Notes from the Weekend: January 13

Notes from the Weekend is a feature that sees the members of Team Meal Ticket compiling all the food/drink highlights uncovered during prime eatin' time, Friday to Sunday. Adam took the weekend off so it's just caroline chiming in this week. We'd love to hear all about YOUR weekend eating adventures in the comments. Go for it! (View past NFTW installments at citypaper.net/notes.)

Adam Erace: AE

Caroline Russock: CR

Stuffed a local pork loin with caramelized onions and raisins for dinner on Friday night, which also featured this butternut squash gratin. Looks good, right? Well, that golden-brown cheddar top hid a wet, greasy, broken-béchamel disaster underneath. C was nice and lied and told me it was good, but all I could imagine was what chefs would say if they were eating dinner at my house. (How sick is that?!) I have no idea why this happened, so if you can shed light in the comments, help a brother out.—AE

Somehow friday dinner was delayed until just after 2:30 a.m. when I battled the post-last call masses to get takeout from David's Mai Lai Wah. The salt and pepper chicken wings, barbecue pork, fried dumplings with ginger scallion sauce and beef fried rice were all amazing and I'm pretty sure we're going to be seeing a lot more David's around here.—CR

Despite the rain, Saturday proved a lovely day for my cousin J's wedding at the Knowlton Mansion in Northeast Philly. A mansion the Norfeas, who knew. It was like attending a gala at a mini Downton, with far better-than-catering-average food (shrimp cocktail, lobster bisque, perfectly medium-rare strip steaks) by Conroy Caterers and a top-shelf open bar I drank dry.—AE

Saturday was a totally unremarkable eating day - mostly just picking at leftover Chinese food. I did stop by Alla Spina for an Aperol Spritz and a Negroni Sbagliato though.—CR

Sunday I was feeling verrrrryyy hungover. And only fast-food could help. With my normal go-to closed on Sundays (fucking right-wing Christians) I hit up Wendy's for nuggets and fries. Very sad but very effective. I was able to get through an hour of the Globes and all of True Detective. Then Girls came on, and I got nauseous all over again.—AE

After a cappuccino at Ultimo, City Paper photographer extraordinaire Neal Santos and I set out on a food tour of North 5th Street (spoiler: it's for an upcoming cover story!) We tackled Puerto Rican roast pork sandwiches, Dominican hot dogs and loads of Columbian pasties and empanadas before calling it quits. Back at the house it was gin and tonics and Girls, which unlike Adam, didn't make me one bit nauseous.—CR