lacroix, Vetri Food 27 Buddakan,Morimoto, Deux chaminees, gilmores, Blue Fin Thu Nov 11 18:40:31 -0800 2004 980378 0 Jen 9 980383 Jen- Thanks for the Zagat update, I did not see this years yet. I am shocked that Buddakan and Morimoto got those high food ratings. I am an Anti-starr guy and I have found myself torn when out of towners want to go to his restaurants. I often tell them how the Starr restaurant's are overhyped, understaffed, and more about glitz than food. It amazes me how out of town "foodies" still want to go to his restaurants because of a blurb in Conde Naste or T and L or Wine Spectator.....Baffling. Thu Nov 11 21:03:48 -0800 2004 980381 0 Tony 10 980402 Folks who dislike Starr's thing but read Zagats? Weird. Fri Nov 12 11:52:58 -0800 2004 980383 0 --susan 11 980433 Digression is natural, but at this point the discussion isn't about restaurants in Philly, it's about the people who run and review them. That's still an interesting discussion to have, but please start a new thread on the General Topics board. Thanks. Link: http://www.chowhound.com/boards/general/general.html Fri Nov 12 23:25:03 -0800 2004 980402 2 The Chowhound Team 3 980349 Glad someone agrees, Just for clarification, my response to the initial question from ACM is YES, it is great for philly in terms of the variety of hip new places to go but most people neglect the collateral damage of having one entity control so many notable restaurants. I would like to say that philly is a great restaurant town but while I dont disagree, I cant bring myself to actually say it. The SRO restaurants have basically diluted the tastebuds of a majority of the dining public to simpleton level. The food in most of the restaurants is not horrible, its just mostly unbalanced and mediocre with the exceptions being Striped bass and Morimoto. Apparently, this is what the public wants. All the silly overpriced sugar drinks they sell are basically a crime. While I agree that they have attracted great chefs to philly, that in itself is mostly deceptive because they mostly use the chefs name but the chef is rarely ever there.....except for Morimoto and Portale. I dont even think Douglas Rodriguez is actually a chef. i think he is a media creation just to legitimize Nuevo latino, PATRIA was terrible but when you sell totally bland latin food to gringos in NYC you get famous. Same with AQuavit...totally overrated. I also cant believe they are such dummies by not allowing you to use your gift certicicates in any of the restaurants. As much as I hate to suggest it, they would make more money and sell more GC's if the Branded themselves like they do on the back Of philly mag. People are more likely to spend if they have the flexibility to dine in one of 13 places. Wed Nov 10 23:15:36 -0800 2004 980335 0 Newgirlintown 4 980431 FYI- Douglas Rodriguez is a chef, first at Patria in NYC. He taught two sessions of a restaurant management class to me in the early nineties at NYU and he is definately a chef. He came to class with dirty houndstooth pants and a dirty chef jacket and dirty hair right off the line. A complete jack... to the class. I agree with a lot of your views re: Starr's chefs. I also think there are a lot of very hard working Philly chefs that need a chance- thus my replies below. Regardless, SRO is here to stay, whether anyone likes it or not. Fri Nov 12 20:30:37 -0800 2004 980349 0 cjay 5 980536 Thanks for the clarification, I as most people am aware that Starr restaurants are here to stay...and indeed we hope they do. The point of the criticism isnt to close the restaurants,simply stating what the real deal is. some folks dont want to hear the truth and they can happily continue to eat their various tuna tartares. As for the Chef issue...most of the people regarded as Chefs never show up anywhere nor are publicly seen in anything dirty and not especially dirty Hair. Not Jean georges, Daniel Boulud, Alain Ducasee, Thomas Keller and the list can go on all day. that just makes me want to run to Alma for dinner...."hair" in my food and we arent talking Rabbit ! Tue Nov 16 15:16:53 -0800 2004 980431 0 Newgirlintown 4 980650 "I would like to say that philly is a great restaurant town but while I dont disagree, I cant bring myself to actually say it" Yes, sadly IMO there are no restaurants in Philly that I would consider world class. Just a lot of OK restaurants but nowhere to bring hardcore visitors to blow their socks off or to frequent on a special occasion blow big bucks and come out grinning and satisfied. Sun Nov 21 01:41:39 -0800 2004 980349 0 SG 5 980652 Sylvia- Good Point. Not even Delilahs "steakhouse" Strip Club. I am sure you will set some grins at least. All kidding aside, I know what you mean. I once took a flight to San Francisco a few years back to stay over 24hrs just to Eat at Gary Danko on a last minute binge as a friend snagged reservations on a Sat night. I don't know that I could say that for any Philly restaurant including Le Bec Fin. Sun Nov 21 07:36:47 -0800 2004 980650 0 Kenny 1 980340 I haven't eaten at Starr places often enough to have an informed opinion of them individually. For what it's worth, my impressions largely align with newgirlintown's. As far as Starr as a Food Culture motor in Philadelphia... I'm glad he exists, but I don't think I'm his target audience. He keeps creating buzz, and I think that draws people out to eat. Some of them like the experience, and eventually try other things. As far as I'm concerned, the PQR is just *way* lower than most of the places I do eat, especially when you factor in good wine. Having said that, I've found the food good at Buddakan and Striped Bass; inconsistent (unforgivably so, at these prices) at Morimoto and Washington Square. The only meal I can see having regularly at a Starr restaurant is brunch at Jones. Wed Nov 10 17:53:52 -0800 2004 980268 0 Capaneus 1 980486 Never went to a Stephen Starr place and found anything wrong. He is so good for Philadelphia Dining. He offers the largest variety of places to dine. Sun Nov 14 19:01:50 -0800 2004 980268 0 Joe DiDio 2 980517 I actually think this is a great "Philly" Topic. In my opinion the Starr Restaurants are more Flash than food. I believe that Buddakan my be the only Starr restaurant to buck the trend. In a Hyperdelicious way, the Calamari salad, Tuna Tartare with Ossetra Caviar and Chocolate Pagoda are worth the trip. I still can not believe they are booked two months in advance....but so be it. I actully miss Cafe Republic, his failed Cafe that had Vodka, Champagne and Caviar (at 20th and spruce) Mon Nov 15 19:21:54 -0800 2004 980486 0 Larry 1 980558 Neat topic...I live near Detroit, but went to school in PA and visit Philly at least once a year. I really like hitting the Starr restaurants. In fact, I always make it a point to check out all the new ones when I'm in town...if only for a drink. The food, no doubt about it, is not incredible. Alma de Cuba is my favorite and their Mojitos are pretty damn good. However, I really love checking out the decors he uses in these places. They're masterful. Starr must be obsessive compulsive or severely anal as it seems like all the design elements are there (yeah, maybe the service is a bit lacking). I keep a big jar of matchbooks and even Starr's matchbooks are cool. I wish he would put a couple places in the Motor City! The Starr places make one feel like a bit of a scenester and it does not absolutely decimate the wallet. If you don't like it, you can always go over to Monk's. :) Long live the Starr joints! -DL Tue Nov 16 21:57:27 -0800 2004 980268 0 DetroitLove