August 4-10, 2005

food

brevity is the soul of fish: Hamlet Bistro's pecan-crusted tilapia is served over a roasted corn, tomato and cauliflower salad, with a fennel and orange vinaigrette. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Prince of Mount Airy

Cheery Hamlet Bistro serves fresh, simple cuisine -- hold the drama.

by Elisa Ludwig

Shakespeare's Hamlet was not from the big eaters — and let's face it, what with all the skulls and poisoned mead and waify goth-girl fashion, you probably couldn't get a decent meal in Denmark in those days. Thankfully, a new restaurant named after him is in West Mount Airy, where the food is more plentiful and, even better, its owners are not aiming for literary accuracy.

In fact, there's nothing tragic at all about Hamlet Bistro, a casual 30-seat BYO on Emlen Street, in the space that used to be, for a short time at least, Rinker Rock Café. It's a comfortable, cheery place. The room, painted in shades of maize, cranberry and pea green, is whimsically decorated with bright original artwork, checkerboard walls and two hutches filled with periwinkle pottery. The limited seating is arranged into tables and a few private booths, as well as a front bar area for waiting. Service, though it tends to be disorganized and inconsistent (two servers might have crossed signals, for instance, or you might have to wait a long time to have your order taken), is nevertheless personable. More than anything, the blips seem like a function of the restaurant's newness.

Co-owner and chef Raul Schmalzbach has sharpened his knives at some fancy places — Deux Cheminées, Treetops at The Rittenhouse Hotel, Striped Bass and the Four Seasons, among others — but Hamlet is not about boutique cooking. While his dishes draw most of their flavor from fresh fruit and vegetables, they are substantial, unpretentious and accessible, garnished with a few leaves of baby spinach, a carrot curl or curly strands of red pepper. Dumplings, stuffed with baby scallops, shrimp and a healthy dose of ginger, are fried but delicate, crisp pleated pillows soaking in a pool of tawny soy and fig reduction. Mild, pecan-crusted tilapia gets its zing from a tangy salad of crisp cauliflower, roasted corn and tomato, and an orange fennel vinaigrette. Plump, tender chicken breast with sun-dried tomatoes and slivers of olive is nestled in a bed of fettuccine with a piquant roasted red pepper sauce and cubes of feta cheese. On a recent night a special appetizer was grilled shrimp with warm fried bananas and spicy mango salsa; the special entree was softshell crabs, layered with prosciutto, battered and fried crisp.

Like Rinker Rock before it, Hamlet Bistro is clearly looking out for its vegetarian constituency, which, in West Mount Airy, might very well add up to a critical mass. On a short menu, the few meat-free dishes are standouts, heavily textured and flavorful, like the marvelously thin chickpea pancakes, stuffed with a creamy layer of spinach, shiitake mushrooms and just-melted goat cheese. In another starter, little cumulus clouds of goat cheese whipped with honey float on Bibb lettuce, along with walnuts, poached pear, wisps of red onion and a sweet raspberry vinaigrette. The Egyptian-style stuffed portobello mushroom is heaped with tofu, rice and hummus, a beige mound that half-conceals the hidden veggie treasure, bites of asparagus and sweet potato. A side salad with plums and strawberries is a bright, fresh counterpoint, though its lemony vinaigrette is a few shades too tart.

At present, the desserts, listed on a changing chalkboard menu, are all about summer fruit. The airy-as-meringue layer cake flavored with Grand Marnier and embedded with blueberries is a mouthful of dissolving sweetness. The fruit crisp of the day — one evening it's pears and blackberries; on another it's pears and pineapple — is piping hot and cinnamony, absorbing the runoff from a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Then, of course, there is a chocolate layer cake with fluffy peanut butter filling. Simple and pleasing. Just the thing for an empty belly — or a ghost-induced existential crisis.

Hamlet Bistro 7105 Emlen St. 215-247-5800 www.hamletbistro.com

• Dinner: Tue.-Thu., 5:30-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5:30-10 p.m. Brunch: Sun., 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
• Appetizers, $7-$8; entrees, $14-$18
• BYO.
• Credit cards accepted.