Spamps heads in a fresh new direction!

Late last week Spamps‘ owners Mike and Marcie Spampinato announced the addition of Chef Jerry Donohue who is bringing with him an updated, fresh, and more cohesive menu. While Spamps has been known largely for their “happening bar,” and fantastic sushi, their dining room menu has never quite come together to define a true identity for the restaurant.

With the introduction of a new kitchen crew lead by Chef Donohue, the cuisine has received a complete facelift. Replacing heavy dishes and a vast menu of mix and match cuisines, is an updated menu utilizing the hottest trends from many upscale restaurants. As it should be, the menu capitalizes on the Asian theme complementing the sushi bar.

Included in the new menu are pork belly sliders, lettuce wraps, shrimp dumplings, tempuras, Asian mussels, and a Brussel sprout appetizer with bacon and siracha sauce. New entrees include a Thai coconut stew, sweet and sour skate, green tea soba noodles, as well as, sake bomb scallops.

View the complete dinner menu

Along with the spring season comes a fresh, new sushi menu as well. As always seasonal rolls are added with each changing season. The weather is fantastic and The Grotto is now open. Dine outdoors, enjoy the new cuisine and watch March Madness…. what could be better?

Spamps

16 East 1st Avenue

Conshohocken, PA 19428

610-825-4155

The Sign on Bobby’s Burger Palace

The newest Burger joint, in a seemingly endless list of burger joints to hit Philadelphia, opened today at 3925 Walnut Street in West Philly; Bobby’s Burger Palace. This is the 5th location for the Food Network Celebrity and Iron Chef, Bobby Flay. The West Philadelphia spot was met with great anticipation and a large crowd today. Waits were as long as an hour all day.

Long Line of People Wait Outside of Bobby’s Burger Palace

It was over 80 degrees at some points during the day in Philadelphia but fans of either Bobby Flay, or burgers, or both waited to try out the new place. What’s that? You have to do use the bathroom? Nice try. Back in line!

That’s right, you could wait over an hour for a burger, but if you were there just to offer FREE press to the king of Food Network T.V., or needed to use the facilities while waiting  in the sun for a burger, you were S.O.L, my friends. Bladder be damned!

The Sign of One’s Stomach (and Bladder) Getting Closer to Relief!

Inside Bobby’s was just as crowded!

The dining room is modern, decorated in shades of orange and green and seats about 70 with a large curving counter as a centerpiece to the room.Wall hanging art whimsically focuses on food.  The menu includes burgers, fries and shakes. For pictures of all of Bobby’s burgers look here.

Interior Decor

The service was very friendly and knowledgeable once you were past the bathroom police presence at the door. (sarcasm) The food was tasty also.

Bobby Blue Turkey Burger

The food was so good in fact, the person eating the Bobby Blue forgot to take a picture before devouring half of the sandwich that is topped with Blue Cheese, Bacon and Potato Chips! Nary a Sweet Potato Fry to be spotted either cough, cough!

But what could be more exciting than a good sandwich and a celebrity chef in town? How about a drop in from one of our own town’s celebrity chefs?

Marc Vetri and The Best of Food’s Susan Fedele

And of course, the moment you have all been waiting for…..Bobby Flay makes his appearance……

Bobby Flay talking to Marc Vetri

It will be interesting to watch how Bobby Flay fairs in the city of brotherly love. I do love the idea of this month’s burger of the month, which I will be back to try when things settle down a bit.With social media guru Tommyup already calling Bobby things I will not  repeat here, not because I can’t, but because it adds to the drama!

500 degrees just opened 2 weeks ago. Starr burger just re-opened for it’s second season, and we already have some great long standing kick ass burgers in this city! Only time will tell…..

Jack Frost Corner in Glenside, PA

This ice cream stand on the corner of Mt. Carmel Avenue and Limekiln Pike in Glenside that remained closed for several seasons re-opened for business quietly in April of 2009. Quietly, that is, until people discovered that, not only did they still serve ice cream, but in addition to colossal soft-serve cones, they had added premium hard-scooped flavors and shockingly delicious food!

Well, they have returned for their second year and the 2010 season proves to be far less quiet as word spreads of this delicious food stand, so you better get in line early for their scrumptious delights! All of their food is cooked to order and well worth the wait…..just take a look!

Fries are not only cooked to order, they are CUT to order! There is even vinegar on the counter waiting to be splashed on the piping hot spuds when they are ready!

Fresh potatoes waiting to be cut

Cut Fries ready to hit the frier

Cheese, if you please

The burgers and dogs at Jack Frost are the area’s absolute BEST! There is nowhere else to go for treats this tasty! They are again, made to order….

Fresh burgers hitting the grill

Some mighty tasty burgers made to order~as you like ‘em

Hotdogs hit the grill

That’s a fine looking dog….

Complete Menu

Jack Frost is closed on Sundays.

The Front Window at StoneRose  Conshohocken

It is the first Spring Season for The StoneRose Restaurant in Conshohocken and the front window is officially open!

Unlike most restaurants in this suburban town, The StoneRose has an advantage with this massive full front window. It opens up to provide an open air feeling not found in many places outside of Old City. The closest place, other than actually eating outside, is located in Mt Airy at The Wine Thief. Good Luck getting into either restaurant on a busy Friday or Saturday night as the two restaurants are the hottest restaurants to open outside of Center City in 2009.

Both restaurants are small, owned by attractive young men, or in the case of the Wine Thief, an attractive young couple, however, the owner Chris Simpson, is usually front and center!  Both restaurants use local ingredients and cater to a hip crowd, albeit on the younger, yet more mature side of young. Also similar to the two, is the focus on good wines, although StoneRose is equally passionate about a strong assortment of great local brews as well.

Interior of Wine Thief Bistro Mt Airy

The looks are completely different, yet both offer comfortable, relaxed atmospheres, and each restaurant employs chefs who are passionate about good food, and good service. This spring and summer the big draw beyond all of the above will be the wonderful, warm breeze of fresh air flowing through their dining rooms. Get there early on beautiful days to get a seat by the window.

• The StoneRose is open for lunch 7 days a week in Conshohocken

• The Wine Thief opens at 4PM, 5 days a week (closed on Tuesdays) and open for brunch on Sunday at 11AM in Mt Airy.

Amy’s on Main

The beautiful Victorian building that will become Amy’s on Main in Ambler continues to give Chef Amy Lutz agida! Construction and zoning issues have caused another delay on the project originally scheduled to open last October. The expected opening date has been pushed back until mid-April.

 Could this be the star that steals the show?

 If you follow us on Twitter, by now you have had a peek at the burger that has stolen the hearts of the early visitors to Conshohocken’s newest gastropub. The creation of Executive Chef Jason Lipnicki, The StoneRose Burger features the very same beef  the now infamous, Square Burger.

Jason credit’s Geechee Rice Girl’s Chef/Owner Valerie Erwin with teaching him the technique behind The StoneRose’s signature StoneRose Burger, which has been a best seller since the restaurant opened just a week ago. The burger is seared on a salt bed in a dry, hot, cast iron skillet allowing the salt to cook into the burger creating a salty exterior without over saturating the Premium Gold Angus.

Sauteed chopped Cipollini Onions are combined with diced Bacon to create a hearty relish of sorts, offering the burger intense flavor, while making it easier to eat than a standard burger which may have strips of bacon and large strands of sauteed onions. The cheese is Cooper Sharp. The burger tops an Artisan Challah Roll from Wild Flower Bakery. Fries are thick cut and made with Kennebec Potatoes. They are served with a savory mayo based remoulade. The StoneRose Burger and Fries $11.

 Since this is the 2ND post regarding a burger in the past 2 weeks. We feel a disclaimer is in order! It is a coincidence that in the brief month that our blog has been live that The Whiskey King and The StoneRose Burger would garner so much attention. While burgers are an important category amongst our 160+ search features, and we do review them for our site, we also respect the experts in this city! In no way are we trying to be The Burger Baroness, or Burgatory!

We look forward to reading many more blog posts on this burger and see if others agree that this is a mighty tasty burger!

Preview the entire StoneRose menu here.

The Grand Opening is scheduled for tomorrow night!

Mt Airy’s Wine Thief Bistro will be the setting for an upcoming episode of 

MTV’s Is She Really Going Out With Him?

The show, that Philebrity reported was casting in the area in September, will shoot at Wine Thief Bistro on Germantown Avenue on Thursday morning.

Thinking about going to see if you can get your face on camera? An extra maybe?

Seared Mako "Pita" at Alison Two

Bar Food. What image comes to mind? Buffalo wings, burgers, many fried options are all things that immediately resonate with me when you say, “bar food.”

Fortunately for the consumer, the economic climate, as well as, the growing number of sophisticated diners, have driven many great restaurants to create extraordinarily attractive bar menus, happy hour specials and concentrate greater focus on beer and cocktail lists. In the city, even the once seemingly exclusive Le Bar Lyonnais recently started a $5.00 cocktail promotion for happy hour. Lacroix in The Rittenhouse Hotel opened Bar 210 with happy hour specials to draw diners to the restaurant.

But at Alison Two in Fort Washington, the bar, as well as, the bar menu have been a central focus since opening nearly 1 year ago. Lead by Beverage Manager Tom Pittakas, the bar at Alison Two serves over 60 beers from small breweries, in addition to a house-made Ginger Beer, has an extensive wine list from small purveyors and one of the best cocktail menus anywhere. The juices and mixers for the cocktails are made fresh, in-house, daily, setting their drinks apart from all others in terms of flavor complexity and freshness.

Alison Barshak, the highly celebrated chef, best known in Philadelphia for putting the now shuttered Striped Bass on the map, has put equal emphasis on the food served at the bar. Count on a dozen options on the “daily-printed” menu, which changes frequently in order to employ the most seasonally available ingredients from local purveyors. Two recent standouts were the Seared Mako “pita” made with phyllo, spinach, pine nuts and feta, and the Calamari Steak Milanese served with Sauce Gribiche.

Here’s the punchline….During happy hour and a half Monday through Friday from 5:00-6:30PM, the entire bar menu is 50% off. That means $5.00 to $5.50 on the highest priced menu options, for the most part. That is what we call recession proof!