restaurant week.

last week happened to be the first restaurant week of 2005. i'm not sure how they get planned, but there's usually about 2 a year. anyway, since our british friend was here, we thought we'd take him down to philly for a $30-for-3-courses night at one of the 82 center city restaurants participating.

he chose Lolita. another friend had been going into raptures over a review in the philadelphia inquirer of the restaurant in early december, so we thought we'd try it out. it sounded interesting, and because of the, er, creative liquor licensing laws in pa was a BYO instead. BYOT, to be specific, aka Bring Your Own Tequila. luckily, we had been given a bottle as a housewarming gift, so we brought our own tequila and sampled their blood orange margarita mix, which wasn't too bad.

we started with chips and salsa, red and green. these were "on the house" and didn't count as one of the three courses. for my appetizer, i had a very interesting smoked salmon with sour cream, jicama, and baby greens on mini tortillas. i thought it was very good, but then i like smoked salmon.

the main course was another story. i had had fish for my appetizer, so i ordered the enchiladas verdes, which were supposed to be filled with shiitake, rice, and beans. shrimp were included, but i figured i could always not eat them, and the enchiladas were really the only choice, because i didn't want fish again, i don't eat veal, and the concept of plantain curry disturbed me. in retrospect, i should have tried it anyway. the enchiladas were made verdes by the generous ladling of salsa verde over top. the problem was, that was all you tasted. tortilla? nope. cheese? nope? rice, beans, mushrooms? nope. nothing but spicy, spicy stewed tomatillos. and since the rice and tortillas were literally soaked in the salsa verde, there was no respite from the relentless spice-and-acid assault. needless to say, i didn't finish it. we ordered our second pitcher of margarita mix and got through that one too.

for dessert, i had coffee and what was supposedly a chocolate tres leches cake. that wasn't much to write home about either. not really much chocolate flavour at all. we were hoping that the cheesecake with the ancho-dusted-chocolate-crumb crust would be on the menu, but i guess they decided for whatever reason that that wasn't suitable for their restaurant week menu. not cost-effective, possibly. the bread pudding that most everyone else ordered was better. oh well.

and we still have 2/3 of a bottle of tequila. guess i better learn to make margaritas.