Foodsday Tuesday Reviews Crescent City

I went to Crescent City for Restaurant Week and I'm only just now getting to write about it because of (a) Fringe and (b) life, but since everything on their Restaurant Week menu is also on their normal menu, no harm no foul. The Restaurant Week experience, of course, is a little different (a 9 p.m. dinner reservation means you don't really order, you just accept what's left), and that's where my biggest problem with Crescent City was. Obviously I don't keep kosher: I'd ordered the pork chop for dinner. As an appetizer, I'd ordered the shrimp and crab spring rolls. This was all treyf. But one of my companions, who isn't much for pork, had also ordered the spring rolls, and when they came, they didn't exactly look like shrimp and crab. Didn't taste like it, either. I called our waiter over. "Did we get the right thing?"

"Oh, we ran out of the shrimp and crab spring rolls, so we brought you the barbecued pulled pork. Is that okay?"

To be fair, the rolls were quite good, but you should never, ever substitute the meat a person is ordering (even if it's turkey for chicken) without running it by them first. In today's day and age, people are especially picky about WHAT animals they'll eat. On the up side, I got to take my companion's leftover spring rolls home. (My other companion was quite happy with her fried oysters, though. No substitutions, and no complaints.)

For the entree, both of my companions ordered the shrimp and andouille sausage over black (not red) beans and rice (after they were told that their first and second choices were no longer available). It smelled tasty, but didn't look terribly different from similar dishes at similar, albeit less pricey, restaurants. Of course, as I've mentioned before, I can be a real sucker for a good andouille, and this one certainly was. My pork chop, served over a different combination of black beans and rice and topped with a tomato concoction somewhere between salsa and chutney was delicious (as the waiter had assured me it would be when I was trying to decide what to order). The meat itself was quite lean, but still tender, and the tomato topping gave a nice contrast to its smoky flavor. But beyond the pork chop, I was really quite taken by the black beans and rice. There was a certain flavor to them that I couldn't quite place, but whatever it was went well with the vinegar-and-smoke (possibly from bacon fat?) flavor that didn't necessarily outshine the meat, but certainly gave it a run for its money. To my waiter, if he's reading this: thanks for the perfect recommendation.

For a number of reasons that I'm sure I've touched on in the past, I can't eat chocolate. When dessert came, and I told the waiter this, he seemed a little confused: apparently, all of the desserts came with something chocolaty (of course, one was chocolate cake, and the other was chocolate peanut butter pie). I got the cinnamon-oatmeal cookie sandwich, sans accompanying chocolate pudding, by default. When it arrived, I took a bite and could have sworn that I'd just consumed a tablespoon of butter, lightly dusted with cinnamon and oatmeal. Not bad, just really, really rich, especially since the "sandwich" part of the cookie was a slightly bitter, but very rich and heavy, almost creme fraiche-feeling substance. The cookie was impossible to finish, and I didn't even consider touching the ice cream it had come with. After three bites, I was ready to take the rest home. (Incidentally, the bus boy who wrapped our food up actually thought it would be helpful if he wrapped the ice cream in the to-go box, as well. And then set it on top of my leftover, and still hot, pork chop. Cute.) My companions, who each ordered a different chocolate dessert, seemed quite happy with theirs (my friend with the chocolate peanut-butter combination was ecstatic, actually).

All told, the atmosphere at Crescent City is great, the pork chops are excellent, and the cookies are too rich. But we had a very attentive waiter (save for the spring roll snafu) who didn't bother us to tell us that they were closing up, and who, when we noticed, actually told us we didn't have to worry about the staff if we were still talking (we, of course, knew that the rest of the staff probably didn't share that sentiment). If you go for Restaurant Week in the spring, make sure your reservations are earlier in the evening, though: half or more of the items on the menu were sold out. I look forward to going back sometime and trying the ones that I missed. But probably skipping dessert.

Crescent City
900 South Street (across the street from the Whole Foods Market)
Philadelphia, PA 19147
215.627.6780

Image via Crescent City.