Cheap oysters and other Jersey Shore delights | Let’s Eat

We’re back down the Shore for oyster deals and gluten-free options. Back home, plenty of new restaurants are out there, including a casino steak house and a new location for a favorite brunch spot. How about a cocktail that tastes like a light summer salad. And what’s going on with Bankroll, that $25 million sports bar?

⬇️ Read on for a quiz.

But first: Voting has commenced for The Inquirer’s 2023 Readers’ Choice Awards. The 15 categories run the gamut: breakfast sandwiches, tacos, pizza, wine bars, happy hours. Click over and cast your ballot!

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You’re not the only one shuttling back and forth to the Jersey Shore. Philadelphia’s chefs and hospitality pros are giving their EZ-Passes a workout, too. As contributor Sarah Maiellano reports, they’re bringing with them not only their kids and beach chairs, but their talent.

The phrase “cheap oysters” has your attention? Colleague Amy Rosenberg will take you around with Dakota Curran, oysterman to the dive bars, bringing 5,000 oysters a day out of Ludlam Bay and selling them at dive bars for two bucks each.

Can you eat gluten-free at the Jersey Shore? Critic Craig LaBan shares 12 best bets.

Want even more out of the Shore? Sign up for Amy’s Down the Shore newsletter.

Restaurateur Steve Martorano, who left South Philadelphia three decades ago for greater glory in South Florida and beyond, is back home with Martorano’s Prime, a richly appointed steak house, at Rivers Casino in Fishtown. Ribbon-cutting is today. Martorano said he’s going for a ’50s/’60s vibe inspired by a scene from the movie The Irishman that was shot downtown at Villa di Roma.

Martorano, 66, started in the biz with an unlicensed sandwich shop out of his South Philly apartment before going legit with an Italian restaurant in the Northeast called Steve’s Ristorante, which he renamed Macaroni’s and sold to two employees who still have it.

After relocating to Fort Lauderdale in 1993, he opened Cafe Martorano with a Sunday gravy menu, old movies on the screen, and late-night DJ music that he spun himself. Martorano began expanding the concept — to Vegas, to Atlantic City (now closed), and most recently the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh. In Philly, the restaurant includes a bakery overseen by his wife, Marsha. (In the photo below, that’s Marsha in the kitchen talking to chef John Martorano — Steve’s cousin — while Steve mugs for the camera.)

Here’s some back story, and don’t forget to try the meatballs.

Summer is really here when the BLTs hit the menu at Middle Child and Middle Child Clubhouse. The 2023 szn commences Friday: heirloom tomatoes from Urban Roots, Duke’s mayo, Leidy’s bacon, arugula dressed in a vinaigrette made from the tomatoes’ strained juices, sandwiched on Merzbacher’s rye.

Nirvana.

At Middle Child Clubhouse, the Center City eatery’s more upscale sibling in Fishtown, the “b” also means “bougie” this time out. Owner Matthew Cahn says he is going for “a fine-dining push” at that location at dinnertime.

“We are making this an experience,” said Cahn, whom Craig LaBan has dubbed “Philly’s Don Draper of sandwich-craft.”

You come in, they’ll tie a bib around your neck — “because this is really juicy” — and then you’ll be served the BLT along with a frozen glass coupe bearing a scoop of granita made from basil and tomato juice. Staff will then pour Topo Chico mineral water (or Champagne) over the granita. Tomato on tomato! Oh, and there’s an optional caviar supplement. The price isn’t set yet, and because supplies are limited, two people must share one of these special versions. BLT season runs four to five weeks.

A caprese salad cocktail? Colleague Jenn Ladd dropped into Media’s Two Fourteen, where beverage director Jeremy Winkler came up with the seasonally savory You Drivin’ Me Caprese. Jenn says it’s dry, balanced, and unexpectedly refreshing, despite packing 2 ounces of Bacardi and a half-ounce of garlic-infused rum. (Don’t worry — it’s just a whiff.)

You must remember this: Bitar’s, a Mediterranean grocery/eatery, occupied the corner of 10th and Federal Streets for more than 30 years until recently. This week, it became the new home of Casablanca Mediterranean Grill.

Newly arrived from Syria, Walid Baruki worked at Bitar’s but left to open the well-regarded Casablanca Moroccan Cuisine in Bryn Mawr with his brother Talal. But it shut down during the pandemic. To mount a comeback, they signed a contract with Aramark for a concession inside the Convention Center. Since they’re South Philadelphians, they decided to find a permanent spot nearby. Menu is similar to Bitar’s, and there’s a lovely market with Middle Eastern groceries and Soumaya & Sons pita for sale. There’s a great value in the chicken dinner ($27), which includes rice, pita, and vegetables (see it all below). There are plenty of vegan options.

Casablanca Mediterranean Grill, 947 Federal St. Hours: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday.

Sultry, low-lit, creative cocktails, a tight and light menu — if the new Poison Heart in Callowhill sounds like hit cocktail bars Le Caveau and Superfolie, it might be because owner Andrea Jenkins worked with Good King Tavern and Le Caveau’s Chloe Grigri, and husband Vincent Stipo.

Poison Heart is tucked into the storefront across from the 990 Spring Garden building (home of Liquid Arts, Lucky Well, and Kaiseki) that previously housed an Heirloom Kitchen pop-up and the W/N W/N coffeeshop; it’s also a half-block from Union Transfer. Robert Brown’s design melds mid-century modern with ’80s biker bar. Consulting chef Damon Menapace set up the menu: oysters, raclette fries, toasts, cheese and meat boards. Cocktails include a house freezer martini and a house freezer Sazerac.

Listen up, too. Jenkins’ friend Steve White, by day a chef at Urban, is an audiophile who set up a vintage Sansui receiver and Criterion VI speakers that make Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the bar’s namesake Ramones sound as fresh as they did nearly 50 years ago.

Poison Heart, 931 Spring Garden St. Hours: 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Tuesday-Saturday; kitchen open till midnight. No reservations.

Cafe Lift’s move from its home of 20 years in a refurbished factory on 13th Street in Callowhill to a cheery corner three blocks away at Ridge Avenue and Spring Garden Street is complete — a full year since groundbreaking. It’s beneath Lift’s familiar red arrow “cafe” sign.

Mike and Jeniphur Pasquarello’s brunch destination is set up on two floors, nearly twice the space of the original (45 seats downstairs, 60 upstairs), with an eight-seat coffee counter. (Coffee is by Maiden Coffee Roasters out of Asbury Park.) As Lift has grown, so has the menu, now pretty much reflective of the Haddonfield location’s.

The opening follows other Pasquarello places nearby (Prohibition Taproom and La Chinesca), plus Kensington Quarters, five minutes away in Fishtown.

Cafe Lift, 1124 Spring Garden St. Hours: 8 a.m.-3 p.m. daily.

Free ice cream: New parlor Lu & Aug’s (28 Rittenhouse Place, Ardmore) will give away one free small cone or cup (valued at $4.25) from 6-8 p.m. Thursday to mark its opening.

Charisse McGill, creator of French Toast Bites snacks, has been named executive director of the Farmers Market Coalition, a national nonprofit. Trivia: Her company is named Lokal Artisan Foods. Why spelled with a “k”? “To stand out a little bit, and because we sell something fattening,” she told me. “It’s ‘local’ but not low-cal.”

Kamp for Kids will host a food truck festival to benefit kids with autism from noon-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in the South Philadelphia Walmart lot, at 1675 S. Columbus Blvd.

V Marks the Shop, a vegan market at 1515 McKean St. in South Philadelphia, has announced it will close on Aug. 20 after 4½ years.

The contents of Bankroll, the $25 million sports bar that opened four months ago and scaled back its operation a month ago, are going up for auction. What’s going on?

Hook & Master, Jose Garces’ pizza and seafood bar in Kensington, announced that it is on a break pending relocation. The website hints at a new restaurant on the way at Second and Master Streets.

New hours: Amada in Radnor has added weekend brunch from 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. ... Vernick Fish has opened the OpenTable books on lunch (served 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday), which resumes Aug. 23.

What did a Florida jury find McDonald’s liable for last week?

A) a scalding-hot Chicken McNugget

B) scalding-hot coffee, again

C) an extra-grouchy Grimace character that scared a customer to death

D) misstating “billions and billions served” on a sign

Find out if you know the answer.

What is going on at the old Rangoon in Chinatown? — @goshint029

The Burmese restaurant at 112 N. Ninth St., which closed in late 2021 after 28 years, has been redone entirely, and now sports a spare, modern look with a counter, white walls accented by framed murals, and wooden floors. It “reopened” two weeks ago. I use quotation marks because it’s still named Rangoon but serves just one option: a tasty dim sum platter for the princely sum of $7.80. Staff told me that both the name and menu will be changing soon. Stay tuned.

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