GregD

Any thoughts on how it compares to Samba on Girard?

Lee's Deli (not the chain) is a pretty unimpressive looking small-scale diner on the corner of 47th and Baltimore. Scott, though, makes his own barbecue and buffalo sauces and uses high-quality meats and vegetables. Easily the best chicken steaks I've had (I know some don't consider them real steaks) because he starts with a real boneless breast and shreds it on the grill as it cooks. Best with the broccoli spinach chicken steak, very garlicky. Rest of the menu (other than breakfast) is mediocre, but the steaks are good.

Yikes! I think you're going to get some arguments from the New Haveners... ← The pizza shops around campus and so on are largely Greek, and some of them are pretty good, certainly much better than the Greek-style pizza you find all over Boston (now that's a city whose pizza makes Philly's look fantastic) and better than many, many of the pizza places here in Philly. The famous New Haven pizzas, though, like Pepe's, Sally's, and Modern Apizza, are all Italian. ← The first time I was in New Haven, I was about 12. I actually didn't spend much time there (just by some brief visits to my sister when she was in college), so I didn’t know Greek pizza from Italian pizza. It was just good. My favorite pizza in New Haven was Yorkside, which I'm pretty sure is Greek. ← Yeah, Yorkside was a well-known campus place. Pretty good, though I was a partisan of Broadway, on the other side of that corner. I believe that Yorkside no longer exists, because of some changes in that corner. Both Yorkside and Broadway were emphatically Greek, though better than most Greek pizzas I've had elsewhere. I suspect, without knowing, that the Greeks operated pizza places around a lot of East and Midwest college campuses because of immigration patterns. A lot of well-known Italian pizza shops were in super-Italian neighborhoods; even those that aren't now--like some of the Italian pizza places in Brooklyn--simply just never moved. When college campuses boomed after World War 2, the Italians were ensconced in their hoods and didn't need to move, so the Greeks came in and took the opportunity in the 50s/60s/70s. Because Italian neighborhoods were, at the times, more lucrative places for pizza shops than college campuses, it would have been silly to move a good shop out of a neighborhood toward a college campus. At least that's the story I've picked up from pizza shop families I've talked to over the years. Could be wrong, or right only for certain areas.

Yikes! I think you're going to get some arguments from the New Haveners... ← The pizza shops around campus and so on are largely Greek, and some of them are pretty good, certainly much better than the Greek-style pizza you find all over Boston (now that's a city whose pizza makes Philly's look fantastic) and better than many, many of the pizza places here in Philly. The famous New Haven pizzas, though, like Pepe's, Sally's, and Modern Apizza, are all Italian.

[Great photos, Jeff.

Diane and I were lucky enough to be able to step in for a vacancy at last night's Studio Kitchen dinner. It was our first time, and I'll let the more experienced folks comment about the relative quality of each dish. For us, the joy was in having some extraordinarily fine favorites (veal cheeks, crushed potatoes), some things we have but infrequently like exquisite skate, and even more so some things that we had never had before and had never considered eating (cauliflower ice cream! "Redondo Inglesias" terrine, pineapple carpaccio, dehydrated olives.) It was an amazing eating and educational experience. Diane is assiduously trying to figure out how to make cauliflower ice cream as we speak. The other pleasure was the company. Some of the more experienced hands gave us excellent guidance, and Jeff and Pedro and others poured fantastic bottles of wine.

Nice place, not my all-time favorite but very pleasant. For what it's worth, they actually call their menu Laotian, not Thai, but there are some obvious similarities.

We've eaten at the one in Upper Darby, which sounds smaller in size than the one you mention but is also pretty good. There was one on 52nd Street in West Philly but it closed down. Whether this was because of competition from the Brown Sugar Bakery down the street (which is excellent) or something else, I don't know.

I don't know him and wouldn't want to speculate about his motives. But the reasons why people try to make businesses work in areas that a Rittenhouse Square business operator wouldn't could be: 1) he owns the property--don't know if this true but many business owners in West Philly stay there for that reason 2) he genuinely believes in the neighborhood and wants to be part of its survival and even resurgence (and perhaps doesn't believe in or like neighborhoods that other restaurant proprietors flock to.) 3) he doesn't believe his business could do well in a market that catered to a significantly different class of business (an open question, given the paucity of truly authentic barbecue places doing well in Center City. There's not much evidence that a real barbecue place can pay the rent there, unless they're a chain or doing things that Zeke's doesn't currently do, like serve beer and focus on happy hours.) The simpler thing, probably, would be to find a place in West Philly that's a little closer in, on the theory (that seems true from talking to business owners I frequent) that places south and east of Zeke's--but still in West Philly--are held up much less frequently, in part because of the police station at 55th, in part because of the Penn police presence in the mid-40s, in part because of UCD "ambassadors" out to 48th Street. Whether he considers any of those areas part of his neighborhood, etc., I wouldn't presume to know. But it's also not so simple as better location = no hold-ups. I've been told, from someone who should know, that several Rittenhouse Square-area restaurants were held up in a single weekend in October. And I've heard of other restaurants in very nice neighborhoods that have been held up, too. Which is just a way of saying it's complex, on a lot of levels.

My wife is a big backer of the French toast bagels they stock at a couple of coffee shops out in UCity/West Philly (Sam's and Green Line.) They taste a little odd to me but are tasty. Partly, of course, this is because she's unimpressed with any plain bagels in the city, there or elsewhere. This being the same reason she orders toppings on pizza in Philly but not plain back home in Brooklyn.

Krispy Kreme has been around since 1937 (obviously not in Philly but in the South) and I believe started using those Hot Donuts Now signs shortly afterward. Are you sure that many Hot Bagels signs really predate that?

MexiCali also has a small but clean and rasonably nice restaurant at 40th Street and Sansom, just north of the Fresh Grocer. Nobody mentioned Pico de Gallo on South Street but I've enjoyed several dishes there. The mole isn't my favorite but have liked everything else a lot. My favorite mole is Sabor Latino, which isn't really a Mexican restaurant, but has a Mexican page on their menu, alongside other South and Central American food.

I like Pod a lot (and Buddakhan and El Vez to lesser degrees), but if money were no object I'd go to Morimoto. But I've never been to Barclay Prime or Striped Bass.

Decided to try a non-boarders' rec of Papa's in Chambersburg ("the place we went on Mondays" is what she said) and ordered their tomato pie (1 sausage, 1 meatball.) Fun, fairly small family pizza shop. Good crust and tomatos. Not going to be knocking Pepe's off the top of my list but a good solid pie. Looking forward to DeLorenzo's next time.

Is the other DeLorenzo's open on Mondays? I thought they were both closed on Mondays? I agree, if I could avoid being in Trenton on a Monday, I would. Another suggestion here would be to go to the other Delorenzo's on Hamilton Avenue. While not as good as Hudson street, better I think than Top Road and no smoke. Really the best suggestion is to not be in Trenton on a Monday and go to the real deal. ←