It’s that time of year when the famous Esmeralda Geisha coffee beans are available. For those in Philadelphia, Ultimo Coffee in South Philadelphia has it available by the cup, served pour-over style for $5. You can order half-pound bags directly from Counter Culture for $34.95 or a 12 ounce jar from Stumptown for $75. It’s not available from Intelligentsia yet, but I assume it’s just a matter of time. Probably some other roasters out there, too. The 2009 Esmeralda from Intelligentsia brewed in my French press ranks as one of my favorite coffee experiences ever. Judge for yourself if that’s worth a little extra money.
Tags: coffee, philadelphia
Carnitas Cantina Taco
I’m really behind on my reviews this month, but this one will just squeak in while the Cantina Tacos are still on the menu. I’ve tried all three varieties a couple of times, they come in chicken, steak, and carnitas (aka shredded pork). These are actually somewhat healthy for you, clocking in at 170 calories for chicken, 160 for steak, and 200 for carnitas.
Steak Cantina Taco
They arrive wrapped in foil along with a lime wedge. Each comes with just the marinated meat, white onions, and cilantro on a double corn tortilla. The marinated chicken and steak are the usual Taco Bell fare, perhaps a little more flavorful than usual since they seem to be a bit more marinated. The pork is easily the best of the three and makes me wonder why pork/carnitas hasn’t visited the Taco Bell menu before. Other than in bacon form, of course. The pork Cantina taco looked the most unappetizing since it was very soupy looking, but it was definitely the most flavorful of the three and definitely the saltiest. On future visits, I stopped getting all three varieties and just settled on a Carnitas triple play.
Chicken Cantina Taco
Near me, the three taco combo with a drink was $5.99, a little pricier than the normal Taco Bell fare, but definitely worth the price. Substitute flour tortillas for the corn and make it a burrito instead of a taco and we’re talking legendary Taco Bell menu item.
Other excellent reviews are found at The Impulsive Buy, Fidel Gastro, Would I Buy It Again?, and The Burger Beast. I’m sure there are more, but am too lazy to Google them…
The Fourth Dimension
Triple Integrals. The Carnitas Cantina Taco is some Taco Bell excellence. Chicken and Steak are okay, but not nearly as exciting.
Our visit to The Bookstore has been a much discussed and debated one (at least internally), mostly for the band playing on the Saturday night of our visit. We were planning to take our friend Joe to Tap and Table after our jaunt to the amazing Charlie’s Pool Room. However, they were featuring fruit beers and not of the epic Cantillon variety, so we decided to check out The Bookstore, a sister establishment to Tap and Table, located in Bethlehem.
You enter The Bookstore through a basement door simply marked with the establishment name which reveals an entryway designed to be a bookstore. While waiting for the host, it did seem like we were in an actual bookstore. The host came and took us through the fairly ornately decorated bar/dining room which is divided into several smaller rooms for group seating.
The menus are contained in books with the first few pages of the book containing a list of bottled beers and cocktails. It’s a nice touch. A separate menu has various food and snack items available, but there is no draft beer list. We had to ask our waiter which becomes complicated for a fairly esoteric listing of brews.
I ordered a goblet of The Bruery’s Tradewinds. There were no prices given for draft beers. At $9 a goblet, this was insanely overpriced and found out only at the end of the meal. Case-in-point, a goblet was available at Philadelphia’s Kraftwork for $6 at the same time. It’s an interesting beer to have on tap, a triple that is spiced with Thai basil. Brit ordered a bottle of the Black Albert from De Struisse Brouwers in Belgium, their fairly difficult to find imperial stout. It was a little pricey at $14/bottle, but in line with the rarity of the brew. It was definitely worth the price tag and is a world class imperial stout.
There are also no prices for cocktails. These were clearly very intricate and complicated cocktails, so the $11 price tag, while seemingly high to myself who does not normally buy cocktails, does seem to be in line. I believe that someone in our party ordered a Manhattan and another ordered a Sidecar. Our friend Joe did get a Bitter Guiseppe which lived up to the bitter in its name, provided a somewhat sweet taste with a heavy bitter aftertaste. I don’t really feel qualified to judge cocktails, but they looked impressive, were definitely made with attention to detail, and tasted good to me.
Someone ordered a safron pickled egg which was an interesting snack, expertly pickled. I also had an order of sweet and spicy almonds that went well with the drinks. Someone also ordered a cheese plate, but I forget the specifics, unfortunately.
I can’t say that I’m a fan of ’20s-era music. I’m less of a fan when we’re in direct line of the trumpet player, making conversation awkward. We were all much bigger fans of the piano pieces since the trumpet player also sang and played the piano. Oh yeah, he also sang through a megaphone. It was all “Puttin’ On the Ritz” style (without Taco). One thing is clear, the weird neck-tattooed period-dressed dancing man is deserving of a punch to the crotch. No sir, we were not fans. It was painful to watch the moves in such an awkward-for-dancing space. “Did he think he was in the Squirrel Nut Zippers?” asked Brit. If only we were talking candy…
Overall, I would say that if you find yourself in Bethlehem and are feeling high class, well-made cocktails, this is the spot for you. The draft beer was quite expensive for no reason at all, but there was a very extensive bottle list and worthy of some attention.
The Third Dimension
Two Integrals. I would say that the rating here is based on our lack of interest in the band and the prices and doesn’t reflect the fact that we mostly enjoyed the visit.