"Panning Sampan"

From the outside, Sampan looks like the coolest Asian-fusion type restaurant on South 13th Street, near El Vez. The interlocked, woven, wooden beams (almost looking like a flattened bird's nest) on the exterior and smoky windows beckons a certain elegance to the block.

Then, you order the food. They make it to be a sort of "tapas-Asian" menu. We ordered two "hot" plates and two "cold". The rabbit dumplings with the bacon and spring peas sounded like heaven but all we could taste was salt. It was not from the bacon, which we sampled separately, it was the scallion reduction sauce the poor bunny buns were swimming in. Our other "hot" selection, Korean BBQ beef rib did not disappoint; very tender short ribs with some mild Kim-Che-esq topping/garnish was a great improvement over the dumplings. Next off of the menu came something simply called "Tuna"; it ended up being quarter inch cubes of raw tuna and avocado and some Indian flat bread. It was all topped off with crispy bits of deep fried rice, which just reminded me of Rice Krispies.

I do not mind paying a certain amount of money for good food, even if it is done up pretentiously. But the salt with every entree; mixed in, on the side in 4 or 5 shades of pink and white and black and the utter indifference of the staff was laughable.

Sampan is on a main street in Philly's "Gayborhood" and all the waitress could do was "apologize" for the surroundings. (this, mind you, was without prompting from us) Granted, we were at a table right next to the Sansom Street Theater (if you don't know, don't ask) but who is she to know what kind of people we were?

Thank god a friend saw us sitting outside at our table (it was a beautiful day) and she joined us at our 3rd pitcher of water.

CapoGiro's avocado gelato (yes, a menu suggestion I trusted), made it all better.