Reach it by Railway

JG Domestic doesn't care how you get there — just get there however you can.

by Adam Erace

	print	email	reply

Published: Dec 21, 2010

Neal Santos

EL POLLO LOCO: JG Domestic's bar-menu chicken plate features cornflake-crusted bird, a yam purée, coleslaw and liver gravy.

[ review ]

On a cold night in December, the Cira Centre stands alone.

The highways and byways surrounding this beautiful pariah's plot at once make it Philadelphia's best-connected and most isolated building. There are many reasons Jose Garces elected to open his seventh Philadelphia restaurant, JG Domestic, in its lobby, gravesite of Daniel Stern's Rae, but none of them — municipal incentives, built-in lunch and happy-hour business, low-hanging corporate catering, the fact that Garces lives five blocks away — are very comforting during the hike from Market Street's meters. Savvy commuters and Cira tenants have already embraced JG, but the location makes it hard for the rest of us to join the group hug.

"Originally, I saw the location as a challenge," Garces said during our interview, "but I feel if you put out a good product, people will come."

If you arrive through 30th Street Station, you'll descend into JG Domestic on a silver escalator. Viewed from the top, the restaurant seems to sprout from the tile floors, cordoned off by a green perimeter of reclaimed-oak planter boxes and latticed arbor. GRG designer Jun Aizaki has done a remarkable job adding dimension and texture to a space with all the natural warmth of an O.R., covering the chairs in checked fabrics, running backpack straps down the cushions of the booths and shooting live trees through the communal tables.

But while the room has character to spare, it lacks the energy you'll find in Garces' other restaurants. Due to its geography, JG simply isn't the kind of place you can just pop in to for a drink — though thoughtful cocktails like the absinthe-kissed City of New Orleans and the stiff, smoky Empire Builder make me really want to.

Advance planning is required and rewarded, because even at three months old, the cooking here, executed by chef Dave Conn, is largely up to snuff. JG's all-American menu is new to the GRG empire, but fans will pick up on the common threads — shareable small plates; sangria; and a killer chicken dish, the bar menu's bombshell, arriving cornflake-encrusted with white yam pureé, red cabbage/green apple coleslaw and liver gravy.

Lest he provoke purists' ire, Garces wisely doesn't call that dish fried chicken. It contains no bones and may or may not contain dark meat, in direct violation of the fried-chicken rulebook. Rulebook, schmulebook. Moist (thank a three-hour sous-vide) and subtly sweet (thanks to that cereal crust), this bird is so satisfying I've already applied for a job with Brandywine Realty Trust just so I can have it once a week at happy hour.

The chicken is also a great deal at $16, as was the featured "Whole Animal" the night I dined, a bronzed Griggstown pheasant whose succulent legs and breast came with tiny turnips for $28, a Thanksgiving feast I could barely finish. It's hard to reconcile those dishes with something like the striped bass, a laughable $25 fillet the size of a business card.

There were some other irksome details. If JG isn't going to pop the trendy heirloom popcorn to order before tossing with dehydrated cheddar and grated horseradish, it should at least be warm. And come to think of it, that pheasant, though delicious drizzled with an intense, mapley jus, wasn't very hot, either.

For dessert, the beignets are overwrought and klutzy. I picked up the first doughnut to dip into the thimble of Maker's Mark butterscotch — too thin, too sweet, too boozy — and a landslide of white sugar slid off its surface, turning my plate into Debi Mazar's coffee table in Goodfellas. "The beignets are the best things I've ever eaten in my life," my chipper waiter chimed in. Poor guy.

That said, the hits greatly outnumber the misses at JG Domestic. Crispy croquettes filled with molten sugar-pumpkin purée and Coach Farm's chèvre; the cute "Slim JG," spicy housemade salami sticks riffing on Garces' favorite childhood snack; cider-glazed lamb ribs, their unctuousness cut by the sprightly acid of Honeycrisp apples roasted with bourbon and bacon.

Order anything with mushrooms, whether Oregon chanterelles and chopped black truffles on crunchy, cheddar-veiled semolina flatbread or maitakes roasted with garlic and parsley and served over velvety Anson Mills polenta. And because baby, it's cold outside, expect feel-good fat-builders like decadent duck rillettes parfaits layered with foie-gras mousse and orange gelée, as well as a Swiss-perfect fondue made with Keswick Creamery's Troegs-washed Tommenator. It was gooey enough to eat with a spoon, which is exactly what I did when the sliced green apples and twisty, butter-glossed breadsticks were gone.

As you can see, JG layers on the richness like so many winter coats. And in the case of the novel crosnes — tubers with the crunch of a sunchoke, served with potato gnocchi, crispy artichokes and brown butter — it was just too much. When that happens, retreat to the "Market Raw" seafood starter. One dinner featured pink-tipped petals of Florida snapper crudo that, with beads of hackelback caviar and finger lime gathered at the edges of the fish like sea foam, exceeded the considerable virtues of all the ceviches I've had at Chifa and Distrito. The green and onyx pearls exploded like paparazzi flashes of salty and sour, illuminating the snapper's clean, scallop-like sweetness.

I wish I could have this crudo again, but the Market Raw changes weekly. So do many of JG's other menu items. The stingy-portion striped bass is now black cod. The passing of a poached pear has made way for maple souffle. "That's the beauty of what we're doing here," said Garces. "Unlike the Spanish spots, where once we find our ham guy, that's it, here we're going to continue to evolve."

Is a shuttle from Center City too much to ask?

(adam.erace@citypaper.net)

JG Domestic | Cira Centre, 2929 Arch St., ground floor, 215-222-2363, jgdomestic.com. Lunch served Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner served Mon.-Sat., 5-10 p.m. Bar menu, $3-$16; dinner menu, $4-$38; dessert, $8-$9. Reservations recommended.

Fly Vegans Fly
What's Cooking