Koo Zee Doo -Portugueze in Northern Liberties

I have to admit having some trepidation about Koo Zee Doo, the new Portuguese restaurant at 614 North Second Street. It seemed almost eerily similar in concept to their neighbors a few doors up at Kong: both new places featuring experienced chefs interpreting the traditional cuisine of their wives' families. In the case of Kong, it's the street food of Hong Kong; for Koo Zee Doo it's the homey cooking of Portugal.

A few doors north, Kong's versions of Chinese street food have been disappointing, neither authentic nor all that tasty on an absolute level. So we were concerned - how well would this chef be able to replicate and innovate when working with Portuguese cuisine that he didn't grow up eating?

Well, either chef David Gilberg is a good student, or his wife Carla Gonçalves is an excellent teacher, or both, because the food we had at two different dinners was both true to its roots, and consistently delicious. I'm no authority on Portuguese food, but on our first visit we had a native Portugeezer with us to weigh-in on the authenticity issue. After some initial skepticism, he pronounced that most things felt "right" or were at least recognizable as valid interpretations. I'm personally not all that concerned about how "correct" the food is, as long as it's tasty, but I certainly find it more interesting if it's accurately reflecting its origins.

That said, any creative act should show some traces of its creator, and reflect its place and time, and that's certainly the case here. It's Portuguese food, but made by an American chef, in Philadelphia, in 2009. So what shows up on your plate might not be exactly as any random Portuguese grandmother would make it, but I'm sure she wouldn't find it unfamiliar, or disrespectful.

The meal starts with some wonderful bread, baked in-house by Carla Gonçalves, who had already made quite a reputation in town for her baking at the previous restaurants where she and David Gilberg had worked previously. Her breads at Coquette, and even more so, her biscuits and Kimmelweck rolls at the Ugly American, had created a significant buzz. Koo Zee Doo is the most impressive showing yet by the pair, probably because it's their own place, and they're free to do things their own way, rather than collaborating with quirky owners. The breads here are a light French-Bread-ish roll, and Broa, a dense cornmeal-based bread typical of Portugal.

We started with the Queijo Fresco, a light goat's milk cheese, and the Caldo Verde, a hearty potato and collard greens soup, studded with spicy chouriço sausage. Most noteworthy was the Salada de Bacalhau com Grão em Bico, a chickpea salad with house-cured salt cod and hard-boiled egg. The fish had a wonderful firm texture and intense, salty flavor, but was much more fresh tasting and less stringy than any conventional dried cod I've ever had.

The Carne de Porco à Alentenjano (Pork and Clams) is absolutely addictive. Tender cubes of pork are accompanied by tender clams, and cubes of perfectly roasted potato, both crispy and fluffy. Those elements would be perfectly sufficient to make this noteworthy, but there's also the most delicious sauce in the bottom of the dish, a gravy-like essence of both meat and shellfish. I couldn't stop eating this.

Every once in a while, a restaurant features a dish that so strongly resonates with me that I absolutely must get it every time. I suspect that the Arroz de Pato is one of those. The baked rice is studded with crispy shreds of duck leg, and topped with a sliced, grilled duck breast. It's comforting, yet intense, a great accompaniment to other dishes, and strong enough to stand alone. Let some of that pork and clam juice seep into it, or some runny egg, that is, if it's on your plate long enough to soak anything up.

The Bife à Portuguesa (pictured at top) is a few chunks of Picanha steak, draped with slices of ham, a couple of sunny-side-up eggs and discs of the platonic ideal of the fried potato. I don't think I can even remember what a french fry is anymore, my brain has replaced all fried potatoes with an image of these. We found the steak to be tender and juicy, and the whole package, well, with the ham, and the egg yolk drizzling over the meat, and into the fried potatoes, oooph! Decadent and delicious.

The Coelho à Caçador, a rabbit stew, is really mis-named. It is in fact, a pork belly stew, with some rabbit tucked in behind the crispy edges of the roasted cubes of bacon... Well, OK, I suppose there was a big rabbit leg in there, and some other significant chunks, but it actually did take some digging to find it. Not that I'm complaining about getting unctuous nuggets of pork on my spoon as I dig for rabbit and vegetables. It's worth noting too that the tiny roasted potatoes and other vegetables in the stew were cooked really nicely as well, they weren't merely afterthoughts, or elements used only for flavoring the stew, they were quite good on their own.

Speaking of vegetables, we were intrigued by the Milho Frito, billed as fried corn porridge. (Think fried slabs of polenta, studded with vegetables.) Roasted and grilled vegetables added a mysterious smoky note to the plate. This might be a bit dense and heavy for one person to eat as an entree, but it's great for the table to share.

In fact everything is presented on large plates, in very generous portions, designed to share family-style, and I can testify that that's the best way to experience this food, having a little bit of everything.

Another of those everythings we tried was the signature Cozido Minhoto, a large pot of a wide array of meats: ribs, three kinds of sausages, chicken, cabbage and other vegetables. It's a hearty, homey dish, everything boiled together in a pot, so it bears some resemblance to a traditional New England Boiled Dinner, but with a few more varieties of meats... As you might guess from the preparation, it's very comforting and satisfying, if not shooting off the same fireworks as some of the other dishes.

There are some fish preparations we haven't gotten around to yet, but we've made our way through most of the rest of the menu. I'm not sure how often things will change on the menu, but even if it doesn't for a while, I could see coming back and ordering almost anything we had, especially that Duck Rice... I don't think this menu would make a lot of sense in the summer, but it's almost ideal Fall and Winter food, so I don't care if it stays the same for a while...

Although we were full-to-bursting both times, we managed to find just enough space for a traditional dessert, the Pastel de Nata. It's a custard-filled tart, much like the egg tart you might get in a Chinese bakery, or off a dim sum cart, but larger and well, better! In the future, we really need to make an effort to show some restraint and leave room for dessert here, because Carla Gonçalves is a talented baker and pastry chef, and there are a few other items on the menu that sound good.

Prices are quite reasonable given the mammoth portions, but this place is not cheap on an absolute level. The larger plates start in the high teens, most are in the mid $20s. Starters are under $10, Salads about $10-ish. These strike me as very good values, especially when you could get away with ordering a couple of starters and then less than one large plate per person. But then, why would you want to do that!? The better plan is to order more than you think you'll need, and then you'll have leftovers.

And you DO want leftovers...

Koo Zee Doo
614 N 2nd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
ph: 215-923-8080
www.koozeedoo.com
(BYOB)

Porturuvian Explorations pt 2: Pollo a la Brasa

We made an earlier trip to El Balconcito in the Northeast in search of Pollo a la Brasa, the fabled Peruvian Rotisserie Chicken, but discovered that it needed to be ordered in advance. Due to a profound inability to plan ahead, and a lack of confidence in our abilities to order chickens over the phone in Spanish, it took us a little while to make it back. We are now in the process of kicking ourselves for waiting so long. With the help of two somewhat Spanglophonic friends, we managed to pre-order a few chickens, then descended on the place to partake of this famed delicacy. The ordering seemed to go pretty smoothly, but be warned that even with advance notice, they have a finite number of chickens, and perhaps a limited roasting capacity, so if your heart is set on this particular thing, you might want to go on a slow night, and resign yourself to a bird or two.

Even after successfully completing the process, we're a little unclear about the final deadline for ordering-ahead. We reserved two chickens the night before or reservation, but then called about noon the next day and added two more, and it seemed OK. So maybe, call the day before if you can, but early the same day might be OK, if they have enough chickens. The procedure requires a few hours to marinade properly, so plan ahead.

We ordered four, and we got the sense that we were approaching their limit, at least for that day. We were a party of 9 people, and even though the chickens were of a good size, we could have easily polished them off if we had even an ounce of self-control, and had resisted ordering about a hundred other things... Upon the first bites sampled, we immediately thought we were going to have a crisis, because the chicken is incredibly delicious. We were picturing ugly fights among close friends over that last wing or leg, crazed gluttony overpowering our sense of courtesy and civility. Yes, it's that good.

This style of rotisserie chicken involves a tangy, complex marinade that results in a deep flavor and a crispy, dark-hued skin. The marinade seems to involve chile paste, the mysterious herb huacatay (sometimes called "black mint") some citrus, and we think there might be some sugar. The long marination accounts for both a delicious outer coating, and for juicy, tender meat.

To make things worse, the chickens are accompanied by excellent french fries: crisp, light, tender, and somehow staying that way for a long time. Some sort of Peruvian magic potatoes, we surmise...

Just in the nick of time, fusillades of Croquettas de Bacalao were fired at the roiling mob, and moments later a couple of flaming sausages were lobbed-in, distracting them from the birds. With the addition of a few more dishes we actually ended up with some chicken left-over, even though one of our party was a young man who arrived straight from football practice, and promptly consumed three times his body weight in french fries alone!

In addition to the chickens, we ordered several things that we'd liked from out first visit. One of the things we really love about this place is that it's got both Peruvian AND Portuguese menus. While there may not be any particular logic to combining the two cuisines, we can't resist ordering from both sides.

From the Portuguese side, the Croquettas de Bacalao were even better than we'd remembered, their perfectly cripsy coating containing a light, airy filling with more salty cod flavor than before. Chorizo was packed a bit looser and was less spicy than last time, but was still quite tasty, especially with its crispy exterior from exposure to an open flame.

Clams in Garlic were simple, but perfect, the intense broth complementing the tender clams. We tossed a handful of fries from the chicken platter into this pot, and the garlic-infusion sent them to french fry nirvana. We had more bivalves in the Clam and Pork Stew, which met with approval from our Portuguese ex-pat authenticity inspector. He was a bit surprised by the presence amount of pickled vegetables atop the clams, pork and fried potatoes, but did not seem especially disturbed. I had a very hard time refraining from eating that stew, especially once the dark brown sauce, a mixture of clam juices and pork gravy, became more accessible.

Tostones, pressed into cup-shapes then filled with seafood, were suggested by the waitress, and seemed to go over well-enough, but I don't think they were anyone's favorite dish of the night. Also from the Peruvian side, we had a Ceviche Pescado, a huge plate of marinated white fish, served with boiled potato and sweet potato. And we can never resist Lomo Saltado, the classic Peruvian dish of beef strips and french fries, stir-fried with soy sauce and gravy, to create a dish that wouldn't be too alien in an American diner, like gravy-fries studded with beef and onion.

All-in-all an amazingly delicious meal. All of it was quite good, but we're most enthusiastic about the Pollo a la Brasa, the most delicious roasted chicken I've had in some time. Peruvian Rotisserie Chicken is a bit of a phenomenon in some cities, it's much easier to find in NY and LA, and is more of a gourmet fast-food, not requiring any calling-ahead. I certainly hope the trend catches on in Philly, and we can drop in somewhere for a delicious marinated roast chicken in this style. But until that craze gets underway, you'll find me up here at El Balconcito, reveling in the chicken, and also in the other specialties of Peru and Portugal.

El Balconcito
658 E Godfrey Ave (at Tabor Rd)
Philadelphia, PA 19120
(215) 342-2340

Porturuvian in the Northeast

It started as a quest for Peruvian Chicken. That particular style of rotisserie chicken, marinated and roasted in a specific way, has been quite popular in New York for a while, but hasn't seemed to make inroads in Philly. But we'd heard it was available at El Balconcito in Northeast Philly. So we trekked on up, thinking that some roasted chicken and ceviche would make for a nice light dinner. We should have known that we're fundamentally incapable of ordering a light meal, but even keeping that in mind, we were unprepared for the banquet that resulted.

First, we'd forgotten that El Balconcito is more than a Peruvian restaurant, it's also Portuguese. The menu is divided in half, and there are extensive options from both country's traditions. Second, given the reasonable prices, we significantly underestimated the portion sizes, and therefore drastically over-ordered. Not that such behavior is a bad thing...

We started on the Portuguese side of the menu, ordering Croquettas de Bacalao (above) and Chorizo. The croquettas did not have an especially assertive salt-cod kick, tasting more of potato, but they were so ethereally light, with a perfect fried crunch, that nobody was complaining. The chorizo was served over a dramatic blue flame, which sadly didn't show-up in the photo, but did add an appealing fresh crispiness to the moderately spicy sausage.

But, let's not lose sight of why we came: rotisserie chicken. We tried to order a whole chicken, but our waitress launched into a long and involved story in rapid Spanish. Did we mention that none of us really speaks Spanish? We can pick out a few words here or there, and know just enough that we can usually stumble through ordering at restaurants, but we were having a hard time following this story. But we did sort out that there was no rotisserie chicken, and even figured out that one has to call ahead for it. We later asked, in very stilted Spanish, when we would need to call, and got a very long and complex answer, from which we extracted the word mañana, so we're pretty confident that one needs to call a day ahead.

There did not seem to be any English-speaking waitstaff, but our server was very nice, and we did fine with some pointing and simple yes-no answers to a few things we could understand: "picante?" "Si!"

But, OK... no chicken... we can handle it, there's plenty on the menu that looks good. When in Peru, what else would one get? Ceviche of course. We ordered a basic fish version (as opposed to mixed seafood) and were unprepared for the HUGE pile of it that arrived, accompanied by a potato and sweet potato. It was very tasty, but would easily have served 8 people. The three of us made a good dent in it, and even used some of the vibrant, spicy, citrusy marinade as a condiment for a few other dishes, but we just couldn't finish it.

Another Peruvian specialty is Lomo Saltado, a stir-fry of beef strips, onion, tomato and french fries. It's pretty strange: the fries are soggy with sauce, the spicing is pretty subtle, and yet we came close to finishing it off, it has an inexplicable appeal.

As a consolation for not getting the roasted chicken, we tried the Chicharones de Pollo. While not anything especially unique, they were very tasty chunks of fried chicken, both greaseless and juicy. One could choose two accompaniments, and not having perceived how carbolicious the meal as a whole would be, we chose rice and Tostones. The fried discs of plantain were good, although we ended up using them as accompaniments for some of the other saucier dishes, rather than as partners for the chicken.

Finally, we headed back to Portugal for what was perhaps our favorite dish of the night: a stew of Pork and Clams. You can't actually see the pork in this photo, but there was a ton of it hiding below the clams, pickled vegetables, olives and crisp roasted potatoes. All were luxuriating in a rich brown sauce, which complimented the tender cubes of pork beautifully. This is comfort food at its best, and a huge portion for under $15.

We accompanied everything with a few Peruvian Beers (Cristal and Cusquena) and still got out for not a lot of money. I think we paid about $90 (pre-tip) between the three of us, and we took about half of the food home.

So now we know: order a chicken a day in advance, and order about half of what you think you want from the rest of the menu. Oh, and we need to brush up on our Spanish...

El Balconcito
658 E Godfrey Ave
Philadelphia, PA 19120
(215) 342-2340