Circles

It's hard to get delivery (from a restaurant I'd want to eat at) where I live. We're juuuust out of delivery range for most Center City restaurants. So, when I found out that Circles Contemporary Asian Cuisine, a casual Thai take-out in the Newbold neighborhood delivers to my area, I was on it.

I cannot tell you what Circles looks like, because I've never been there, and probably never will. That's the beauty of delivery — they come to me! From what I hear it's a corner take-out joint with a glass partition separating the cashier and kitchen from walk-in customers and the waiting room, so don't head to Circles for a romantic evening of dining out.

The vegetarian summer rolls are standard fare with vermicelli noodles, carrots, scallions, lettuce, and basil. I would have loved less lettuce and more herbs. The peanut dipping sauce is sweet with crushed peanuts.
Fried tofu with a side of thin, sweet and sour sauce with crushed peanuts arrives extra crispy thanks to the the corner of the Styrofoam box that is thoughtfully cut off to allow the steam to escape. At $2.95, the fried tofu is a great deal.
Massaman curry with fried tofu, potatoes, onions, and peanuts is aromatic and creamy, but lacks the rich depth of spices I so love about massaman curry. Circles' massaman curry is heavy on some spice giving it a strong citrus flavor, perhaps galangal or lemongrass. While a perfectly fine massaman, Circles' rendition doesn't match up to my first and favorite massaman, and I am always on the quest to find "that" massaman.Circles' tofu pad Thai gets major props for perfectly balancing the sweet, spicy, sour, and salty components of pad Thai sauce, and also for saucing the noodles perfectly — not too dry, and not too wet. Green mango slices, a lime wedge, crushed peanuts, scallions, and julienned carrots and cabbage top off the noodles.

I can't think of a better pad Thai I've had in Philadelphia. Maybe at Chabbaa Thai, but it's in Manayunk, which I don't consider the city proper, and Chabbaa Thai certainly doesn't deliver to my house.

Spice levels at Circles seem to change daily. I always order medium, and sometimes it comes mild, sometimes it comes spicy.

Circles always quotes me 40 minutes for delivery, and always delivers in under 40 minutes.

There's also a $2 delivery charge included on your ticket, which may or may not be include on the over-the-phone total quote. The first time the delivery guy came to the door and asked for more money than I was quoted, I was a bit suspicious, but after inspecting the receipt I found the $2 delivery charge.

Is Circles the best Thai in the city? I think Circles is about on par with any good Thai restaurant, but the fact that they come to my house puts them at the top of my list, and makes them my go-to Thai restaurant.

Circles Contemporary Asian Cuisine
1516 Tasker St., Philadelphia, PA 19145
215-687-1778
Mon: 5-11 p.m. Tue-Sun: 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

Sampan

Sampan's mostly veggie-unfriendly menu has kept me away from the chic, Asian-fusion restaurant on Philly's 13th St. restaurant row, despite having a celebrity chef (sorry, but I don't know Michael Schulson, his TV appearances, and his Atlantic City restaurant, Izakaya, from Adam), and the fact that at the bottom of the menu a statement is printed saying vegetarian accommodations can be made. What finally got us in the door — and out the back door — was Sampan's graffiti bar and happy hour. An outdoor, sheltered-from-the-elements space with a long communal table and bar, both made of steel, lies just out back from the restaurant. The back wall and table tops are all graffiti-ed up by artists giving the space a gritty, but hip, urban feel. I like!Happy hour runs Monday-Friday from 5-7pm with $2 snacks and a daily-changing $4 cocktail. You know what would be nice? If the Graffiti Bar had an actual bartender during happy hour. When we went — on a Friday, no less — there was no bartender until 7pm, so servers from indoors periodically came out to check on us and take orders to give to the indoor bar.The $4 cocktail of the day was coconut rum with cherry soda — like a cherry Coke with subtle hints of coconut — and, mmm, I could drink these all day long.
The happy hour menu only has one vegetarian item — satay corn — so that's what I went with. Nothing more than grilled corn on a skewer siting on a dab of mayonnaise, topped with cilantro micro-greens, and accompanied by a wedge of salted lime and a little pile of togarashi (Japanese chili powder) to bring a little Asian to the fusion. The $2 price tag was about right.

Since we had such a nice server, and corn is not enough for dinner, we decided to ask about the vegetarian accommodations. Basically, four or so dishes that can easily have the meat removed (the pad Thai, mapo tofu, Korean rice cake, and fried rice), along with a couple of salads and starters that are already vegetarian are Sampan's accommodations.I went for the pad Thai sans shrimp, and what arrived was the blandest pad Thai I have ever had. Ever! It tasted like I was eating buttered spaghetti. I mentioned this to our server, and then was explained that the chef leaves off the fish sauce-inclusive pad Thai sauce when anyone orders the dish without shrimp, in assumption that the person is vegetarian. That explains the blandness!

Leaving off the pad Thai sauce is simultaneously considerate to vegetarians and extremely lame. Not hardly what I'd expect from a celebrity chef that claims vegetarian accommodations can be made on their menu. How about a pad Thai sauce without fish sauce? We also paid full price for this dish, which, unfortunately for vegetarians, is the norm at most restaurants when meat is omitted, but, dang, full price for meat-less and sauce-less noodles!The Korean rice cakes sans sausage has Asian greens and a sauce with a pleasant mix of spiciness and vinegar, and is actually the better of the two dishes. I'm just not a fan of rice cakes which are heavy, chewy pieces of steamed glutinous rice flour that resemble dense pasta. It's the heft that gets me. I am a fan of the celery micro-greens that garnished the dish. Sampan apparently has an arsenal of piquant, not-your-average micro-greens back in the kitchen.

A bartender-less bar during happy hour and lame vegetarian accommodations. If it weren't for the exceptional server we had, I would have left in a sour mood instead of smiling ear to ear, making a point to thank the server for such a wonderful evening.

Sampan
124 S. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-732-3501
Lunch: Mon-Fri 11:30am-4pm
Dinner: Mon-Thurs 5-11pm, Fri-Sat 5pm-midnight, Sun 5-10pm

Le Shio

The Pan Asian restaurant, Le Shio, opened up in the Fairfax Shopping Center on Concord pike back in January, so I convince a friend to meet me there for lunch a couple months after the restaurant's opening. I haven't seen her since. Hope she's not mad at me about the dining choice.

Dark and minimal describes the sleek, industrial black interior of Le Shio. A bar sits off in the front corner, a low wall bisects the middle, and a sushi bar resides on the back wall. Even in the daytime, Le Shio keeps the lights dimmed down low on their food.

The menu is extensive and spans many Asian cuisines, so making up your mind on what to order may be difficult. Most items have a vegetable or tofu option, and there's even a "wok self creation" where you choose the protein, vegetables, and sauce.
A 24-piece vegetarian maki sushi platter for $11 sounds too good to be true. And it is. The platter lacks the variety you find on standard vegetable sushi platters. You're given three maki rolls, each cut into eight pieces.

You'd do better ordering three vegetable maki rolls of your choice than having the choice be made for you. The platter had an avocado, cucumber asparagus and radish roll; avocado and cucumber roll; and oshinko roll. Order those three rolls a la cart for only $10.

Until now, I thought there was no way to make bad vegetable sushi, but Le Shio managed to do it. The maki rolls were loosely rolled, misshapen, and the rice on the outside of the nori was falling off.
Trying to up the fancy factor, Le Shio puts mixed greens in the Japanese carrot and ginger dressed salad. I prefer the crunch of classic iceberg in this situation with such a weighty dressing.
I have no idea what flavor the blue-green colored wrappers on the Chinese steamed vegetable dumplings is supposed to be. My guess is that these are not made in house (why would anyone make blue-green dumplings?), but are frozen. The chewy, hard edges also point to the dumplings being frozen.

Service at Le Shio with multiple servers tending to our table was atrocious. The worst of it was when one server actually swooped in and tried to wrestle the chopsticks out of my hand (no exaggeration) as I was packing up a to-go box, saying that they'd pack up the leftovers. No, it's too late. You lost your chance while you were tending some other table. Also, do not touch me.

Not impressed with my first visit, I waited about a month and stopped in for takeout to avoid a wrestling match, and to be able to see my food in the daylight. I was tempted to make my own wok creation, but those never come out as well as imagined, so decided to get pad Thai as a litmus test. It's not on the menu, but you can order pad Thai with tofu. Besides the standard mung bean sprouts, you'll also get a bevy of vegetables : carrots, broccoli, celery, mushrooms, baby corn, snap peas, and zucchini.

Le Shio's pad is one of the blandest I've had. If you like pad Thai funked up with fish sauce, you will not find it here. If you like pad Thai sweet and tangy, you won't find it here, either. It's noodle-y and Asian-esque, and that's about it. Now, there's nothing unpleasant about Le Shio's pad Thai — noodles, vegetables and tofu are cooked well — it's just bland.
The Balinese mango salad is advertised as coming with spicy chili dressing, but the dressing was only sweet.

It seems as though Le Shio is taking some shortcuts in the kitchen and dumbing down flavors. Reviews out there already are mixed with some in love and others not so much. My guess is that Le Shio has found favor with those who are comfortable with Asian cuisine only when it is toned down. This a strategy that will probably work for Le Shio.

Le Shio
Fairfax Shopping Center
2303 Concord Pike, Wilmington, DE 19803
302-888-0145
Sun-Thurs: 11am-10pm
Fri-Sat: 11am-11pm

Pad Thai At Banana Leaf

Banana Leaf in Chinatown is great because it serves Malaysian food, which means there are, like, 200 items on the menu covering a whole handful of Southeast Asian cuisines. It's also right outside the door from the Troc and the Convention Center - not that the rest of Chinatown is that far away.

I've eaten at Banana Leaf a few times (see Thai basil noodle here), but have never had their pad Thai, a favorite Thai noodle carb-fest. I finally put their pad Thai to the test.
Oh, I did scarf this down in minutes flat, but Banana Leaf's pad Thai does not even enter into the list of bests. The noodles were too wet with overly sweet sauce, albeit not the wettest or sweetest sauce I've ever had - that distinction goes to Soybean Asian Grille. The fish sauce was minimal, though, and that's a plus for me.

And what's with the mound of bean sprouts doused with sweet chili sauce? Too sweet, too many bean sprouts.

I randomly check restaurant inspections of restaurants I visit, and I admit that it's unfair that I don't do this with every write-up, but Banana Leaf's sanitation is horrifyingly slack (click map marker). It gives me pause.

Banana Leaf
1009 Arch St., Philadelphia, PA, 19107
215-592-4737