Silk City Diner

Searching for Sunday brunch someplace new, we ended up at the newly revamped and reopened Silk City Diner on the edge of Northern Liberties. This decision was not influenced by the recent visit to Silk City by Food Network's bleached-blonde Guy, the winner of a previous The Next Food Network Star, to film for his series highlighting diners, but this visit was by default – the place we wanted to try was closed for vacation. Whaa? The whole staff of a restaurant is not allowed to go on vacation. You do it one at a time, so things keep rolling. Anyway...

I had never been to Silk City, a bar with connecting diner, before it changed hands and reopened this year for either dining or for late night binge drinking and dancing, so I can’t say if the "new" Silk City is better or worse than the "old" Silk City. I suspect in six months, if not already, people lamenting the death of "old" Silk City will have dried their tears.

The front door to Silk City leads into a mosaiked and glassed foyer where one must decide to take the door to the lounge, the bar, or the diner. Too old and wise to even think about drinking at 11 a.m., we chose the door to the diner. Our ten minute wait was extremely reasonable, considering waits at other brunch hot spots (hello, Morning Glory and Sabrina’s). While waiting in the foyer we enjoyed eau de bar, otherwise knows as piss, vomit, and the soap used to wash it away. No worries, once you step up into the diner, the smell dissipates.

I must admit, having a diner connected directly to a club is absolutely genius. When I find myself famished from a night out, I can stumble up the stairs, nosh, still keep my alcohol level at party with the stocked bar in the diner, and then fall back down into the lounge for more dancing. It’s one stop shopping, really.

The long metal dining car is filled with racing-stripe leather booths lining the front and side walls, and a long, blue-tiled counter with a red Formica top and swivel stools against the back wall. The bar in the diner is stocked with beer and alcohol at the ready with your Lager or Mimosa.

The brunch menu has your standard breakfast and light lunch offerings such as pancakes, eggs, and burgers, but is taken up a notch, as most restaurants in Philly, and any where, are required to do to stay in the game. I saw some interesting things on the menu that I would have liked to try, like the French toast stuffed with scrapple and topped with an egg, if only there had been some way to turn that scrapple into tempeh. I did not see one mention of tofu or tempeh anywhere, as an add-on or in an already existing dish. My suggestion would be to keep a block of tempeh in the fridge (it keeps forever), list it as a side, and vegetarians will be able to eat 80 percent of the menu with this one simple substitution. (We always feel slighted when paying for that omitted meat.)

I decided to get the heuvos rancheros – no omissions required. The dish came out with eggs, beans, salsa, and cheese on top of two blue and red fried tortillas with lettuce, sour cream, and canned (?) jalapeños on the side. I requested the eggs scrambled, since I hate runny yolks, and scrambled and dry they were – to the point of rubberiness! There was nothing spectacular about these huevos rancheros, but nothing wretched either.

My partner ordered the corn waffles topped with salmon, eggs, spinach, and hollandaise sauce. I was interested in this dish, but skipped since I did not see a viable soy substitution on the menu, but I should have just sucked it up and omitted the salmon, because... this dish is the shit! (I know this because I took a bite off the edge without salmon.) The corn waffle is essentially corn bread batter cooked in a waffle iron, and fits the bill perfectly for when the devil sitting on your right shoulder tells you to get a sweet waffle, but the angel on your left shoulder tells you should eat something more substantial. My partner also requested his eggs scrambled, but, unlike me, he received eggs cooked perfectly. The mildly sweet cornbread, protein-rich eggs and salmon, and the fat-laden hollandaise sauce cover all your morning cravings. Oh, yeah, there's some home fries on the plate, too.

Silk City’s food scorecard – one great dish and one so-so dish – is even, but they pulled ahead with speedy and friendly service. In all fairness, I might need to give Silk City's food another try – perhaps for dinner or a late night snack after an apertif in the conjoining lounge.

Silk City Diner, 435 Spring Garden St., Philadelphia, PA 19123 215-592-8838
4 p.m.-2 a.m. (food from 5 p.m.-1 a.m.)
Sunday Brunch, 10 a.m-3:30 p.m.