amada

Last week I expressed my love of Jose Garces and his newest restaurant JG Domestic. Today, I'm continuing the lovefest and talking about his first restaurant in Philly - Amada. Amada pretty much started the tapas trend here in Philly and set a pretty high standard - and still continues to do so. It's a wonderful restaurant to go to for a delicious (Spanish) meal or to stop in to grab a drink and some snacks. And it doesn't hurt that the space is beautiful - it's hard to see all the great details in the space through photos - you'll need to stop in to see for yourself...


image via

I stopped in the other day with a friend to have a couple of drinks and a couple of dishes. But a couple dishes turned into 5, and by the time we left I was pretty full. And very happy.

We started with some cocktails - I had a "Dark Habits" - lime, strawberries and gin. Tasty, but I preferred Coll's choice - "Tie Me Up Tie Me Down". It had lemon, vodka and rosemary. I was nervous that the rosemary would be overpowering but it was perfect.



Complimentary dish of tortilla-like chips and dip/spread that tasted somewhat fishy and very yummy:



Alcachofas y setas - Spanish flatbread with artichoke, wild mushrooms, black truffles and manchego:



Gambas al ajillo - garlic shrimp. So good we had to order extra bread to soak up the garlic oil:



Madre e hijo - chicken breast with fried egg, mojama and truffles. I'm a sucker for anything with an egg on top:



We had the leche frita - fried vanilla cream, chocolate hazelnut sauce, hazelnut ice cream - for dessert. But we ate it so quickly that I didn't even get a chance to photograph - I seem to have this problem with Jose Garces's desserts! It was delicious!!