Philadelphia Supper is Icky

icky
adjective
1. very bad

For those of you who know me, I love food. I love to eat, I love to cook, I love food shopping. It doesn't have to be super fancy or high end, just good. Specifically I always like to see restaurants move into sketchy neighborhoods. I used to live in the South Street area (which is decidedly icky) and so I was interested when I heard that Supper was opening in the old Vespa Store location. Last night we decided to head over there and check it out. Not knowing much about the restaurant, we called and were able to get a last minute 9PM reservation. Perhaps that should have been our first clue.



Supper
926 South Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
http://www.supperphilly.com/

As it turns out it was a small plate restaurant. This isn't necessarily a problem as long as each dish is really worth eating. Herein lies the problem with Supper. It started out pretty promising, the plates were creative to read. I find that unusual food combinations almost always lead to a good meal. Supper proved me wrong. Supper is icky. Not one of us had the "this is awesome" moment that always happens at least once in a small plate restaurant. They divided the menu into Hors D'oeuvres, Tartines and Plates. My tartine was the Wild Mushroom and Garrotxa. If I wanted something that tasted like heated mushrooms and shaved Parmesan on dry french bread, I could have made it at home. The Artichoke and Cauliflower Fritters hors d'oeuvre was a big 'ole fried mess - think Indian Vegetable Pakora only doughy and without the good spices. The Spicy Shrimp a la Plancha was the only slightly redeeming dish, but when they say small plate, they sure do mean small - two shrimp, two mission figs and a few pieces of arugula. My dining companions had little to say about their plates. The Autumn Squash Gnocchi was declared "not as good as Chloe". The Ocean Trout got a slightly better rating with - "it was good". The rest went without mention. Even our bottle of wine was slightly miserable.

Dessert was decent but not overwhelmingly so. The atmosphere was nice and I would even suggest returning to have a drink at the bar. The only problem there is the stunted wine by the glass list. Think less than 5-7 options.

The real icing on the cake, so to speak, was the piss poor service. The woman who served us may well have stumbled off the street and put on a server's apron. The other alternative was that she was on drugs. Who knows. Either way it wasn't just her, it was the entire staff. We sat forever waiting for a drink. They were cold, disinterested and unaware. Our friend ordered a bottle of wine for the table and when she came back she shoved it in my husband's face. The waitress and the runners had a really fun way jamming their arm directly in your face to fill your water glass. The plates were tossed on the table without identification.

At the end of the day I would say if you want small plates, save your money and take it down the street to Ansill. Adventurous, wonderful, lots of "that was awesome" moments and decidedly not icky.

Ansill Food + Wine
627 S. 3rd St
Philadelphia PA 19147
215-627-2485
http://www.ansillfoodandwine.com/


photo credit: www.opentable.com