Food Country Restaurant Reviews serving the Delaware Valley

This authentic French creperie is located just a block from the lively South Street shops and bars in Philadelphia , and offers both elegant indoor and outdoor dining. Beau Monde’s crepe menu is divided into two categories: savory and sweet. For either type, you can either order from a list of house recommendation crepes, or you can get creative and build your own crepe from a bevy of filling options. The savory crepes, which generally run for about $12-14, are served in a thin buckwheat pancake and can include fillings such as cheese or sauce and meats such as ham, chicken breast, andouille sausage, or fish, and vegetables such as tomatoes, mushrooms, or roasted leeks. The sweet crepes, usually from about $8-10, are made with wheat flour and also feature numerous options, such as flavored butter, chocolate, fresh fruit, ice cream, or custard. Jeff’s Take: For my savory crepe, I went with the coq au vin—a classic French dish that’s slow cooked with chicken, red wine, baby onions, mush

Jeff's Take: “Come on guys, finish this off.” The employee behind the counter didn’t have to ask me twice to clean the plate of honey smoked turkey he was offering as a free sample. And before I even got my order, it was no mystery to me why Koch’s Deli in West Philadelphia is almost a landmark around here. This place has got charm. With a little sleight of hand (read: free food), Koch’s turned a ridiculously long, crowded wait for a sandwich into a memorable experience. During my wait, I sampled two kinds of turkey, some Swiss cheese, and a few pickle spears. Koch’s is not only known for its free samples, but also its creative specialty hoagies and sandwiches and its generous portions of meat. If you like pastrami, the Reuben here is a can’t miss. My mouth watered as I watched my chopped pastrami crisped in the toaster oven, and then was topped with Swiss cheese and cooked again until it bubbled. With the meat piled high and topped with sauerkraut and thousand island dressing an

Our blog is now hosted on the domain: http://www.foodcountry.net Way easier to remember than our old http://foodcountry.blogspot.com . Though the old address will still work, you should still update your bookmarks and favorites.

Located in a small strip mall behind a gas station, Café Valentina isn’t easy to find. This small, somewhat cramped neighborhood Italian restaurant offers a casual atmosphere, with an intimate dining area in the front and a tiny bar in the back. The menu isn’t imaginative by any means, but features a nice selection of Italian standards, including pasta, pizza, veal, chicken, and seafood dishes. Jeff’s Take: Café Valentina is known for its delicious garlic bread, and deservedly so. Each table gets a serving of large, pillowy dinner rolls, drenched in extra virgin olive oil with fresh chopped garlic and a sprinkling of parsley. What makes it so good is that rather than serving the olive oil on the side, like most restaurants, the plated garlic bread at Café Valentina is already swimming in the olive oil and garlic, so the bread has gotten a chance to absorb the flavor. Despite the large size of the rolls, a second helping was necessary. For my entrée, I ordered the Veal Saltimbocca Roman

Food Country has been given a slight aesthetic makeover. We have switched from 2-columns to 3-columns, but most importantly we have added a "Recent Talk" feed to encourage comments and dialogue.

The Landmark Americana Tap & Grill is a relatively new restaurant located on a corner in the heart of West Chester. It has a very slick and elegant appearance despite being a pub/tavern/sportsbar restaurant. Landmark has excellent roomy booths, flat screen televisions, and a very impressive and sturdy metal plated menu. Mike's Take: First let me say that this is my second time at the Landmark Americana, on my first visit I was very impressed with the Nacho appetizer and thought my burger was pretty delicious (though i am not sure which burger I ordered...I believe it was the Bison Burger). I was left with a very good impression on that first visit. Unfortunately, my second visit didn't quite live up to my memory of my first visit...though it's not a bad restaurant in the least. For an appetizer, we ordered some Buffalo Fries. The buffalo sauce was excellent and kept me going back for more. The fries were somewhat soggy, but I forgave this somewhat because they were dren

Dome Restaurant and Bar, located in Hockessin , Delaware ’s Lantana Square , is the sister restaurant of Eclipse, located on Union Street in Wilmington . Both restaurants have a similar hip, modern feel, although Dome is much bigger than Eclipse, featuring a bigger bar area and outdoor dining, as well as another smaller room for private parties. Dome’s cuisine is d escribed as “urban American,” including steak, seafood, pizzas, salads, and sandwiches. Jeff’s Take: The appetizers we started off with—fried calamari, pork pot stickers, and the hummus plate—were for the most part good, but slightly flawed. The pork pot stickers featured traditional Asian-style fried pork dumplings in a sweet and sour ginger glaze. Dumplings are usually served with a saltier soy-vinegar sauce, but Dome went in the opposite direction with the sweet and sour. This mild sauce was tasty, but was overpowered by the stronger flavors of pork, scallions, and ginger in the dumplings. The fried calamari, which featu

Stepping in to the original Charcoal Pit location on Concord Pike in Wilmington brings a sense of 50s nostalgia. You can probably tell from the picture—it’s the kind of place that has jukeboxes at every table. Known for its burgers, milkshakes, and ice cream, Charcoal Pit originally opened in 1956, and has since expanded to three additional locations in North Delaware . The burgers come in 4 oz. or 8 oz. sizes, chargrilled, with the standard optional fixings and served on a sesame-seeded bun. Like any good burger joint should, Charcoal Pit uses only fresh ground beef. The burger’s artery-clogging partner in crime is the milkshake, which Esquire magazine named on their “67 Things Worth a Detour” list a few years back. Charcoal Pit’s milkshakes are made fresh with hand-scooped ice cream and served in frosted metal cups. If you don’t like to drink your ice cream, the menu also includes a large selection of huge sundaes named after area high schools. And if you’re feeling really adventuro

Jeff's Take: One of the great advantages of city living is the concept of the food cart. A good food cart can offer a quick, convenient, cheap, and delicious meal, and the best food carts can even be deserving of a special trip. In Philadelphia , the best place to go searching for good food cart cuisine is West Philly’s University City neighborhood. Dozens of food cart vendors congregate there every day, offering a variety of options to the thousands of students in the area. How successful are the University City food carts? Just look at Greek Lady , which started out as a cart and now has a permanent storefront nearby. Thanks to a recommendation from my brother Erick, who lives in the area, I recently discovered a cart that could end up being just as successful—Tacos Don Memo, located at 38 th and Sansom. A trip to any food cart carries with it a range of possibilities in terms of quality. Some carts clearly haven’t been visited by the health inspector in quite awhile (if ev

Washington Street Ale House is located in downtown Wilmington on (surprise!) Washington Street and has been around since 1996. The restaurant served upscale pub and tavern food alongside handcrafted beer and microbrews in a restored downtown building. The exposed brick walls, 19th century photographs, oak floors, fireplace, and open porch give the ale house a great warm ambiance. While Washington Street does not brew any of their own beers, they do have 20 beers on-tap many of which come from local breweries. Mike’s Take: It’s hard not to draw comparisons to Iron Hill Brewery when you visit Washington Street. The menu and décor are very similar. In fact, I ordered the same cheese steak eggroll appetizer that I had at Iron Hill. Here is where the restaurants start to differ. Washington Street Ale House’s food is definitely a little more upscale than Iron Hill’s both in presentation and price. The cheese steak eggrolls were very good, but could have been cheesier and a slightly bigger po

Jeff's Take: I had read enough about the countless honors that John’s Roast Pork has won for its cheesesteaks. Local radio station WIP gave it top honors in its recent “ Ultimate Cheesesteak Challenge .” Esquire named it one of the Best Sandwiches in America . The James Beard Foundation gave it an “ America ’s Classic ” distinction. It was time to see what all the fuss was about. To clear up any confusion, John’s doesn’t deal exclusively in pork products. The “cheesesteak” is made with beef, and the “pork sandwich,” made with Italian roasted pork, is served up either on a Kaiser roll (small) or a hoagie roll (large). Both are excellent, but the pork sandwich is a true masterpiece. The Cheesesteak: The thinly sliced steak at John’s is of excellent quality. It’s cooked in small batches, which speaks volumes about the quality control at John’s. Most other busy shops cook their steak in huge batches, which often makes it tougher and drier, since it sits on the grill for longer per

Food Country is officially a featured publisher on Foodbuzz. What is Foodbuzz exactly? It's the first-ever community site devoted exclusively to food and dining content—an unparalleled resource for searching, surfing and sharing with fellow foodies everywhere. Food Country has been selected to be a featured publisher for the community...so vote for us at Foodbuzz and keep doing Food Country proud.

Jeff's Take: I’ve heard of Kansas City-style barbecue. Ditto with Texas-style and Memphis-style barbecue. But I’ve never heard of Philly-style barbecue. And I don’t think I’m alone. But Tommy Gunns, a tiny joint in Manayunk, claims that it has The City of Brotherly Love’s unique variant of the American classic. Well, at least for spare ribs. What makes “Philly-style” spare ribs unique, according to the website, is that while other styles trim more meat off the bone in order to achieve a uniform rib size, Tommy Gunns eschews size uniformity, and therefore leaves more meat on the bone. In addition, while most places serve their ribs right out of the smoker, Tommy Gunns throws them on the grill quickly before they’re plated. In the flavor department, the spare ribs here are excellent. The meat has a nice smoky flavor that’s complemented well with the dry rub Tommy Gunns uses. The accompanying barbecue sauce is also solid—tangy with just the right amount of heat. The texture of the mea

Sonny’s, a small shop in Old City Philadelphia, isn’t one of the better-known cheesesteak places. The wall isn’t lined with press photos of celebrities who have eaten there. But they do serve excellent steaks. Unlike most of other steak shops in the area, which purchase their steak pre-sliced, Sonny’s uses freshly sliced ribeye for their cheesesteaks (check it out, the slicer is right on the counter). Sonny’s also slices their steak a little thicker than other places, and serves their steaks on a soft, chewy roll. Jeff’s Take: There are several reasons why Sonny’s is my current pick for best cheesesteak in the Delaware Valley . First off, their quality is more consistent than most other places. With a lot of the better-known cheesesteak places, it’s either hit or miss, and this gets frustrating. Second, I like that Sonny’s has thicker sliced meat—a lot of other places finely chop their meat, which occasionally results in a dry steak. Also, I prefer cheese whiz on my steak, and Sonny’s