sampan

Sampan is one of several new restaurants that have opened up on 13th Street in the Gayborhood AKA Midtown Village in the past couple of years. The first time I tried it was during the Midtown Village Festival this past October (when I debuted my sumo wrestling skills) where I tried their pork belly banh mi that was delicious. I went back a couple months later for some drinks and some small plates and really enjoyed it, so I knew I wanted to go back for a full meal. I finally had a chance to do that a couple weekends ago with Karen and we had a great time! The space feels very hip and cool - something you'd find in NYC. I thought the decor was nice - nothing super special but it was nice to have a space like this in Philly. It felt different. And young.


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They also have an outdoor area in the back - called the grafitti bar - I will need to check it out when it gets warmer!


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Karen and I did the tasting menu which was only $35/person that night (because it was the night before Valentine's day - yep I had two Valentines this year, Karen AND Eric) but usually its $40/person which is still a fantastic deal. It was sooooo much food - you get to choose 6 plates (they're all small plates) from the menu plus dessert. We started with some drinks:



I can't remember what kind of cocktail Karen ordered, but I tried one of their sake flights. Loved it. Our first dish was the Korean short rib satay. Yum, it was one of my favorite dishes of the night.



We had meant to order the shrimp dumplings but somehow got the edamame dumplings, but I'm glad we did because they were soooo tasty:



Tuna rice cracker (I think that's what these were...):



Crab wonton taco:



Korean fried chicken - good but not as good as Meritage's or Momofuku's which I will be having again in a month!!!



Kim chee fried rice:



Broiled sea bass:



At this point I was STUFFED but I still ate all of my dessert:



Aren't they adorable? One was butterfinger flavored and the other was twizzler. Yummy.