Restaurescat In Pace

Do you have a favorite restaurant in the Harrisburg area? Do yourself a favor and don't tell me about it. We've lived here for less than two years and have already seen six favorites close.



* One of the first things we looked for when we moved here was good sushi. Living in the Bay Area we were spoiled, since we had multiple places to choose from, from cheap (No Name Sushi on Church Street) to expensive (Kirala in Berkeley) and everything in between. There are a couple of decent spots in Harrisburg, but the best sushi we found was at Gobo Restaurant on Lucknow Street. They had a good selection, everything was fresh, and best of all they delivered! We actually went there for D-Jo's birthday last year, and it was our go-to spot for celebratory take out. Alas, they closed about a year ago.

* The next great find was this little hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese place just off Paxton called Pho Viet Nam. Their pho and spring rolls were excellent, and they were also the only Vietnamese place we'd found which served banh mi, the fantastic Vietnamese sandwiches. It was right on the route I'd take from work to home when the highway was backed up, and I found myself taking that route more and more, calling D-Jo and suggesting banh mi for dinner, a suggestion she rarely vetoed.

Then one day I drove by and the doors were locked and there was a big notice on the window that they had been closed for health department violations. Whoops.

We can still get really good Vietnamese at The Garden and great pho at Golden Gate in the Broad Street Market, but we are, sadly, banh mi-less.

* Right next to the Garden on Reilly Street was Cedar's Lebanese, above the used bookstore. It was a little pricey, but the food was authentic and delicious and it was walking distance from our house. A few months ago it closed, though I have since heard that it is re-opening on the West Shore. Too far to walk to, though.

* About six months ago another one of my culinary prayers was answered as the Al Madina Halal Grocery in Steelton started selling prepared foods. This quickly became our work lunch spot of choice, as I was glad to drive up from Middletown for fantastic shwarma, hummus, and fool. It was a good decision for Al Madina, since I started picking up things like olive oil, pita, and feta cheese every time I stopped in for lunch or dinner. It only took a few months, though, for the take-out part of the market to close up shop.

* Recently a post went up on Harrisburg Nightlife mentioning that it looked like Jackie Blue might be undergoing an ownership change. It eventually came out that yes, it was closing, to be replaced by an "alternative bistro," possibly serving fondue.

I loved Jackie Blue. Once again, being within walking distance of our house (and those of you interested in stalking me ought to have triangulated my position by now) helps, but every time I went there (Except the last time -- more on that in a second) it was great. Great food, excellent service, fantastic atmosphere. I took business associates from Montreal there and they were impressed as well, which made me feel a swell of pride for my little city. Heck, I went over there on Super Bowl Sunday to drink a couple of beers and take advantage of the giant HDTV behind the bar.

Our last visit was a different story -- after waiting for 15 minutes to be seated in a mostly-empty restaurant, we were seating next to the window, and as the bitter cold streamed in we noticed that everyone in the restaurant was freezing and TPTB appeared to be unable to remedy the situation. Undeterred (and late for our movie) we ordered our entrees, and I ordered a glass of house red wine.

A long while later, our food arrived, and on each of our plates the main item (my steak, D-Jo's chicken) was not hot. All the sides were, but the meats were lukewarm, telling me that they had come out early and sat on the counter while everything else was cooking. Disappointing, but not as disappointing as the fact that, when my food arrived, our server informed us that they were out of red wine.

Out of red wine? In a restaurant, at 8:00 PM on a Friday? I was too shocked to suggest he go behind the bar and grab another bottle and open it, but really I shouldn't have had to figure that out. We finished out meals and headed out, a bad taste in our mouths both figuratively and literally. I hope to get back there one more time before they close so I can leave with a positive memory.

* The last straw was last week. Over the last six months we've been driving out to Ephrata every few weeks to eat at the Nav Jiwan Tea Room at the Ten Thousand Villages store. It's a long haul, but the draw has always been that every week they featured the cuisine of a different country. It was amazing -- you'd go there one week for great Indonesian food, and you could go back a few weeks later for Ethiopian, or Malian, or Ecuadorean. It was all good, very authentic, and reasonably priced, and it was a great treat to have, say, Thai food, and have it be as spicy and flavorful as it is supposed to be.

I logged on last week to see what the upcoming countries were, and found this message:

The Nav Jiwan Tea Room will be closed from Monday, March 19, 2007, through mid-spring. Following this period of renovation and restructuring, it will re-open with a new format, offering fair trade coffees and teas and light fare.

I'm sure it'll be good, but I won't be driving nearly an hour each way for tea and finger foods.

So that's six special restaurants in under two years. We still have a handful of favorites: Mangia Qui/Suba, the first restaurant we ate at in Harrrisburg; Bayou, the current walk-to favorite; the Middle Eastern trio of Skewers, 2nd Street Kabob, and La Kasbah; and all the great places (Nonna's, Golden Gate, Curry In a Hurry, Corner Rotisserie) at the market. But given our history and the apparent fickleness (or uncomfortableness with unfamiliarity) of the dining community here, I fear for all of them.