RAE

Wednesday 11 April
We always try to take our hosts out for what Holt calls a slap-up dinner with all the trimmings, but Bob had to leave for a conference in Istanbul (poor Bob!). So there were only the three of us to go out to dinner at Philadelphia's new hot restaurant, RAE.
Hotness often has more to do with architecture than with food, and RAE has plenty of that: it's in the lobby (including under the escalators) of César Pelli's Cira Centre - like a bevel-mirrored thought-balloon behind the neoclassical Thirtieth Street Station. It's also fairly noisy, which is a ploy of hot restaurants to make themselves appear busier and thus hotter. We hate it. So it was quite a relief when the maitre-d' said that our table hadn't been cleared and would we mind sitting in the private room off the wine cellar. Nice lighting, comfy chairs, attentive waitstaff and less of other people's chatter? Sign us up.

Ever since Thomas Keller's gourmet take on peas and carrots and coffee and doughnuts at the French Laundry - what, ten years ago? - restaurants have been churning out their facetious takes on everyday American foods. Rae is no exception: our starters were cocktail reubens and veal kreplach with artichokes. But as at the French Laundry, there was a lot of thought and flavor behind the cute concepts: every part of the reubens was hand-made rather than processed, and the kreplach (actually veal dumplings) were divinely light and in a sauce you could die for. One main course was rabbit with a little iron stewpot of Brussels sprouts and white beans - again, cute, but a bit derivative, and we had the ultimate version of this at Pinot Brasserie in Las Vegas ("Everything from a Rabbit" - including the cute little frenched rack of rabbit, and the most meltingly delicious Napa cabbage) seven years ago. The other main was beef tenderloin, short rib, and marrow ravioli, and it was beautifully done; the ravioli and short rib almost over-packed with flavor, but you could eat bites of each with the plainer tenderloin.
The waiter gave us a Cline Ancient Vines Mourvèdre to try, and it went beautifully with the rich flavors of the food. All in all, RAE has good nosh.