Good Meal but the Death of my Scallop and Risotto dream

Heh. This is mostly a positive review. I promise.

Last night, we went to Mercato. To put things into context, you have to know this about me - Mercato is (hmmm, was, perhaps) one of my favorite places to eat in the city. Admittedly, it had been just about 2 years since I had last eaten there, but prior to that, I had eaten there at least 4 or 5 times in a year's time. Each time, I had ordered similar dishes and each time it had been consistently wonderful.

The dishes we ate last night were mostly wonderful, but I found several things very disappointing.

But first, the FOOD. Soopah and I both had the tasting menu, which at $48 for a full 4-course meal, is very reasonable. What I love about these set pre-fixe tasting menus that are offered at many BYOBs is that there is so much flexibility. You're usually allowed to order off of the entire menu and at Mercato, that was definitely the case. The tasting menu allows you to select one dish from each of the 4 sections off of the menu with very few restrictions (sometimes they do add an up-charge for certain dishes). Take note that this is a CASH only byob so come prepared. If you're forgetful like me, no worries - there is a deli a block away on 13th St that has an ATM for your use.

:: Mercato ::
address: 1216 Spruce St., Philly
what we ate: 4-course tasting menu
We really debated whether or not to partake in this. Mostly because it was super humid hot and we couldn't decide if we were hungry enough to eat 4 courses! The downside to the tasting menu is that they require that all guests at the table participate so it was an all or nothing decision. Because I had always spoken so highly of Mercato and Soopah was finally going to get to try, we opted YES. Also, I warn you - this is a long post. How can it not be since we both ate 4 courses each?!

INTRODUZIONE

Whole Grilled Artichoke: 

extra virgin olive oil + sea salt + zesty citrus aioli

This was delicious AND fun to eat. They take an entire whole artichoke, basically roast it, soak it in olive oil, then grill it to order. What results is an incredibly flavorful dish - with each leaf you pull off dripping and coated with coarse black pepper and olive oil. Add to that a few grains of seat salt that they offer on the platter as well as the creamy citrusy aioli and it's just DIVINE. 

We really took our time eating this and enjoying each leaf before we devoured the hearts at the end. (Hmm, that sounded odd...). 

Grilled Calamari: 

basil pesto + cannellini beans + radicchio + pepperdew peppers + scallion + parmesan slices

We attacked this appetizer all wrong at first. It arrives at your table, plated in a way and separates the calamari from the rest of the bean, pepper and radiccio salad. Of course, in eating it separately, we found that the basil pesto coated calamari was a bit flat and boring, while the salad had very complex set of flavors. 

It doesn't LOOK very pretty, but once we started eating both components together, we found that it tasted delicious. And MAN, do they use good cheese here. The parmesan slices were so nutty and flavorful - I could have just kept eating those all night. I don't think this would be our favorite dish and I doubt I would order it again, personally, but it was quite tasty. 

PASTA

Pappardelle: 

roasted mushrooms + caramelized cipollini + crispy parsnip + pancetta, arugula + sage brown butter + parmesan

We have been tempted by various papparedelle dishes at a bunch of places we've been to - Varga, Garces Trading co, but had always ended up ordering something else on those respective menus that we couldn't pass up. So this time, we were determined to order this dish.

The flavor of the roasted mushrooms were awesome! They completed soaked up the sage brown butter sauce and were extremely flavorful. The crispy parsnips were an interesting topping to this pasta dish - they almost tasted like casava chips and provided a crunchy texture, but I'm not entirely convinced that it added something special here. I was ambivalent about that. If I had to criticize, I'd say the pasta was probably a bit over cooked, but still delicious dish, overall.

Braised Rabbit: 

black pepper fettuccine + grape tomatoes + spinach + pecorino + garlic, white wine basil sauce

I had to order this because whenever I see rabbit or the menu, I feel compelled to give it a shot. I definitely wasn't disappointed. The garlic white wine basil sauce was super flavorful and the fettucini had a nice spicy flavor from the black pepper. Plus, the rabbit was really flavorful and tender and not at all gamey.

CULMINARE
Grilled Petit Tender Filet: 

garlic chive mashed potates + grilled asparagus + truffle butter

Soopah ordered this medium rare and it came out perfectly cooked. Also, apparently this is a newly adjusted recipe for the filet and it was excellent. The sauce and truffle butter work really well together and perfectly complement the meat (as long as you don't take too large a piece of truffle butter with each bite). 

See that huge white thing that looks like a slice of mozzaralla? That is the truffle butter! Crazy, right? But delicious, yes yes yes. 

Pan Seared Diver Scallops: 

wild mushroom and english pea risotto + parmesan crisp + truffle oil

Okay, this dish was so disappointing it was almost enough to mar the entire experience for me at Mercato - not that there weren't several other less-than-perfect factors (which I'll detail later), but all were forgivable except for this one. I have been referencing this particular dish at Mercato as the perfect example of how to do risotto AND scallops well - both in conversations and on this blog. Basically, I had ordered this every time I had been to Mercato and it has always tasted amazingly perfect. Last night, it was far from it.

Where do I begin? The scallops were most definitely overcooked. I know it's hard to cook scallops perfectly, but I expected so much more than this. As for the risotto, it was horrible. It was like they decided that since it was the end of the evening (we were the last table there), they may as well dump the rest of the parmesan that was leftover into this dish and then overcook the risotto itself. The result was a sticky clumpy pile of risotto that had stringy pieces of cheese hanging off with each bite. Way too heavy, wayyy too rich and not in a good way. The mushrooms were barely even noticeable and honestly, neither was the truffle oil - this is what happens when you OVER-CHEESE. 

Even more disappointing still, is when I mentioned to the server that this dish had decidedly gone downhill since I last had it and maybe had the chef changed since then, he basically dismissed it saying it was prepared in the same way it had been 2-3 years ago (and obviously I was just being a pain in the ass). Le sigh.

DESSERT: 

Tiramisu and Gelato Trio 

The tiramisu and the gelato trio (cappucino, dulce de leche, strawberry cream) were both pretty tasty, but nothing especially memorable. Plus, by this point, I was so sad about the state of the risotto dish that I had basically lost the will to eat or enjoy anything more for that evening.

DISAPPOINTING THINGS WORTH MENTIONING
Overall, the meal was good. There were definitely highlights and lowlights, but I found there were a few things that were extremely disappointing/annoying.

• Upon our arrival, we stood around for an excessively long time while the female server walked right by us no less than 6 times. Each time I said "excuse me" I was brutally rebuffed. With silence and not even a sidelong glance. 
• Our wine glasses were greasy and had what I swear was leftover butter smeared all over them.
• Though we asked for new replacement glasses, we did not receive until later when we were ordering.
• My water glass was also also dirty/greasy and they FINALLY gave me a new one, but never took the dirty one away. 
• There were a SH*T TON of mosquitoes hovering around our table and they really liked how I tasted, apparently. So I walked away with 9 new bites - Yes yes this is not Mercato's fault. I'm just saying it definitely detracted from the experience. However, what IS their fault is that we sat outside because the inside of the restaurant seemed like the depths of hell in terms of temperature. I guess they just don't turn on the AC until it's over 100 degrees

DESPITE THESE THINGS, though, we still had a pleasant meal, so I'm not sure if that can be attributed to the fact that we are just awesome and enjoy each other's company, if the dishes that WERE good were interesting and tasty enough to carry us through, or that we're just older and more patient now and recognize that every dining experience can't be a perfect one.... hmmm. Ew. Well, we're definitely not old, so it must be that we're AWESOME.