Eat Beat

FOOD

By Kirsten Henri

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Oct. 31, 2007

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With the current trendlet for Frenchified or deeply exotic-sounding restaurant names--Coquette, Cochon, Xochitl, Las Bugambilias--it's nice to find plain old Supper, a new restaurant from Mitch and Jennifer Prensky, owners of the catering company Global Dish. From the copper on the exterior to the pale avocado walls, whitewashed brick and exposed ceiling joists inside, the space is very inviting. There's a lengthy menu of not-quite-appetizer/not-quite-entree-sized plates meant for meandering. An hors d'oeuvres of cauliflower and artichoke fritters hit the spot on a quick visit and made us curious to see how the rest would measure up. It's worth a trip just to eyeball the clever chandelier made of kitchen utensils such as mixing paddles and garlic presses. Now I know just what to do with my spatula collection. >> Supper, 926 South St. 215.592.8180. www.supperphilly.com

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If you find yourself fumbling through menus, wondering what exactly a Chioggia beet is (and why you should care), why the terms "dayboat" and "line-caught" are essentially meaningless, or what "mouthfeel" actually refers to, you might want to pick up David Kamp and Marion Rosenfeld's new book The Food Snob's Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Gastronomical Knowledge. There's some useful information in there, but it's especially fun for the snarky tone of its foodie-skewering entries, including one that describes foam as a "sputum-like nuisance of the molecular gastronomy era." Kamp is also the author of the excellent American food history book The United States of Arugula, so he knows his stuff. Buy it for your favorite food-nerd friend (or yourself, if you're the guilty party).

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Drink It!

Whiskey, whisky--what the hell, just concentrate on drinking it and leave the spelling to the English majors. Whisk(e)y will be available in all its forms, along with distant relations tequila, gin and vodka, at the fourth annual Philadelphia Whiskey Festival this week. You can taste your way through 80 spirits, from cognacs to single malts to small-batch whiskeys. There'll be a buffet, for obvious reasons, and a cigar lounge, for even more obvious reasons. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board--one of the sponsors of the event and the bane of our existence--is, amazingly, creating a temporary store on-site so if you taste something you like, you can buy it. Enlightened thinking or good business sense? Let the state coffers be the judge. >> Philadelphia Whiskey Festival, Thurs., Nov. 1, 6-9pm. $85-$95. Wanamaker Building, 100 Penn Sq. East. 800.595.4TIX