Marigold Kitchen
Marigold Kitchen
501 South 45th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-222-3699
Mr. Lunchbox and I had dinner at Marigold Kitchen in West Philadelphia this Tuesday evening. It was a big blowout meal, shared by a group of folks in the food biz. Really enjoyable company, great food, unreal service and atmosphere – it’s what we call a home-run in the field of fine dining.
We tried everything on the wide-ranging menu. We ended up passing each plate around so that all seven of us there could taste each dish. We checked our coats and communicable diseases at the door, so it was full-steam ahead on the taste-testing.
My favorite flavor was the miso-braised beef shin which sat on top of some jasmine rice (along with some radishes). It came with the grass-fed strip steak, done medium-rare. I like red meat well-done, but I heard that it’s simply tragic to cook it anything other than medium-rare, which is cool, I liked the meat a lot this way on Tuesday.
The various wines brought by one of our dining companions tasted really good. I’m not sure if I can even usually tell the difference between great wine and horse piss, but on Tuesday I totally loved the wine there. And I’m still getting the hang of the swirl-and-sniff technique, so thanks to one of our companions for the illustration.
I gotta admit, me and Mr. Lunchbox didn’t have much to contribute to the culinary conversation during the evening. I mean, some of these folks breathe, sleep, and of course eat this stuff, and here we were, a couple of cock-punches snagging a free meal and getting a nice buzz off of some good vino.
I guess that in social situations like this, you just gotta talk about what you know, but somehow the topic of teen porn websites never came up, so we were kind of at a loss for material much of the time (“Oh yes, the halibut IS delighftul...By the way, anyone seen the latest spread on Teen Ass.com? Very tastefully done, I thought…”)
But hey, I guess we ain’t that bad here on the Box, because someone at the table at Marigold’s actually made reference to one of our recent reviews. Unreal – some people actually read the bs reviews on this site. Well, with him on board, that brings our readership totals to 9 people….(How am I doin’, mom??)
Anyway, one of my other favorite entrees was the duck breast – so tender and tasty, with foi gras rillette, radicchio, and roasted figs. I also loved the romaine salad, especially because they give you a 4-minute egg with it, I just love eggs, I could eat them at just about every meal.
The desserts were totally yummy. The lavender-honey ice cream was perhaps the biggest hit among all of us. It sat on top of a pignole cake with figs and lemon (whew, thank god I took a menu home, I would have never rememered these names!).
One of the nicest things about the evening was the host. This guy is awesome. He’s a young guy who recently was in the D.C. area. He explained to us about the history of Marigold’s, the location, his background, chef/owner Steven Cook, and of course the menu. It’s always refreshing to listen to someone talk about something they truly love – and it was so obvious that he loves food, wine, great dining experiences, his restaurant’s location, and of course Marigold Kitchen’s place in that world.
Marigold Kitchen is in a beautiful Victorian house, right on the corner. It's a quaint little area - although I did have a car stolen (my friend's) a few years ago that was parked near 47th and Hazel. But no worry - The atmosphere inside is especially warm and and relaxing, the lighting is soft - it seems like it would be a great date place. And they're having a prix fixe event on November 23rd & 24th: 7 courses for $45 per head, I think we might head back there for that...
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