Philly Restaurant – World Cafe Live

Too bad I’m not a lesbian. Really, my girlfriends are full of sparkling wit and humor, interests and passions, accomplishments and attractiveness. In addition, last night, one of my friends treated me to dinner and a rockabilly good time at WXPN’s World Cafe Live! (3025 Walnut Street – Free parking)
We saw John Doe and the Sadies with a outstanding opening act that featured Sara Borges a cowboy boot clad, Betty Page look-a-like. Both acts superbly brought to life the smell of beer & whiskey in a dark honkytonk joint, the lonely wide open skies of the Texas Panhandle and the call of a coyote across the desert plains of New Mexico.

I also know I’m not gay, because I fell totally in love with Dallas Good of the Sadies; that vibrating timbre and octaves of his vocal range, the effortless handling of 2 or 3 well-worn guitars and the dark brooding humor of a sexy hit man circa 1968.

Oh, was this supposed to be a restaurant review? Yes, let me sublimate with food! World Cafe offers good American fare, where basically you can just point to the menu with your eyes closed and come up with something satisfying.

The upstairs restaurant, does feature musicians at certain hours, but it’s also just a comfortable bar/restaurant with $8 weekly lunch specials that endearingly remind me of school cafeteria lunches (I always liked our school’s lunches, far better than a left over meatloaf sandwich in a brown bag). And good Happy Hour offerings from 5-7pm.

If eating downstairs during a ticketed event, they limit the menu to a few less choices and you’ll be seated with others at the table, cabaret style; which think about it, if they have the same musical taste as you, they’ll probably make ok dinner companions.

What we ate: Jameson’s Chicken Burger house blend of ground white meat chicken, fresh herbs, onions and peppers topped with cheddar cheese and caramelized onions on toasted kaiser roll. $10
Delicious, however, if your looking for something more akin to a Turkey burger, than you could be disappointed, as this is much more like chicken croquet on a roll.

Their specialty fries-Sweet Potato and Eggplant are especialty good! What I’d really like to do, is go back and sit at the bar with a basket of each, dip the fries simultaneously into the creamy horseradish sauce and sip on another Magic Hat Wacko, a pink beer, made with beet extract.

Dessert was a Green Tea Creme Brulee, perhaps a wee bit over charred on the caramelizing, and I would have liked more green tea flavor, but I’m a green tea-aholic, except that I can’t stand to drink green tea, you figure that one out.

Rating: Pretty Middle Toe