NORTHEAST INTERNATIONAL MARKET
✚ Magic Mikes <<< continued from page 41
I thought I knew Santoro, but I really didn’t know him at all.
2842 ST. Vincent Street, Philadelphia, Pa 19149 TEL: 215-333-2828 Fax: 215-333-2808 www.1stnemarket.com info@1stnemarket.com YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD INTERNATIONAL STORE Seafood
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Live Lobster $5.99/lb
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• Come try our live seafood. We clean, cut & fillet your fish. • We carry Beef, Pork, Goat, Veal, Duck, Chicken, & Fowl and cut them your way.
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• We also carry Local, Asian, Latin American produce that is delivered everyday. • PA Lottery Play Here • Le Lai Beef Noodle Restaurant Inside Now Open
OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK FROM 8:30 AM TO 9:00 PM WE ACCEPT ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS, EBT AND FOOD STAMPS
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P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R | O C T O B E R 2 5 - O C T O B E R 3 1 , 2 0 1 2 | C I T Y PA P E R . N E T | 43
dictating the menu’s price point, as well as its style. After taking over the old James space last March, Santoro and Michael Dorris, his business partner and culinary-school pal, walked around the ’hood introducing themselves and listening to what the neighbors said about their building’s former tenant: “It was a destination spot when they wanted a neighborhood spot.” With warm fir tabletops in the dining room, mauve velvet stools at the bar and all the room’s whitewashed brick stripped (by Santoro) to its original russet and red, the tavernish Mildred no longer resembles chichi James. But Santoro’s pastas, in the best way, remind me so much of Jim Burke’s, from the harvest-spiced squash-and-sweetpotato tortellini arrayed in caramelized fall crops (I particularly loved the crisp, fruity quince) and carrot broth in the striking 12-inch-long penne coiled like cobras around a tremendous braised beef rib. Santoro gratinées the latter in old-school Mornay sauce, a mac ’n’ cheese that doesn’t draw its sophistication from lobster or truffles. Marinated in an aggressively spiced, housemade A.1. sauce, that beef sang, especially when paired with a glass of cool, peppery Aglianico del Vulture, a DOCG vino from southern Italy’s Basilicata region. The Mildred’s wine list is replete with esoteric values and lovable oddballs like this, and nothing seems to make the warm, upbeat staff (under the direction of front-of-the-house maestro Dorris) happier than pouring you a complimentary taste. Something white and bright like verdicchio cuts the richness of another of my favorite Mildred efforts: pig trotters seared in caramel, braised with apples and horseradish, shredded and tucked into hollowed potato cups. Not every dish was so successful. Wrapped in bacon and savoy cabbage, the slab of guinea-hen terrine was well made but poorly seasoned; mincing the pickled plums as finely as grains of kosher salt minimized their impact when scattered on top. One-note celery-root-andSmokehouse-apple soup would have worked as a quick shot, but poured tableside from a cherry-red teakettle, a whole bowl quickly grew tiresome. Cooked too hard, dark caramel glazed an otherwise lovely tart tatin for two in a veil of abrasive bitterness. A better ending arrived in pastry chef Emily Riddell’s light lemon tart festooned with citrus marshmallows and fresh huckleberries. Or you could always just ask for another bowl of sweetly spiced, housemade apple butter; the thick puree tasted as good straight off the spoon as it did on baker Katie Lynch’s warm loaves of bread. Santoro and Dorris have really surrounded themselves with a talented cast, including a third Michael (Rafidi), Santoro’s sous chef and sidekick for the past five years. So many Mikes, all with some magic, but it’ll take more than that to elevate this restaurant to its full potential. Fortunately, this crew is committed to the Mildred. “We signed a long lease,” Santoro says. Plenty of time to get to know him better. (adam.erace@citypaper.net)
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