• Brian Freedman writes that the smoked salmon at La Petite Dauphine makes “a lovely meal,” but the cafe is “still essentially in coffee-shop mode.” He suggests “skipping the pricier menu items” until owner David Smith lands a full-time chef, and sticking with its “strong suits,” an “excellent pastry, a well-made latte or cappuccino.” [PW]
• At Port Richmond’s Mercer Cafe, Adam Erace says the eggs in the eggs Florentine were “perfectly poached,” and the hollandaise “flowed like honey,” which made up for the fact that the baby spinach on them “arrived half wilted and half raw.” The cream chipped beef, however, is “not only the best chipped beef in the city, but probably in the world.” [Citypaper]
• Phyllis-Stein Novack gets the to have the first word on the just-opened Bella Vista spot, The Mildred. Over a glass of “bold, grassy sauvignon blanc from New Zealand,” she determines that her first course, the chitarra with cockles, “lacked a vibrancy.” Quail fared better. She says The Mildred’s “two little birds” arrived at her table “juicy and succulent,” and with the breast bones “removed for easy eating.” She and Edward also “enjoyed” a hangar steak, but the “star of the dish” was the potato galette. [South Philly Review]
