McFadden's Restaurant & Saloon official opening

I'm paging through Rich Westcott and Frank Bilovsky's mammoth Phillies Encyclopedia and adding checkmarks for completeness. Connie Mack: there. Jim Bunning: OK. Poncho Herrera: indeed. But where's the mention of the food and the booze, part of the stadium sport experience? Absent, maybe because there's never been something spectacular when it's come to culinary choices. Come opening day for the Phillies and their spanking, sparkling new home, the Citizens Bank Ball Park, you'll find some changes made to the b-baller's menu. Not only will the new CBB stadium feature greener pastures and cooler side rooms (like the Diamond Club, with Negro League Baseball images and jazz art by painter Dane Tilghman) it'll star Al Paris. Executive chef for Zanzibar Blue, Paris will oversee the menu at CBP's tony eatery, McFadden's Restaurant & Saloon, uniting the Bynum family of ZB with McFadden's owners John Sullivan and Brian Harrington for a teamwork match not witnessed since Steve Carlton joined the Phils. For diners who crave more than wieners and peanuts, Paris and McFadden's will offer a take on authentic Irish-American pub fare -- bangers and mash, simmering stews and scads of fusion-food sandwiches -- to go with McFadden's own design mix: part ye olde Irish, part freaky-deaky (with more plasma screens on the walls than in the Matrix trilogy). Batter up just took on a whole new meaning.

McFadden's Restaurant & Saloon official opening, Mon., April 12, 11 a.m., Citizens Bank Park, 11th St. and Pattison Ave., 215-928-0669.

—A.D. Amorosi

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