La Petite Dauphine
2029 Walnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Neighborhoods: Rittenhouse Square, Penn Center

La Petite Dauphine's identity feels torn between being a "cafe" and being a "restaurant."   It's a small establishment that tries to be high end, yet there are little things, like paper napkins, that point in a different direction.  This is fine, I have nothing against food establishments with an identity crisis - so long as the food is good.


I ordered the chai latte, which tasted like tea bag chai with steamed milk.   The hallmark of chai is its spices - there was nothing in here that screamed cinnamon, ginger, cloves, etc.

We started off by sharing the almond croissant.  My first bite reminded me not of "Oh, it's like when I was in France."  Instead, the thought that came to mind was "Oh, the one at Au Bon Pain was much better."

Almond Croissant

Next, I had the omelete with ham and spinach.  The spinach tasted fresh, but the omelete in general was so-so.  As I was finishing up my omelete, the waitress finally brought out our water. Thanks!  I also had a bite of the Croque Monsieur.  For a fancy ham and cheese sandwich, it tasted quite ordinary.

Omelete with spinach and ham

Croque Monsieur

We ran into the unfortunate incident of "our credit card machine is broken."  I get this a lot from Chicago cab drivers, but was surprised the waitress didn't mention this earlier.  With no other choice, I dragged my butt out into the cold and begged passerbys for change.  Just kidding, there's a Bank of America ATM next door.

Rouge
205 S 18th St
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Neighborhood: Rittenhouse Square

On a cold windy night, we found our way in Rouge on Rittenhouse Square.  Having walked by this place many times, I was never really impressed with their front, but inside, the atmosphere is warm and cozy.

The first dish that was served up was the French onion soup with gruyere and provolone.  I didn't have this, but word is it was good.  I had the King Salmon - a nicely cooked filet of salmon laid on top of a mixture of kale and red quinoa.  The salmon was delicious, but the kale and quinoa were mediocre at best with little to no flavor.  I asked for the dish without the honey-mustard sauce since I'm not a fan of mustard, so that may had altered the intended flavor profile.  I did ask if they could substitue the mustard sauce with something else, but was basically told there wasn't a substitute.  I had a bite of the Seafood Risotto, which tasted fresh and flavorful, unlike my kale.  We also shared the truffle parmesan pommes frites - come on, you know nothing with truffle oil can go wrong.

My delicious salmon paired with some bland kale and quinoa

Seafood risotto that needed a little mixin' to get the heat going

And the fries!

For dessert, we had the olive oil lemon cake served with vanilla gelato and cherry (?) spread.  We didn't taste much of the vanilla in the vanilla gelato, but this only made the flavor of the olive oil lemon cake stand out even more.  We also had the ice cream sliders - two of which were light and delightful, the third one (peanut butter) was the unwanted third wheel with no contrast in flavor and heavy to the palate.

Olive oil lemon cake with vanilla gelato

The sliders

Overall, the food was great; however, there were a couple misses.  First, we each had a small plate and a butter knife, but no one brought out any bread.  After the French onion soup was served, we had to flag down one of the waiters to bring over the bread.  Second, the outer layer of the risotto came out cold, and needed to be mixed up to distribute the inner heat out.  Third, it would had been great if the kitchen tossed the fries and truffle parmesan first, rather than just sprinkling the parmesan on top (which means by the time you get to the fries at the bottom, they're just plain old fries).  So, no big mistakes that can't easily be fixed.  In the words of a terminator, I'll be back.