Calling all opinionated foodies: Zagat Restaurant Survey needs your help to compose its 2011 Philadelphia edition. Whether you are long-winded or short and to the point, whether you have been to 200 restaurants or two, log on to zagat.com/vote to rate spots on food, service, décor and estimated cost. Surveys in-progress can be saved, allowing you to revise your opinions or just get back to it when you have more to say and more time to say it. (Say it Zuh-GAT, not Zaggit, while you’re at it).

To tempt participation, reviewers who speak their piece by March 21, 2010 will be rewarded for their time with a copy of the finished product, a 90-day subscription to Zagat.com, or a chance to win “A Night on the Town� worth about 500 big ones.  Sounding off for Zagat sounds good to me.

Photo l Felicia D’Ambrosio

…is when the sommelier preserves the label of the bottle of wine you liked so much, as shown above.  As with skinning cats, there’s more than one way to get the label off the bottle without ripping it; fancy-pants steakhouses tend to use ready-made label removers like Oenophilia Label Lift, a product similar to the one shown in the photo.

Since ready-made label removers can be expensive, there are a few other ways to get the label off the bottle without destroying it; they work for beer bottles, too.

Hair-Dryer Method: Turning the hair dryer to its hottest setting, hold the nozzle directly over the label, moving it all around to cover the entire area.  The heat from the dryer will melt the adhesive that attaches the label to the bottle, making it easy to peel.  This also works on any kind of irritating sticker (i.e., prices on the glass of picture frames) you need to remove, and has the benefit of being free if you already own a hair dryer.

Packing/Shipping Clear Tape: Place a large piece of tape, leaving as big a margin around the label as possible, over the label.  Smooth down any air bubbles with the back of a spoon and let the tape rest on the label a few hours or overnight. Starting at a corner, peel the tape up slowly. This will lift up the colored part of the label and leave the gluey backing behind.

Hot Water & Dish Soap: Soak the bottle in very hot water, adding just a few drops of dish soap. Allow to soak for at least 15-30 minutes; gently peel label away.  Too much soap will disintegrate the label, so use sparingly.

Meal Ticket dropped by the friends/fam of Falafel Factory (32 S. 18th st., between Chestnut and Market) last night for a quick look at Rob Rimeris‘ quick-service chickpea-ball slinger. The all-veg, mostly-takeout operation, which we first noted in December, officially opened this morning. Rimeris offers a small menu of specialty falafels (get yer balls fried or baked), plus fries, hummus and veggie dip. Everything’s under 10 bucks. Their traditional falafel, featuring hummus, cukes, tomatoes, cabbage and a garlicky sauce, definitely got the job done, but it’s FF’s more irreverent varieties that will like catch the most attention. For example, check out the sweet/salty combo of the “Hawaiian,” packed with pineapple chunks, carrots, cabbage and a teriyaki sauce.

Falafel Factory is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Photo l Felicia D’Ambrosio

Bronx Cocktail

This is the time of year we’re supposed to crave nothing but whiskey drinks and comfort food, infusing our layers of fat with anesthetizing oaky potions to sustain us through this wintriest winter since recordkeeping began in 1884.

I say, to hell with that.  What I want are raw vegetable salads bright with chopped parsley and lemon juice, the watery crunch of cucumbers and affirming bitterness of endive.  Such food needs a drink partner with a lighter touch, something to remind us that the sun will melt the heaps of dirty, porous snow eventually.

Enter the Bronx cocktail, allegedly invented by Johnny Solon at the Waldorf before Prohibition.  Gin, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, freshly-squeezed orange juice and bitters are shaken hard into a cocktail that’s not too boozy to serve as an apertif, stiff enough to be manly and refreshingly sweet, tart, bitter and spicy.

Locally distilled Bluecoat Gin, with its restrained botanicals, provides a blank canvas that allows good quality (or at the very least, fresh) vermouth to shine; Bluecoat is the ideal gin for folks who claim to hate the spirit.  I’m one myself, having had the bad judgement as a teenager to sneak swills straight from the Tanqueray bottle one grim night.

With Angostura bitters currently in short supply in the U.S., Fee Bros. Old-Fashion Aromatic Bitters make a cinnamony, complex addition.  Since citrus is in season and dead cheap right now, I juiced a few sweet tangerines to add the final touch.

Check out Dale DeGroff’s recipe from his amazing book, The Essential Cocktail, after the jump.

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Photo courtesy Marie DiFeliciantonio

You can just call her LP

Over the past 17 months, there’s been many a deadline day when Team Meal Ticket has bemoaned our lack of a competent, food-crazy intern to write witty posts while we frantically hammer away at print articles, attend the events we’d accidentally triple-booked ourselves for and provide insight to the eternal question, “Where do we go for lunch?”

Now our prayers have been answered in the form of chef-writer Marie DiFeliciantonio, whose surname manages to mash all of Felicia D.’s monikers together with those of her immediate family. Marie, henceforth known as “Lucky Porkchops” or “LP” to avoid confusion with her blogging brethren, has a degree in communications and culinary arts, once served as private chef to a very swanky family and has never met an unfamiliar ingredient she didn’t long to ingest.

We put our newest player through the Q&A routine after the jump.

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It was just announced that Garces Trading Company (1111 Locust St.), Iron Chef Jose Garces‘ gourmet market/café, will open to the public next Tuesday, Feb. 16. (Garces shared some preliminary details on the project with Meal Ticket back in September ‘09 , and Jamie of Midtown Lunch recently poked her head in for some in-the-works photos.) The space’ll act as a shop for Garces-branded food products (cheese accompaniments from Amada; Garces’ own roasted coffee beans; house-cured charcuterie; house-baked bread; “GTC at Home” heat-and-serve dishes) as well as a sit-down to grab fresh-made sandwiches, cheese plates, housemade pasta dishes (pappardelle with lamb ragu; fusilli alla carbonara with guanciale — cheektastic!) and comfort-food-y daily specials (Monday will be “coq au vin day,” for example). GTC wil be open weekdays from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.; the café will serve from 11 to 10 daily.

Perhaps the most noteworthy (and controversial) aspect of GTC is its PLCB-leased wine boutique, which’ll feature more than 200 international wine and spirits selections. This partnership between a restaurateur* and the state-run Liquor Control Board is the first of its kind, and it’s been met with protest by a number of local bar/restaurant owners who feel the union creates an unlevel playing field. The issue is discussed further on the Web site of the PA Restaurants for Fair Competition coalition.

* This post has been edited to properly reflect the nature of Garces’ partnership with the PLCB.

Meal Ticket just touched base with hospitality investor Bob DeBolt, who just took over the long-running Doc Watson’s (216 S. 11th St.) with partners John Dunfee and Greg E. Dodge for a new concept called Sherlock’s Tavern. (The trio, known collectively as Vesper Hospitality LLC, also own the recently opened Zavino.)

Doc Watson’s as we knew it closed last Wednesday; as of right now, the team’s cleaning/reorganizing a bit before reopening in the next week or so — as Doc Watson’s. The plan is to operate the pub as is on the ground floor while they renovate the top floor. Once that’s done — DeBolt’s saying “mid-May” — they’ll shut down the ground floor for renovations and funnel business upstairs. The plan is to be completely done with Sherlock-ifying the space no later than Sept. 1.

Changes will include an English stone facade, honey mahogany bookcases for bar shelves, a white marble bar and a 24-tap draft system (Doc’s had 12). DeBolt adds that there’ll be a standing discount at the bar for all Jefferson employees.

No word on whether Sherlock’s plans to engage in intellectual fisticuffs with criminal mastermind fellow bar Moriarty’s, located just down the street.

Photo l Felicia D’Ambrosio

Order up the the fudge brownie sundae at the Standard Tap (901 N. Second St.) and Tap owners William Reed and Paul Kimport will donate $2 to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

You can check out other ways to contribute (and eat) on the CHOP Foundation Web site.

Photo | Drew Lazor

Maru (206 Market St.), the sushi spot that just took over for Anjou in Old City a little more than a month ago, has already closed, a loyal tipster reports. We called the restaurant but the phone rings and rings; a walk-by reveals a darkened dining room.

Maru is not to be confused with Maru Global Takoyaki, the Japanese street food spot that opened on 10th Street recently.

Aaron Ultimo over at Ultimo Coffee (1900 S. 15th St.) already has some pretty bad-ass branding — but now he’s looking for someone to submit a design for a new T-shirt. All designs must contain some form of the eagle logo (above), the words “Ultimo Coffee” and can use a maximum of two colors. Send your design in .jpg format to aaron[at]ultimocoffee.com by Feb. 17. If your design is picked, you’ll get one of your tees, plus a $100 credit at Ultimo. That’s alotta Counter Culture!

And here’s an update on the liquor license saga of Brew, Ultimo’s boozier half. Last time we checked in, Brew’s owner John Longacre told us that they were on course to start offering their mix-a-six craft beer selection on Jan. 30. Well, that didn’t happen — even though everything is in order with Brew’s neighborhood approval, the PLCB has requested they submit a signed document stating Brew’s official hours of operation, and its intent to have an ID-swiping verification machine on the premises. The Board passed on a request to an LCB lawyer to draw up the document, but Longacre is unsure if it’ll be ready for the LCB’s Feb. 10 meeting. In other words, yet another flaming hoop. “Mind you, I’m president of the Philadelphia Tavern Owners Association,” says Longacre, “and I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous.”