Tria Café – Rittenhouse Square

Tria Café – Rittenhouse Square

http://www.triacafe.com/

123 S. 18th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

My husband and I met two friends at Tria Café near Rittenhouse Square for dinner.  The eatery has a few tables outside, but since there had been rain off and on all day, we chose to eat inside.  There are about 10-15 tables along one side of the restaurant with a bar on the other side that runs just about the length of the restaurant (back to the kitchen).  The interior was heavy on wood accents, but welcoming.  Because of its size, it was pretty loud and we had to speak up a lot to hear each other.

We decided to share two bruschetta appetizers: Apple Tree Goat Cheese with Basil Pesto and Truffled Mushroom with Fontina.  I really enjoyed both of these.  The Goat Cheese one was creamy and the bruschetta wasn’t too crisp.  The top of it was layered with pesto and the savory flavor of the pesto worked well with the sweeter taste of the cheese.  The Truffled Mushroom one was also good – the mushrooms had a slightly sweet flavor to them and the fontina was shaved on top.  I was really satisfied with both of these and wish I could have had more!  Alas, I had to share.

For my main meal, I had the Roasted Mushroom and Brie Panino with Baby Spinach and Lemon Oil, but sans the lemon oil (not being a big fan of lemon).  I did not particular care for this sandwich – it had an overpowering taste of mushrooms and the brie could not keep up with it.  The bread was thick, firm, and made for a good sandwich, but I could have done with less mushrooms.

Overall, I say give Tria a try!  There are a few vegetarian options and they put a lot of care into the dishes.  The service was also excellent!

Buckley’s Tavern - The End

My return to Buckley’s Tavern was bittersweet. The owners of the tavern chose not to renew the lease with the current chef there, so as of January 15, 2012, there is no more Buckley’s in Centreville, DE.  I actually had the opportunity to go there twice in the weeks before they closed.  Once with my husband because I wanted to go one last time. The second for a meeting (planned after I had gone with my husband).  I was really happy to show up and see that there menu had been expanded to include even more vegetarian options.  Of course, since they were closing, this really had no bearing on any future visits.

My husband and I went there for lunch on January 2.  They were already starting to fall short on beer and food supplies.  My Simple Salad was supposed to have some more veggies, but the arugula, tomatoes, and citrus vinaigrette satisfied my need.  The tomatoes were chopped a tad to large, but the sweet vinaigrette (not too sweet!) made up for that.  The salad was well-dressed, not dry and not dripping.  For my main course, I ordered the Vietnamese BBQ Tofu sandwich.  It had tofu grilled with BBQ sauce slathered on it, cilantro, chipotle mayo, lettuce, carrots, and cucumber and was served on a baguette.  It was too large and messy to eat as a sandwich, so I ate the various components of it separately and removed cilantro because I'm not a fan.  The chipotle mayo wasn’t too spicy and was actually pretty tasty (considering I’m no fan of mayo).  Overall, the meal was fine, but I kind of expected the tofu to at least be marinated in the BBQ Sauce. For dessert, I gave in and we ordered the Caramel Apple bread pudding.  It was a large, thick slice of bread drenched in caramel.  The bread was some sort of apple bread - some of the apples were crunchy, which gave it a weird texture.  The caramel was thick and gooey and seeped into bread.  For those who like caramel, it would have been nice.  For me, not so much.

My second experience was better.  I ordered the Chicken Sausage Pizza w/ veggie sausage.  The individual pizza was fairly large – about 6 slices.  The dough was not too crunchy and the base, instead of a marinara, was a garlic cream sauce.  Very tasty.  The cheese and vegetarian sausage made it even better.  The sausage was the crumbled style and slightly crunchy from being baked with the pizza.  I was much happier with this selection, but very upset when my husband ate all of the leftovers the next day.  J

Brandywine Brewing Company - Greenville, DE

Love, love, love this restaurant.  We go at least once every two months (and we don’t repeat a lot of restaurants).  I’ve had a few of their plates, but this time I chose a sandwich that was on Special – not so good – I forget what it was called, but the sauce on it just didn’t work.  And, actually, they took my favorite sandwich off of the menu (grilled vegetables with goat cheese, yum, yum).  I definitely recall their Hot Soft Pretzels – so tasty – and apple mustard is delish (the hot horseradish was too hot for me – I don’t like the feeling of my sinuses being cleared with one quick taste).  I do recommend this restaurant for vegetarians because they have a number of options and great service.  Not to mention a full beer selection!

http://www.bbctavernandgrill.com/




9/8/2011 Update:

On our most recent trip to BBC, we decided to get the Hot Soft Pretzels as an appetizer.  Very chewy, but not buttery (like an Auntie Anne's pretzel).  That plays well with the two specialty mustard sauces - the apple mustard is very good, not too much of an apple flavor and not too much of a mustard flavor.  The horseradish sauce was hotter when we had it a year ago (or my taste buds are changing).  I can still only take just a little bit, but the horseradish isn't enough to burn my nostrils :-)

I decided to have the Warm Goat Cheese and Spinach Salad as my entrée.  The goat cheese is in multiple pieces, which I like (as compared to one big piece in the middle).  The salad came topped with candied walnuts, sundried tomatoes and cranberries, and some red onion.  All of these helped add a good crunch factor to the soft spinach and goat cheese.  The dressing was surprisingly tasty.  I'm not a fan of maple, but mixed as a maple sherry vinaigrette - yum!

For dessert, I shared the Lava Cake with Strawberry Sauce with my husband.  Overall, tasty, warm, and full of chocolate - just what I need at the end of a good meal!