A classic Philadelphia seafood experience that's worth the price

Old Original Bookbinder's hardly needs an introduction.

A staple of Philadelphia life since it opened 1865, this seafood restaurant in Old City has delighted hordes of the famous and not-so-famous for so long that it has become a must-see for tourists and a perennial favorite for natives.

Thus, it's not surprising that, on my first trip to this famed seafood establishment, I was similarly wowed and won over.

The Bookbinder's chef, wooed from New York two years ago, specifically crafted the current menu to take diners on a four-course tour of his culinary excellence.

Diners are suggested to start off with a selection from the raw bar, move on to an appetizer, sample a soup or salad and finally move on to a main entree.

My date and I decided to skip the raw-bar option, guessing that our stomachs wouldn't be big enough to hold that amount of food.

And we were right.

Instead, we started off with a shrimp and crab-dip appetizer ($12).

Not only was it possibly the best part of the meal, but it looked and smelled so good that a woman sitting a table away from us asked for a taste.

We then moved on to soup ($5 a cup): New England clam chowder in my case and my friend a Bookbinder's specialty, snapper soup.

My chowder was exactly what I expected and was well prepared.

However, the snapper soup was fantastic, especially when the vinegar that came with it was added.

For a main course, I had the flash-fried Gulf shrimp, and my friend sampled the Atlantic steak cod ($25 each).

In contrast to the preceding courses, the shrimp and cod were prepared very simply. On display here was the actual quality of the fish we were eating - and good thing, too, because if we had been presented with another elaborate dish it would have been more food than our stomachs could have borne.

We closed our meal by sharing a citrus fruit tart ($7), a variation on key-lime pie, sweet and bitter at the same time.

Bookbinder's would be a great place for students to get their parents to take them to - it's above most college student's price range. And if you go and decide to skip the four-course structure, I would suggest getting plenty of appetizers, soup and dessert. The main course, while excellent, only seems to make sense in the context of a larger display of culinary magnificence.

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