CRAIG LEBAN

A NEIGHBORHOOD PUB THAT IS ALSO MUCH MORE
By Craig LaBan, INQUIRER RESTAURANT CRITIC

The distance between great bar food and fine dining gets a little shorter each time I visit the London Grill.

In one hand, I see an English muffin squeezing what may be the best burger in town - a charred organic patty of ground Lancaster beef smothered in sauteed onions and herby, homemade Boursin cheese.
In the other, I wield a crackly crisp spring roll stuffed with meltingly soft ginger duck. A tart cabbage slaw and a hoisin peanut streak completes the plate - a deftly rendered icon of contemporary Asian-fusion cooking.

This venerable Fairmount standby has made a career of the split personality. One former chef recalls London's former life as "a good place for a beer and a brawl."

But since Terry and Michael McNally purchased the taproom and restaurant in 1991, they have crafted what may be the ideal balance between the neighborhood pub and a destination for ambitious fine dining.

Where else, on any given night, could you find candidate Bill Bradley powwowing with the police union in one room, seniors from the Philadelphian apartment house sawing into grilled calves' liver in another, and people in their 20s riding Calvados sidecars and buffalo wings in the bustling bar to the tunes of a live small band?

I have friends who have eaten at London for years but never ventured beyond the lively tin-roofed bar, where fabulous grilled pizzas (try the arugula, mozzarella and prosciutto); beefy, cornbread-topped chili; buffalo wings; and crisply battered fish and chips are as good as they can be.

But it is in the red warmth of the adjacent split-level dining rooms that Michael McNally really stretches his culinary creativity. Some of the cleverest notions - like tater tots laced with truffle oil, sweet corn bread pudding, and creamy black bean succotash - blip on and off the daily menus as the fidgety chef modifies his pantry. But if the hearty and eclectic fare ranges wide from season to season, it is reliable for solid, thoughtful cooking and quality products.

Porcini-dusted scallops came crisped over an elegant knot of braised escarole, ringed with an earthy drizzle of intense mushroom oil. Tender steamed mussels were bathed in a gingery soy broth filled with scallions. And one of my new favorite twists-on-a-classic - pork osso bucco with barley risotto and roasted parsnips caramelized in a rich meat glaze - has thankfully made the cut for the new winter menu.

Most of the staff embodies the ideal of casual fine dining - attentive servers dressed in chic casual black who know the menu and at least something about the interesting and fairly priced wine list. At times, though, certain waiters were far too casual for a restaurant that wants to be taken seriously.

One recent lunch server came to my table sniffling, dressed in dirty, droopy jeans and a T-shirt, with the meal check jammed into the rear of his visible waistband - unappetizing no matter how good the meal was. Another waiter panned out as one of my favorites, but not before running us through an amusing drill in passive-aggressive ordering.

We could have our chile-rubbed pork loin cooked any way we liked, he said, as long as it was well done. So . . . how would we like our pork?

"How about medium-rare?" we parried. He gave us a stare that growled.

"However the chef prefers is fine with us," I countered.

"He cooks it to order - however you like," he rumbled.

I noticed the bloody-skull-and-dagger tattoo on his forearm seemed to be pulsing.

"Well-done would be great!" I said, adding softly as he left, "as long as it's a little pink."

We thankfully graduated to our food, which, over three meals proved more than worth the semantics.

Fried oysters were crisply done. Tender pappardelle noodles made up for their unappealing brown look with surprisingly light flavors, a medley of ricotta cheese, roasted tomatoes and olives.

Rich porter beer thinned a hearty cheese soup made from Lancaster cheddar that had a mildly smoky flavor. Tortillas thickened a Mexican flavored tomato soup. And the sweet lump meat of traditional crabcakes sparred playfully with their tangy bed of molasses barbecue beans.

A delicious grilled New York strip came with marvelous homemade steak sauce that was both tangy and exotic, with everything from tamarind paste and coconut milk to ketchup in the mix. Sea bass was nicely crisped over threads of zucchini "noodles" tossed with new potatoes and a tomatoey crab broth. Butter-soft medallions of veal paired with seared scallops in a worthy revamp of "surf and turf."

And yes, our awesome chile-rubbed pork was even still blushing by the time it came to our table. Beneath the fiery glaze tomatillo salsa, I detected the faintest rosy hue.

Seared duck breast was one of our few disappointments. We had it twice, and both times the fatty skin was poorly rendered. Our rather bland barbecue salmon was drowned out by the cacophony of seemingly random flavors that garnished the plate - over-minted eggplant mush, grilled onion rounds, and a raft of sauteed potatoes. Our Greek salad tasted of grilled char, but without the benefit - we had a hard time finding much octopus.

There was butter on top of butter in the apple butter tart, a good idea that could have used a subtler touch. But mistakes were really few in pastry chef Susan Slotsky's desserts, a repertoire of simple, homey confections updated and rethought with a touch of skill and class.

Her pecan pie with chocolate chips was irresistible, although it would have been even better if it had been heated. An open-faced, thin-crusted apple tart was the picture of rustic goodness. Sticky-rimmed ginger bread and lemon pound cakes were moist and full of flavor. A fudgy wedge of soft chocolate torte brought silence as we made it disappear.

One of McNally's contributions to the dessert tray was also one of my favorites, raspberry panna cotta, a quivering pink dome of cool custard that blended richness with the sassy essence of fruit.

You can't get this kind of cooking in most neighborhood restaurants, but the London Grill pulls it off with a blend of laid-back ambience and quality food that sits just right.

LONDON GRILL (TWO BELLS) VERY GOOD

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