PLEASURES OF THE PALATE: A Free Lunch At Sampan
BY LEN LEAR/ We’ve all heard the expression, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” but there’s an exception to every rule. Thus, on Friday, March 5, as a way of introducing his new lunch menu, chef Michael Schulson at Midtown Village’s modern Asian restaurant, Sampan, 122 South 13th Street, will demonstrate his exception.
On that one day only, from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., chef Schulson will offer to every single customer a free pork “bahn mi” sandwich (a kind of Vietnamese hoagie), complete with chips and a nonalcoholic beverage. The entire lunch menu will also be available for purchase. Lunch is served only at the restaurant’s counter seating areas, facing the bar and open kitchen.
Lunch items normally include a selection of bahn mi in varieties such as Berkshire pork belly with cucumber and carrots; tuna with pickle, cucumber, scallion and Thai basil; and meatball with Thai basil, fish sauce and lettuce. Also on hand are noodle dishes such as shrimp pad Thai with tofu, egg and peanut; and salads such as wild mushroom with goat cheese, puffed rice and truffle; and chicken “bi bim bap” with charred rice, egg and sesame. Prices range from $6 to $9.
Chef Schulson has quite an impressive resume. When he was the executive chef at Stephen Starr’s Pod a decade ago on the Penn campus, we absolutely loved his creation of a rock shrimp appetizer, which is still one of our favorite dishes of all time. It is still on the menu at Pod, and it has been copied by countless other Asian restaurants such as Morimoto and Zama.
Schulson was also a chef at Buddakan, and he was the executive chef at Izakaya at the Borgata Hotel/Casino in Atlantic City. The handsome chef has become a media darling with his TV shows, “Pantry Raid” and “Ultimate Cake Off”. His recipe for the Vietnamese hoagie was recently featured on the NBC’s “Today Show”. For more information about Schulson, visit www.michaelschulson.com. For more on Sampan or to make a reservation, call (215) 732-3501 or visit www.restaurantsampan.com.
SPICY NEW OWNER/CHEF
Café Spice, the Indian restaurant at 35 S.2nd Street in Old City, has a new executive chef/owner, Paul Sankaralingam, who purchased the property late last year and just last week introduced a new, lower-priced menu. Born in Sattur, India, Sankaralingam grew up working in his own family’s restaurants and eventually attended Culinary College in India. At the age of 21, he moved to Philadelphia to pursue a career in the restaurant business. He started out at Café Spice as a bus boy and worked his way up to the kitchen and eventually all the way to executive chef by 2003. Chef Paul left in 2006 and purchased the existing Café Spice Express in the Liberty Place Food Court at 16th & Chestnut Streets in 2007. Café Spice Express was so successful that last year Paul was able to buy his original place of employment, Café Spice in Old City. Is that the American Dream, or what?
Some of the updated menu highlights include aam paneer tikka, which is homemade cheese stuffed with mango, mint, fennel and raisin, then cooked in a clay oven ($7); lamb shammi kabab with fennel, chopped ginger, green chili and crushed cumin ($8.25); Madras fish curry grilled tilapia served over tamarind flavored coconut sauce ($17); and malai kofta vegetable dumplings cooked in cashew almond gravy ($14). Entree prices range from $14 to $22.
This full-service restaurant and bar, which can seat up to 130 people, has just begun offering a two-course meal special with choices from the regular menu plus a glass of wine for $22 per person on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. “Wine Down Wednesdays” include a three-course $45 prix-fixe menu per couple and half-price bottles from the wine list. Friday nights host live Indian music starting at 11 p.m., and validated parking is available at the garage next door for $9 Sunday thru Thursday and $15 Fridays and Saturday. Lunch is served Friday through Sunday starting at 11:30 a.m., and dinner is served seven nights a week.
For more information or reservations, call (215) 627-6273 or visit http://cafespicephilly.net/.
