Tag Archives: KENSINGTON QUARTERS

Drinking Your Way Through Philly Wine Week

NAVIGATOR
If you have in mind a bunch of snobbish dinners, you’re in for an abrupt, and probably life-altering, awakening.

By Scott Edwards

 

When Philly Wine Week debuted back in 2014, the goal was elemental: to throw some attention on the city’s budding, but small, wine community—the shops, the bars, the makers. But as the industry itself has evolved over the last three years—winemakers growing younger, their products more unconventional—we, the audience, have become the target. Trend-happy as we are, a lot of us are still harboring a grudge against wine for being too uptight. We’ll drink it at dinner with the in-laws, but it’s rare that we’ll tote a Spanish sparkler to the beach, or even into the backyard. If we even know what a Spanish sparkler is.

Philly Wine Week

Much like your OS, wine has become much more user-friendly in recent years. This is the opportunity to fast-track your re-education. Pictured, from above: PWW hosts Panorama and The Good King Tavern’s Chloe Grigri.

“All of us at Philly Wine Week (PWW) are looking to change the perception of wine as something complicated, stuffy and only to be enjoyed on special occasions. And what better place to show how unfussy something is than our very own city, where keeping things casual and unpretentious is the way of life,” says Kate Moroney Miller, a PWW co-founder.

How that’ll be accomplished is through a wide range of tastings—more than 70 participants, the largest pool yet, are collaborating on over 100 events—that’ll be offering something, in most cases, a few degrees from what you’re familiar with. The hope is that you’ll get drunk along the way (unofficially) and discover a few new go-tos that go down easy with every occasion, including the complete lack thereof.

This year’s installment opens next Sunday, March 19, with the signature kickoff party, Opening Corks, at the Academy of Natural Sciences. (General admission tickets are $65.) In keeping with the aforementioned intent, the party’s designed to conjure a rather abrupt awakening by way of a sensory overload—a hundred-plus varieties flowing through halls populated by a T-rex and butterflies.

If you haven’t broken through your two-glasses-of-Malbec-then-off-to-bed regimen by the end of the night, there will be plenty of other opportunities to wear down your resolve over the coming days. (Still, ease up a bit on the reins.)

The next night, head over to Kensington Quarters for the pay-as-you-go Lambrusco Festival, at which bartenders will be pouring various kinds of the Italian sparkler and an impressive roster of guest chefs—Jesse Ito (Royal Sushi and Izakaya), Sam Jacobson (Stargazy), Steve Forte (Town Hall Provisions), among a slew of others—will be pairing dishes with them all night long.

Tuesday night brings perspective. Vintage will be hosting Think Inside the Box, a blind tasting to test your ability to decipher boxed and bottled wines. Think all boxed wines taste the same (cheap)? You’re a varietal-ist. And you clearly haven’t drunk from one since your sorority mixer. It’s time to cast your ignorance aside and have your mind blown. (After this, it’s on to cans. Yes, cans.)

Come Thursday, you may be confused, but it’s only the fast-track to awareness. Time to step in for an at-bat in the big leagues. Osteria is offering the chance to experience one of the great perks in a day in the life of a sommelier: the trade testing. You’ll be sampling wines from Italy, schmoozed by distributors and brand ambassadors as you go. Your goal for the night: Figure out how to decipher Prosecco from Lambrusco. (More on that in a moment.)

To ensure the last of your preconceptions are kicked to the curb, hit Afternoon Delights, a pastry-and-wine pairing at Jet Wine Bar Saturday afternoon. The wines have been selected because they’re especially conducive to day-drinking. That’s right; you can drink the stuff in broad daylight too. And not out of a paper bag. Then, Sunday, Barbuzzo’s hosting a brunch, its first, featuring wine-based cocktails, Calabrian and Sicilian wines and Italian sparkling wines (which you should be on intimate terms with by now) paired with Italian-inspired dishes.

Two serious bouts of day-drinking seem a fitting way to close out the week.

(*For a complete list of the tens and tens of events not mentioned here, including access to tickets, go here.)

Photos courtesy (from the top) Philly Wine Week, Panorama, The Good King Tavern

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Beyond Burgers

LOCALLY SOURCED

Pick up your lagging grill game with these under-appreciated cuts.

The bacon-looking cuts, pictured alongside the pork shoulder, are the kalbi.

 

We’re all well aware of how long your burger recipe was under development before you finally branded it your own. And, yes, your chicken breasts are impressively moist, the cross-hatching on your T-bones, a masterful display. But it’s all starting to feel a bit stale. When you grill almost year-round and your wheelhouse consists of a few different things, it’s inevitable. Longevity comes from being bold enough to constantly reinvent yourself. Now’s not the time to hide behind a little bit of success. Or your smoking grill. (We can still see you.)

To spare you from the need to humble yourself, we asked Damon Menapace to show us the way through the dog days ahead. Damon’s the executive chef at Kensington Quarters, the Frankford Avenue restaurant that’s developed a stout reputation for knowing how to handle meat. Case in point, KQ has its own butcher shop, which Damon also took on earlier this summer.

Here, he offers up a few under-appreciated cuts that cook up especially well on the grill. (All, BTW, are available at the KQ butcher shop.)

Kalbi Short Ribs
Also known as galbi, these Korean barbeque-style steaks are cut thinly across the bone, so they’ll grill up fast. “Nobody wants to braise a big, square-cut short rib in the summer,” Damon says. Marinate them beforehand. They’ll come out tender, juicy and concentrated with flavor.

Country-style Pork Ribs
The name is misleading. These aren’t actually ribs. They’re bone-in slices of pork shoulder that are cut to resemble the barbeque favorite. They cook similarly, too. Think of them as a cross between pulled pork and ribs. Damon says, “Cook ‘em low and slow and with plenty of smoke.”

Chuck Eye Steak
“The poor man’s rib eye,” as he calls it, is taken from farther up the shoulder. “Most people hear the word ‘chuck’ and think it’ll be tough,” Damon says, “but this lovely little steak is tender, fatty and super-rich.”

Lamb Shoulder Chops
Sliced with a band saw across the bone, these inch-thick chops are an affordable alternative to the more widely-known lollipops, and they’re packed with way more meat and flavor. “Throw them on the grill with a little baste,” Menapace advises. “They can be chewy, but it’s fun to get messy ripping into them. This is summertime grilling, after all.”  —Mike Madaio

Photo by Matthew J. Rhein