jg domestic

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I heart Jose Garces. He has really well designed restaurants, makes amazing food and also seems like a really nice guy. I've now been to every restaurant he's opened in Philly and I've only been dissapointed once - and it wasn't even with the food. It was the house margarita at Distrito - it's not your typical margarita - wasn't tart at all. Maybe if it wasn't called a margarita and I was expecting something completely different, I wouldn't have been so dissapointed...Anyways, I went to his newest restaurant,JG Domestic, with some friends last week and knew I would have a good meal but didn't realize just how good it would be! It was the perfect combination of interesting and cool decor, fantastic food and awesome company. The photos that I took of the space with my iphone just don't do it justice, so I found better images online:


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If you're not familiar, it's located on the 1st level of the Cira Center - basically in the lobby. They did a great job creating an intimate space within such a large and open area. It has a very natural, organic feel - very fitting with the type of food they offer. They specialize in the "season’s best from American growers, making available to you ingredients at their peak: premium pastured meats, farm fresh vegetables, and organic dairy". Their menu consists of smaller plates - sort of like tapas but a bit larger. The idea is to order a bunch of different plates and everything is served family style.

Our meal started with complimentary bread. How adorable is the little pan that it came in? And it was delicious.



Next came the wood oven flatbread topped with chanterelles, black truffles, chedder and egg yolk. Yes, it was as good as it sounds:



Then we got the blue crab gratin. C'mon, can you really go wrong with crab?



Our meat dishes came next - the wild boar rack on the left and the Adobe rubbed ribeye on the right. I've been eating a lot of wild boar lately and I like it! This dish had a mustard glaze and came with maple grits (yum!). And the ribeye - so fatty and delicious. Some people think its gross to eat fat, but it's the best part!!



And more meat: rabbit and duck. I was a bit nervous about the rabbit - I've never had it before and I'm not a huge fan of game-y meats. But I was assured that it tasted just like chicken, so I gave it a try. And it tastes just like chicken! Well, at least the loin did. There were parts that were definitely more game-y than others, but in general it was tasty. The duck was probably my favorite dish of the night. There were 3 parts of the duck prepared - the breast, duck confit made with the leg and seared foie gras. I wish I had this entire dish to myself!



We decided to be a little healthy and ordered a veggie dish...and it was probably the richest dish of the night. Hey, at least we tried. We got the crosnes which came with potato dumplings and artichokes. I had never heard of crosnes before and to be honest they look pretty gross - like worms. But they're not worms - they're a tuber and pretty good. Especially with potato dumplings and artichokes. And butter. A lot of butter.



By this point, I was pretty stuffed and definitley would've been happy without dessert. Until I saw a nearby table with beignets. We ate them so fast I didn't even get a chance to take a photo! SOOOO GOOOOOOOOD.