La Viola

La Viola
253 S. 16th St., Philadelphia, 215.735.8630

I had a friend coming into town, so I organized a dinner at La Viola since I’d heard great things about it and was dying to try it. We had reservations for 8:30 on a Thursday and still had to wait; the place is that busy (it’s also that small).

It’s a cute rowhouse on 16th Street near Monk’s. The dining room is packed to the max, there is barely room to walk between the tables.

The menu is fairly simple, one page. All sorts of soups, appetizers, pastas, pizzas and entrees. I started with the soup of the day, a mushroom soup with a chicken broth base (i.e. not creamy). It was so fresh, and not ground too finely, so you could still feel the texture of the mushrooms in your mouth.

Oh, we were served bread & olive oil to start. The bread unfortunately wasn’t anything special, room temperature and a little dry.

Then I had the chicken picatta: 2 thin pounded chicken breasts, served with roasted veggies and decorated with a little piece of ham. Lovely but WAY too salty.

Although prices are reasonable, I think I would chose to go back to Melograno, or try another Italian BYOB (since there are so many in Center City) before I end up at La Viola again.

Monk's Cafe

Monks Café
264 S. 16th St (Near Spruce)













Monks café is consistently ranked among Philly’s top burger joints/bars. So my friends (who are also new to the city) and I were excited to go and have burgers and draft beer last Sunday.

We walked into a smoky, noisy, dimly lit bar (a little strange for an early Sunday evening, but OK…). The menu is simple: some appetizers (Belgian, I guess), several varieties of mussels, and an equal number of burgers.

We started with a small order of Bruges mussels (with tomatoes, provencal herbs, and white wine). They came with pommes frites (served the Belgian style with tartar sauce) and two rolls. The mussels actually weren’t bad, and the broth was delicious.

Then we moved onto our burgers. Not quite what I expected. It was just a small plate with an unadorned burger. I ordered a burger with shiitake mushrooms and some sort of European cheese. The flavoring of the cheese and mushrooms was actually nice, but the burger itself was dry and not particularly flavorful.

Our draft beers were also not particularly stellar. For $6.50, I’d expect a pint, not a 12 oz. glass. I’d also expect it to be cold. (A note, the monk’s brew is really quite sour.)

Erawan Thai

Erawan Thai
123 S 23RD St (near Samson)

You’d never guess that you could find a true taste of Thailand in Center City, but Erawan serves up some surprisingly tasty food (albeit a little pricey). On a rainy Monday night, Erawan was completely empty, but it was pleasant having the restaurant to ourselves to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

We started with 3 appetizers: tom yum soup, steamed mussels ($8) and fried tofu. The tom yum soup was nice and full of fresh seafood, but not as sour or flavorful as the soup at Reading Terminal Market. The mussels came in a clear broth with lots of fresh basil and a chili dipping sauce, but were still a little bland. Pass on the tofu, it was even more tasteless.

The hot dishes were much better; we had the red curry, pad wen soon noodles, and stirfried beef and basil. The wen soon noodles and the beef with basil ($15) were both wonderful. The noodles were super thin glass noodles stir fried with chicken and veggies. The noodles stuck together (reminded me of Korean chap jae)…yum! The beef stir fry was also excellent, in a dark red sauce. The red curry we won’t order in the future, it was pretty bland although had nice firm chunks of tofu.

Finally, dessert was mango sticky rice and fried bananas. The mango sticky rice was just like Thailand, although I guess the mango wasn’t quite as sweet or juicy. But the rice had that same buttery-salty flavor as I had in Thailand. The fried bananas (dipped in sweetened condensed milk, yummm) were ok but kind of overwhelmingly battered (could barely taste the banana flavor).