What's For Dinner #110 - the Earth, Wind & Fire Edition - September 2024

A dreary day brightened significantly by meeting a friend who was in town just for the day to help her daughter move in.

We bopped around RTM & grabbed lunch together, then hit up TJ Maxx where I found such sundry items as air-fryer liners, a decent & cheap pepper mill, and bag clips that look like French fries.

Got home just a tad before my dood and spent the rest of the afternoon taking a deep dive into the subreddit/PhiladelphiaEats, which I found to be tremendously helpful, not to mention surprisingly friendly & welcoming :blush:

As for WWFD tonight, another celebratory meal bc WTF not? Ya only celebrate 25 years of anything once, amirite?

Scored a rez at the highly touted Tabachoy, a Filipino BYOB place that’s on several ‘best of’ lists. We were originally hoping to go with @Bigley9 and our friend who ‘crashed’ our anni dinner last night, but there were only stupid times (think 5pm) available for dining room tables, and I don’t think counter seating makes for a very social experience for a party larger than 2. Plus we figured if we loved it enough we’d come back to try MOAR things what just the two of us could order.

We had ice-cold martinis at home for our aperitivo, then walked the few blocks to the resto.

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The place was packed when we got there, and surprisingly we were sat at a 2-top right next to the entrance — thank goodness for that, bc the place was pretty toasty.

We shared the starter sampler (loempia, Tabachoy Caesar & Chance’s fried wings)

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and a small portion of pork adobo and garlic rice.

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I’d only ever had Filipino loempia back in the American community I grew up in, and I always remembered them (and my ex’s Thai mom’s) to be the best loempia ever :star_struck:

Theirs were amazing, and the Caesar was fantastic as well. The wings were just alright for us.

The adobo was tender & flavorful, and the garlic rice may turn me into a rice convert after all. I am really hoping to go back with a bigger crew and try some of the other things on the menu.

The fact that the place is BYOB of course makes it far more affordable, so it was about a 1/3 of what we paid at the sushi place last night.

Def in the top 3 meals we’ve had in Philly so far, and now DEF want to return with pat and our friend. I somehow couldn’t stop myself from taking a pic of the restaurant’s ‘mascot’ reflection in the window, which was kinda perfect from where I was sitting.

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