Wendy's Berry Almond Chicken Salad

Last night, Swagger, FF, and I took a jaunt in the jalopy so I could bribe them into eating some of the fast food world's newest offerings. I ended up eating this one myself, the new Berry Almond Chicken Salad from Wendy's along with their new Wild Berry Tea. The press release came in a scant three hours before I tried the salad, and boasted a plethora of things I love, including an exhaustive array of one specific component of the salad. Or so I thought. What with the recent mayonnaise-based chicken salad popularity in the Subway and Arby's markets, I expected a similar coup from their female counterpart with the advertising focused on the trendy acai and fruit additions, but it turned out to look like most of the salads on the commercial market today.

All of the components of this salad were represented differently than how I'd expected them to be. With an absurd $6.99 price tag, I inwardly groaned. Not because I'd also just bought Swagger twenty five spicy chicken nuggets, but because I'd never willingly spent so much on a vegetable based salad before. From the get-go, the salad distinctly separates itself into two categories: ingredients that work well together, and ingredients that just fall short.

This being the first day of the salad's nationwide debut, I was disappointed, but not surprised, that my local Wendy's employees got the chicken wrong. Instead of the grilled chicken, one of the spicy chicken fillets was diced up in the salad. Oddly enough, this combination worked. With the nutty creaminess from the parmesan, the chicken's spice was toned down and I found myself enjoying the different play of textures within each bite. The salad appears to give you your money's worth in the parmesan department. The entire upper third of my bowl was filled with curly parmesan slices. The berries, though obviously fresh and juicy, came few and far between with each bite. The blueberries erred toward the anemic side and ended up uselessly rolling into the nether regions of the bowl, but the strawberries were the real star of the show, providing less flavor than the more powerful proteins, but a sweetness that balanced the dish out. The lettuce, some pieces clearly leftover from crappy iceberg salads and others, leafy and earthy, brought it all together with an interesting textural distinction and vaguely healthy air.

Honestly, if the salad had just stopped at chicken, cheese, berries, and a little arugula on top, I'd have been happy right there. With the addition of more textural elements, like the raspberry-acai vinaigrette and the toasted almonds, the salad took an irritating spin toward the overloaded. Both the nuts and the sauce completely disappeared behind the wakes of the more powerful flavors. The sauce left a wet, acidic aftertaste behind and the nuts acted as though they weren't there at all. It bothered me that elements that definitely bumped the price and calorie level of the salad played no integral role in improving the flavor.

Overall, I was pleased that Wendy's, in attempting to go beyond the traditional constraints of limp, over-dressed fast food vegetal fare, provided a good prototype for its imitators, but could not find enough to enjoy about this salad that justified its price tag and uniqueness. In a fast food market, this is an anomaly, but for home cooks, Wendy's isn't reinventing the wheel.

Avocado Week: Appetizer

Avocado Week's massive delicious seven-course dinner kicks off with a few appetizers: tempura avocado, two ways. We're a big fan of doing it two ways here at Foodette Reviews. Ladies???? AM I RIGHT?The avocado was battered in a combination of tempura and white corn masa for a little extra crunch. We served it with homemade chips and SO MANY SAUCES. There might have been four. The first preparation had small chunks of fried avocado on chopsticks, dusted with chili powder and lime juice on top.

The second preparation was more involved, with spearing a frozen, perfectly round avocado half and frying it up. It made for a gorgeous presentation and was dubbed nature's first salsa bowl. It was a proud day.

Little Baby's Ice Cream

I'm screaming! Are you screaming?

Caught up with Little Baby's Ice Cream, one of Philly's newest mobile food purveyors — tricycle is how they roll — on their first day of business this past weekend at the Trenton Avenue Arts Festival. It was a busy weekend, as they then triked it on over to the Punk Rock Flea Market the next day.Little Baby's Ice Cream hand makes some tasty and eclectic ice cream flavors that make my frozen custard lovin' heart go pitter-pat. Flavors like cardamom caramel, balsamic banana, earl grey sriracha, bourbon bourbon vanilla, birch beer vanilla bean. They even make a vegan ice cream so all the kids can scream!!
I sampled a scoop each of cardamom caramel and vegan coconut tea. Oh, am I going to steal Little Baby's idea of cardamom ice cream with caramel ribbons running throughout! Creamy and dreamy. And the vegan coconut tea ice cream made with coconut milk was just as good and rich, albeit not as creamy, but that's just how ice cream without cream goes.To find out where Little Baby's Ice Cream is going to show up next, follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Avocado Week: Breakfast

It's Avocado Week and we're starting with breakfast, the first and arguably most badass meal of the day. Shove these tacos into your mouth with molten hot coffee and go blearily click around on reddit fifteen minutes before work.Components: Tortillas. Guacamole. Scrambled eggs. Peppered bacon. Crispy jalapenos.
And gratuitous amounts of hot sauce.
OM NOMS. So easy, even the Pioneer Woman could do it. Albeit with more butter, but still.
Tomorrow's avocado porn: Tempura battered avocado, two ways!

Frankford Hall

According to the social media that I follow, everyone in Philadelphia has already stopped by Stephen Starr's Frankford Hall, the barely week-old German beer garden in Fishtown.

And why not! With spring in the air, and people itching to dine al fresco, Frankford Hall certainly has the space to pack in the hoards — 240 seats outside and 160 seats under cover of the open air industrial dining hall.Starr is undoubtedly a master of creating a themed atmosphere to accompany his restaurants, and he's done an excellent job of transporting diners to a huge, outdoor German beer garden complete with long communal tables and benches, four trees for shade, two ping pong tables, and even an oompah band in lederhosen and dirndl playing traditional Bavarian songs!

The atmosphere is relaxed and convivial, with patrons ranging from families with strollers, bros, the indie crowd, and your mom and dad. Everyone can rally around a stein of beer!There are 9 beers on draft, with most available by the half or full liter, and 10 beers available by the bottle. Most of the beers are German, but Yuengling, Miller Lite, and couple of Dogfish Head beers make the list, as well.

If you don't drink beer, a very short list of wines is available — one sparkling, one white, and one red. There is also liquor available, but the selection is limited. The bar doesn't even have the bottles on display, so you'll have to ask.Frankford Hall is set up like a fast food establishment, in that you order food at the walk-up counter, and if the food needs time to prepare a server will bring it to your table. Where you sit is up to you; find a spot and slide in. Drinks are ordered at one of the two bars. Beer and liquor can be ordered at the indoor bar, and beer only can be ordered at the outdoor walk-up window.

The menu is short and sweet, but filled with German classics like sausages, spaetzle, soft pretzels, German potato salad, red cabbage, and sauerkraut.Starr thoughtfully included a vegetarian sausage on the menu, which seems to be very similar to a Tofurky beer brat (our order taker was unsure about the sausage's origin). These are big, peppery, soy-based sausages that come with your choice of either sauerkraut of red cabbage. The warm, sweet and sour red cabbage is stewed with apples and spices until tender.

If you want to eat these like a hot dog, be sure to add a bun to your sausage order, otherwise all of the sausages come as is.You can further dress up your sausage (or pretzel and fries) with condiments from a couple of carts in the center of the beer garden. The curry ketchup has just a hint of curry, the sweet mustard has whole mustard seeds and is perfectly sweet without being cloying, and the Dijon mustard is quite spicy.
I was excited for the spaeztle, a little German egg noodle that can be so good, but the spaetzle with cheese and onions is a hot mess. Drowned in a grainy, heavy cheese sauce studded with caramelized onions, this is not a dish anyone would want to eat on a warm day. Not even sure a couple steins of beer could make this dish appetizing.

There is a non-vegetarian spaetzle with gravy on the menu, and, hopefully, it is much better.If you like to include something from the vegetable food group in your meal, there is a mixed green salad with radishes, as well as a cucumber salad on the menu. A sucker for all cucumber salads, we got the cool cucumber salad with red onions and dill sour cream dressing. Refreshing with just a hint of dill, the cucumber salad is perfect warm weather food.

Pretzel hawkers walk around with baskets of massive pretzels, but I couldn't bring myself to eat the equivalent of a loaf of bread. When I laughed at their size, the pretzel hawker informed me that smaller pretzels can be ordered at the food window. Next time.

The food is simple at Frankford Hall, and is probably not intended as the main draw. The outdoor dining and steins of beer are where it's at, mein Schatz!

Frankford Hall
1210 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19125
(215) 634-3338

Davio's Northern Italian Steakhouse Frozen Philly Cheesesteak Spring Rolls

I didn't think it was possible to embarrass a country whose people, six or seven generations back, spawned the Jersey Shore cast members (with the ignoble exception of J-WOWW) but Davio's manages to do so. Here, we have Davio's Northern Italian Steakhouse Frozen Philly Cheesesteak Spring Rolls. As you may know, spring rolls, especially ones of the Philadelphia sandwich-based ilk, are a huge staple in Northern Italian Steakhouse cuisine, often known as "cazzatietta" by the locals, a colloquial term for "little bullshit." They are usually accompanied by other traditional Northern Italian Steakhouse favorites like crab cake sandwiches, Chicken McNuggets, and the leftover dregs of a discarded Mountain Dew.Davio's Philly Cheesesteak Egg Rolls seem to have a rather varied cult following, ranging from one supposed Michelin-rated thrill seeker's notion that these are the best things he's ever eaten, (suck it, Bouloud!) to others emphasizing the somewhat Applebee's-esque nature of the whole thing. Having no interest in driving to one of the restaurants, I picked these up while they were on sale at Stop and Shop, interestingly devoid of paper towels, bottled water, and duct tape. Northampton, where is your pride?!On the package, Davio's goes as far as to rhetorically ask me, "Yeah, they're Philly Cheesesteak Rolls. What are you going to do about it?" What indeed, Immanuel Kant? Allow me to utilize the categorical imperative and assume that, if I bought these, I must eat them. Doi. Davio's recommends no less than sixty thousand methods of preparation with a separate Amazon bestseller rated booklet sold separately, but I chose for the ever-reliable nuke and sear method while Keepitcoming was at hot yoga. I never fail to disappoint.The egg roll dough errs toward the thick side and tends to get gummy toward the middle, but the innards are plentiful and don't disintegrate in the cooking process. The filling can best be described as frozen cheeseburger dip or the gunk inside a White Castle cheeseburger as it is extremely rendered down when you prepare them, with the obvious replacement of the squishy bun with a crispy, greasy egg roll shell. I knew when I bought these that they wouldn't be "tender shaved steak with a blend of Italian cheeses," but I figured that I'd like them just the same. And in all honesty, I do, especially with a garnish of Italian Sir Kensington's Spiced Ketchup and Italian Salsa Verde. Despite that they are very small and not filling in the slightest and that the cheeses taste scarily identical to the flavor powder on Cheez Doodles, I think that if these were stripped of their pretension and restaurant-generated "reputation" they'd make a fantastic appetizer or party snack, but the price is so high at $6 for 6 rolls and $13 for 4 rolls at the restaurant that it's almost not worth the corners they cut. These would be just as easy to make on your own and you could probably make twice the yield for the same price.

Mama Mary's Soul Food, New Haven, CT

I don't know what you're doing to celebrate the return of Our Lord Jesus Christ in his much-hyped 2011 Rapture tour, but Swagger and I went into New Haven to toast one of our last three meals on earth with some soul food at Mama Mary's.
Mama Mary's Soul Food, predecesed by Sandra's, is a surprisingly upscale establishment on Whalley Avenue, a restaurant in muted earth tones and metals with quirky, blasphemous touches one notices mid-bite. Some are funky, like sitting in refurbished pews and taking menus out of the hymn book racks, and some a little strange, like the haphazard mismatched living room set tables to the right, where plush armchairs crowd each other around small bar tables, flanked by booth seats three feet away from the tables they are supposed to occupy. Michael Jackson, gospel, and soft R&B plays softly above as the fans whir and a steady stream of people filter in and out.

The service, though painstakingly slow, is worth the shift from a hectic schedule to soul food time. Upon ordering, we were promptly served our respective drinks, a delicious homemade sweet tea and lemonade, and two thick slices of the most tender, fresh cornbread I have ever been privy to consume, the top half inch of it soaked in butter. When the Rapture comes, it would do you wise to wander around Mama Mary's. Remember, when the looting begins, the cornbread can be yours. This is a side dish that I would gladly come back for. Not only is it free, but it is laced with just a slight sweetness and a soft, moist crumble that falls apart at the slightest fork prod.With this as a small tease in mind, I expected nothing short of mind-blowing entrees and sides. We took a sweeping approach to their menu, taking advantage of the easily customizable dishes to order the maximum number of different items we could possibly sample. Swagger dove right into the scarier parts, ordering chitterlings with collard greens and candied yams and I opted for a more prosaic, yet blatantly Southern dish, fried catfish with macaroni and cheese and fried okra.The small plate, roughly the size of a small watermelon, was heaped with orbs of fried okra and a large pile of pasta. The star of the plate, the catfish, occupied a scant quarter of the plate, but was piled high. After sampling pieces of each dish, it was apparent that this was a restaurant where one would go for the chicken (or fish) but stay for the sides. The catfish wasn't particularly outstanding on its own, but with a few squirts of the well-loved Kurtz hot sauce, present at all tables, it was transformed into a vinegar-heavy, spicy fish with a delicate crunch and buttery, flaky texture.

Both sets of sides were even more sumptuous, the fried okra my new alternative for popcorn chicken. That was a flavorful snack, with a light batter that belied its weighty center, with a slight heat and a heavy crunch. This was the first time I'd ever eaten okra, and it was an absolutely perfect example. The vegetable inside was firm and fresh and needed no seasoning to eat, simply providing an earthy, salty flavor on its own. It stayed crispy for a few hours and made an excellent afternoon snack. The macaroni and cheese was regrettably unimpressive, with a cheese-heavy yet flavorless texture and a presence that seemed only to serve the purpose of filling rather than sating the palate. Wholly ignored by all.Swagger says, "I, on the other hand decided to go for a more exotic and possibly more authentic dish at Mama Mary’s. From the moment when I was essentially challenged by the menu by it saying “for a true Southerner”, I felt that it was my duty as a former Southerner to get the chitterlings or as I was taught to pronounce “chit’lins”. For the people who don’t know, chit’lins are pig intestine. The chit’lins at Mama Mary’s was absolutely delicious. They had the smarmy distinctive stink of what a good chit’lin should have. (Note from Foodette: They carry the pungent odor of boiled human skin.) It had a soft melt in your mouth texture with a little bit of chewiness. They were cooked in a spicy sauce with just the right amount of heat and flavor as to not overtake the natural taste of the chit’lins.

The sides I opted to get were the candied yams and collard greens. The collard greens were nothing too special but the candied yams were a whole different story. When biting into a piece of heaven that was the candied yam, I may have literally saw Jesus’s eyes. This type of sensation has only happened on one other occasion. The yams were cooked to a soft melt in your mouth softness in light cinnamon flavored syrup. I could probably eat these yams all day and every day. Candied is an understatement here. These were more like dessert yams, with a caramelized sauce and a fork-tender yield. They brought the ignoble tater to a beautiful place, where the starches were melted down to a pudding-like consistency, married to the very sugar molecules themselves. Just for the candied yams I would go back again. The candied yams and cornbread at Mama Mary’s are possibly the best things ever. (Note from Foodette: Swagger let me eat his last yam and now I must name my first born after him.)"

If the world ends, we'll probably be around until October 21st. After all, this blog is a sure sign of hell on earth and none of us are going up with Jesus, unless it's to slip him some whipped cream vodka for whatever heaven-tastic party he's planning up there. See you on the other side of the Rapture, folks. It's been a good run.