Supper’s Restaurant Week excels but avoid the cheese | The Triangle

Supper’s Restaurant Week excels but avoid the cheese

Philadelphia’s Center City Restaurant Week returned last week, during which hundreds of restaurants around the city provided a three-course lunch or dinner for $20 or $35 per person respectively. As an avid Restaurant Week participant, I decided to try the highly recommended restaurant Supper.
Located at 926 South St., Supper offers seasonal American dishes with fresh local ingredients. Their menu includes dishes that are natural and pleasant but with a little twist. The restaurant itself has an atmosphere that is warm, friendly and welcoming. It includes two floors, with an open kitchen on the first floor for the diners to get a peek behind the scenes. The majority of the restaurant’s walls are brick, and there are bars on both floors that provide seasonal cocktails and fine wines.

When I looked at its Restaurant Week menu, I could definitely understand the restaurant’s goal and vision for its dishes. The menu included three-course dinners with several different options. The first course menu included a choice of either a smoked sweet potato soup; a beet and fennel salad with frisee, walnuts, house ricotta, and orange gremolata; or a Blue Elephant Farm greens and herbs salad. The second course menu included a choice of either a baked Maine codfish, an Amish-style chicken and waffles, or a toasted barley risotto with wild mushroom. Lastly, the third course menu offered a choice of either a chocolate blackout cake, Supper’s pie of the week a la mode, or a pear cranberry cobbler with candied ginger ice cream. After looking at the menu, I chose the smoked sweet potato soup to start, followed by the toasted barley risotto with wild mushroom, and for dessert, the pie of the week, which I later found out was chocolate chip. In addition, I decided to have the daily cheese platter as an appetizer.

To begin my dining experience at Supper, the waiter brought out the cheese platter. That I was supposed to eat the cheese platter before my dinner surprised me, because I was used to eating it as an accompaniment to my dessert. Nevertheless, I tried all the different cheeses on the plate. The daily cheese selection included blue cheese, Swiss cheese, and both sharp and creamy goat cheeses. Additionally, there was a selection of honeys, jams, walnuts and toasted bread slices to pair with the cheeses. Although the restaurant’s cheese platter included daily, fresh cheeses, I wouldn’t say it was exceptional, especially since I had to pay $25 for the platter alone. In my opinion, it was definitely not worth the money.
As my first course was delivered to the table, I was hoping for a dish that would pick up the sad note I was left with after the cheese platter. My smoked sweet potato soup included cinnamon marshmallows, apples and sage. The first few sips of the soup were delicious, however the more I sipped, the sweeter and heavier it tasted. By the time I finished two-thirds of the soup I didn’t have the appetite to finish the rest as it was too heavy for me.

The second course was the toasted barley risotto with wild mushroom, sunchoke, Brussels sprouts and sage. This dish was comforting, warm and tasteful. The different flavors that this risotto provided were intense and bold. After eating the entire plate, I was excited for the dessert.
Chocolate chip pie a la mode was my final course. It wasn’t overly sweet, but instead struck a perfect balance between the pie and its vanilla ice cream topping. I was very impressed with this dessert, considering it was the first time that I’d ever had chocolate chip pie. Overall, this was my favorite course.

On the whole, I would say that my experience dining at Supper started out on the wrong foot, but ended on a great note. The service was fantastic, and the restaurant’s ambiance was warm and kind. I would recommend Supper for either brunch or dinner.