Hella

I was walking around Old City this past week and looking for late dinner. It was cold and I wasn’t finding many places that looked appetizing that I hadn’t yet tried. When I stopped the browse the menu, the host came outside and mentioned that they had a buy 1 get 1 half-off special going for the night. This was more than enough to head in.

The restaurant positions itself as French and Korean and they have a full sushi menu as well as more regular entrees. We were hungry for sushi so we opted for the house special maki. It was described as a rice-less roll without seaweed with several types of fish. It sounded quite interesting. In addition, we ordered some edamame. The appetizers came out soon enough (we were only 1 of 2 active tables at the time eating dinner) and it was great to get a glance at this special appetizer. This is the first time I’ve had this type of sushi and it was delicious. The fish inside the roll was fresh and the cucumber wrap around the outside gave it a nice texture. There was also a bit of herbal leaf inside the roll that gave it a very distinctive and clean flavor.

For entrees, we had a seafood paella and a shrimp pasta with wasabe cream sauce. I must say that the dishes were both rather bland. Though the paella was spicy, it overpowered the dish without adding much flavor. There were also snow peas and spinach mixed with the rice and it just didn’t go well together. Also, the shrimp in both dishes was very tough. The jumbo scallops (also in both dishes), though great in texture, had little flavor.

We decided to try and salvage the meal with dessert. Our selections were pear sorbet and chocolate mousse and both were fantastic.

Overall, the appetizers and desserts were good but not enough to keep me coming back to this place. At $20+ per entree, it’s overpriced for the quality.

Address: 206 Market Street

Filed under: Philadelphia