Warmdaddy's

Breathy Jeff Bradshaw stepped up to the mike and made us a promise: "I'm gonna show you now how I beg with my horn!"

And with the reddish glow of the new Warmdaddy's stage shining down on his band, Brass Heaven, Bradshaw sent forth a sliding, throaty moan of trombone woe.

It was a good lick, and especially apt, because he wasn't the only one feeling the blues. I'd been begging for quite some time for a skillet of hot corn bread, like the ones I'd seen arriving at other tables all night - usually as a complimentary welcome nibble.

When ours finally came that first visit, just moments before dessert, I could taste all the neo-soul-food promise of Robert and Benjamin Bynum's latest venture, the snazzy new South Philly home for their former Old City blues club. Puffing up from inside its cast-iron pan, its crunchy brown crust shined with melting honey butter, each bite was a warm mouthful of sweet corn pudding. If I had had any room left, it could have been the meal in itself.

Unfortunately, I'd already spent my appetite on some of Warmdaddy's less inspired efforts. The all-you-can-eat crab-leg dinner had a watery, soggy-shelled blandness that reminded me of the precooked clusters one scoops out of the freezer bin at Super Fresh across Columbus Boulevard. The baked brie was a hardly warmed, rubbery puck served with gelatinous blackberry jam. And there wasn't enough treacly pineapple glaze in the kitchen to mask the bitter taste of salmon that had been grilled to charcoal-black.

Warmdaddy's was out of the first two beers I ordered (including some of the more interesting Belgian options). It was out of the chocolate layer cake. It was out of the famous sweet potato cheesecake.

We were pretty much out of luck all night, with a few notable exceptions. I liked the band. And the restaurant's takes on some soul-food basics were undoubtedly passable. The corn-crusted catfish was fresh and nicely fried. A couple of sides were spot-on, like the tender (but not mushy) black-eyed peas and a crock of macaroni and cheese that had just the right balance of crust and creamy tang. The smallish shrimp were deep-fried for shrimp and grits (as opposed to the traditionally sauteed, saucy Lowcountry style), but I have to admit they were tasty.

The real question that keeps nagging, though, is whether producing "passable" renditions of soul food is really enough to expect from the Bynum brothers' latest effort. The new Warmdaddy's may be an intriguing new music venue, but so far, it is also a missed opportunity to raise the bar for updated neo-soul cooking.

There are strikingly few good soul-food restaurants around Philadelphia considering the venerable culinary tradition of its African American community, dating to the great black catering companies that fed the city's social circuit a century ago. More recently, the Bynums have been leaders among the handful of African American restaurateurs who have put serious money into venues for Center City's restaurant scene, beginning with upscale Zanzibar Blue (now in its second, jazzy incarnation at Broad and Walnut), and Warmdaddy's, which began as an Old City juke joint in 1995.

As Old City evolved into a younger, busier neighborhood where parking for Warmdaddy's older crowd was an ever-greater challenge, the Bynums began looking for a more conducive space.

The new location, adjacent to the RiverView movie theaters, seems isolated at first, but may eventually prove prescient in its close proximity to one of the city's new planned casinos. (The Bynums' first brush with casino culture, TSOP in the Tropicana's Quarter, closed last summer.)

There is ample parking behind the restaurant beneath the I-95 overpass. And the space itself is a big improvement over the old room, an open rectangle ringed by a swooping banquette with great sight lines from every seat (save for booths near the window facing the wrong way). A big rooftop deck and front patio will double the seating for warm-weather nights.

Warmdaddy's young service staff is friendly, but inconsistent in its attention to the table. I sat more than once with hot food and no silverware, trying to catch someone's eye. But I'd happily deal with the inconvenience if Warmdaddy's menu were worth waiting for. Chef Don Wharton, who most recently was chef de cuisine at Diddy's Atlanta restaurant, Justin's, showed flashes of originality with a few tasty gambits, like the jerk-seasoned shrimp and scallop starter, which came tiered between warm chips of grilled pineapple. The deep-fried lobster tails were another tropical surprise, the sweet meat lightly battered in a seasoned flour and served with a tasty mango dip.

Wharton's creative efforts were less rewarding in disappointments like the jerk chicken eggroll (dry and bland inside) and the big, chewy short rib, which, with more patient cooking, should have been meltingly tender.

But the kitchen also had issues with a number of more basic items, like the overly tomatoey gumbo ya-ya, the mushy red rice, the flabby baked ribs slathered in overly sweet sauce, and the deep-fried shrimp that were so thinly butterflied it was like eating jumbo shrimp toast with a tail.

At its best, Warmdaddy's is content to produce inoffensive renditions of the standards, like fried chicken (not bad, not memorable), cheesy grits, nicely spicy greens, and a rich sweet potato cheesecake studded with morsels of yam.

But so much of the food has the generic taste of recipes crafted to please the broadest crowd, at the expense of genuine personality - and the potential for something special. Now that sounds like a blues song in the making.