Marigold Kitchen

Mix Mediterranean flavors with a few pinches of Salt (the former restaurant; not the condiment). Add “kind of” kosher catering comestibles concatenated with Rouge and Vetri alums. Then bring the coterie to a former West Philadelphia boarding house/tea parlor: Marigold Kitchen.

The gold plaque outside the silver guard rail to the front porch entrance door says, “Built in 1907.” Your view confirms. It is best to ask to be taken to a second floor dining room immediately. That’s because the first floor’s tables become rowdy-loud often; and its rear seating area is treacherously near the restaurant’s sole same-sex bathroom.

Upstairs has a number of new dining areas. The beet-purple-nylon draped window of the Pea-Green Room focuses on a central silver radiator. There are no pictures on the walls. So, the seven or so small square and round tables situated over bare hardwood floors, appear lonely and forlorn. Crisp tablecloths attempt to cover and console, but a tiny votive candle glaringly resonates in an atmosphere of Victorian vacancy.

Wine bottles, brought from home, are opened quickly by white-aproned black-shirted staff, who dally aimlessly before bringing a wine cooler. Patrons wait for the presentation of a bread bowl and its olive-filled extra virgin oil sidekick. An “amuse-bouche” arrives thereafter, a seared tuna meld with ground radishes, peppers, and “dessert lemon.” A tiny molded egg of the ingredients rests on a Chinese soupspoon. It’s gulped with a bit of bread dipped in the oil.

The taste is interesting, different, almost delicious but for the curious combination. If this food were a board game, it would be chess, not checkers. Even the olive oil seems too aggressive on the tongue to be classified with “virginity.”

Soup is more of the same. My menu exhibits Carrot Soup With Shrimp Kibbe ($9). The broth must have had carrots tiptoe through it for color, but there are confounding Middle Eastern spices and shrimp overtones that emasculate the orange root vegetable’s natural sweetness and flavor. The Kibbe is chopped infant gefilte, composed of ground shrimp rather than carp. An inkling of iodine tempers its tastiness.

A better choice might be the Crispy Pork Belly With Dates And Basmati Rice ($9). A large slab of bacon-like pork, piled high is prepared over steaming rice in a huge white bowl. The dates are infused in the fatuous concoction, so that the hunks forked into your mouth melt instantly. Your heart screams at you.

Also offered as appetizers are Sweetbreads With Crispy Chicken Skin And Tehina ($13), or Foie Gras Confit With Honeycake And Smokey Onions ($15). I mention these because you’ve never tasted anything as rich, Brobdingnagian, and assembled with ingredients not obviously edible together. If someone had told me I would adore smoothly glabrous sweetbreads contained in chicken skin and served with halvah; or liver combined with cake and onions, I would have thought that person to have a mind tabula rasa.

Entrées are more of the same. The Hanger Steak With Spring Vegetables And Saffron Croquette ($25) is a thicker than usual skirt of steak darkened by soy, surrounded by peas the same color as the room. Brown crisp patties of mashed potatoes with saffron garnish the white platter.

Never miss the fish here. Halibut En Brik With Black Trumpet Mushrooms And Poached Egg ($28) is extraordinary.

A two-inch high, three-inch long rectangle of pearly white halibut is seared in the lightest flour and then baked so that its skin is a blintz. On its top, the mushrooms form a mattress of dark clumps, upon which sleeps a pompous poached princess of an egg. The halibut is tickled by your utensil’s touch, trembling and spouting a visible vent of steam as its belly is exposed. Its fish-flakes are porcelain in whiteness, silky; and as they separate, susurrous. One hesitates to swallow, to allow a mushroom, a bit of egg and surprisingly dark stream of yolk to join the carnal conventicle. The self-inflicted groan you hear is yours.

There are drawbacks:

1. Saturday nights have the same menu items as other nights, but will cost more on the Saturday Chef’s Tasting Menu (three courses $45; five courses $60). The idea seems to be in beta, and should be dropped.
2. The desserts are more of the same. The Dessert Menu lists ingredients’ names, but when a slice is brought to your table, the portion may be light on “key lime custard,” or almost bereft of “almond cobbler” despite being so denominated. Moreover, “White Russian” ($7), a layered champagne glass of creams and cakes, has more liquor in it than an after-dinner-drink. These too require more simplicity.
3. All dinnerware plates, whether square, round or oval, have edges which proscribe a comfortable resting place for silverware. Every spoon, fork and knife falls too easily therein.
4. The neighborhood has had a rash of robberies.