MarketStEl

Since Holly was too modest (unjustifiably, in this case) to mention it, I'll assume that you didn't know that the place at 18th and Sansom was his own establishment. By the time I arrived here in 1983, it was an Ethiopian restaurant, Cafe Nyala, the second such restaurant in the city. The first is still in business at 45th and Locust in University City; it now goes by the name of The Red Sea. The building that housed Holly Moore's Upstairs Cafe and Cafe Nyala is now home to Tria. In between Nyala and Tria was, among other things, an ice cream and dessert parlor called Alaska. That should give you some idea of how the restaurant scene has evolved over the years. The then-restaurant critic for Philadelphia magazine, whose name escapes me now, wrote a funny, discursive, and too-long article on the occasion of his 10th anniversary writing for the mag back around '88 or so chronicling the evolution of Philadelphia restaurants since the 1960s, when, as he put it, the "grownups" served the "mix-and-match menu", consisting of the usual surf 'n' turf suspects accompanied by salads made from industrial-grade produce and topped with your choice of dressings (quoting now): "(bottled) French, Russian (French with pickle bits), Thousand Island (even more pickle bits)..." "The kids" came to town in the mid-1970s and upended everything with funky, creative dishes served on mismatched place settings. Holly already listed the survivors of that era, although another of its pioneers, Steve Poses (Frog, The Commissary), is in the catering business still. FWIW, it was shortly after the start of that first Restaurant Renaissance that the Reading Terminal Market revived after a near-death experience. I suspect that the two events are actually linked in some way, though I can't prove it. However, since you brought up Motown, I have a neologism for you to ponder: "Bos-troit"-- That's the characterization of Philadelphia that an unnamed academic gave it. The quote appears in a Pew Charitable Trusts report on the state of Philadelphia in 2007. You can read the whole thing if you like here. --Sandy, who assumes you've been to the "Fabulous Ruins of Detroit" Web site, a poignant but now ultimately hopeful love letter to your hometown Edited further to add: And with this post I hit the 3,000 mark. I've still got a ways to go to match Cal Ripken.

I am just popping in here - and here I was thinking Nando's was out-and-out South African - nando's is flame-grilled young chicken spatchcocked and marinaded in piri-piri sauce - oil with garlic and hot chilli flavour (sometimes with a touch of vinegar) and I am sure that it comes from Mocambique and Angola - I notice now the query was halfway answered above ← Thank you for answering the followup question before I asked it. This sounds simple and delicious. It also sounds like something I could reproduce easily on my countertop grill, minus the flame part.

oh my god those are my favorite and I can get them everywhere in maryland, but they are really hard to find here in the boston area. ← "(Almost) No Utz in Boston! Too bad for the rest of the world." I knew moving to Philadelphia was a smart thing to do....

Will the bar be open early tomorrow? I've got a couple of less-stellar meals in the planning stage, and I need to watch myself about overcommitting for meals, but I do need to at least say farewell to Katie in this incarnation of her career.

I was about to answer that question in the affirmative until I read the "of a city not known for its food" part. Cities and their regions are interrelated, and the state of the core city affects the state of the region, regardless what the folks in the suburbs think. I await the provisions of exceptions to this rule.

Hello and welcome, Megan! If you're at the Market at midday on a Saturday (or maybe on Friday in the summer), you might bump into me! Which is one of the other glories of the RTM: It is one of Philadelphia's few true common grounds, where you can find the whole of the city -- rich, poor, and in between, white, black, Latino, Asian, and Native American, male and female, gourmet and gourmand (sometimes inhabiting the same body) and indifferent -- interacting civilly (by and large). What the RTM does is what food should do: Bring us together. And as for those outings: There are two planning threads currently in progress. You're more than welcome to come along if either of them interests you.

Maybe you glossed over it in my prior post, but could you tell me about Portuguese chicken and what distinguishes it from other varieties?

I'd say that the Yello'bar burger sampler, at $7.95, might just be one of the better burger bargains in town. The samples are of the four regular burgers on the menu -- the Yell'oburger (Swiss cheese [iIRC] and caramelized onions), the bacon burger (with cheddar), the Black & Bleu burger (blackened patty with buttermilk blue cheese), and the pretzel burger (with Dijon mustard--there's cheese on it too, but I forget what kind right now; the full size version is served on a roll made from soft pretzel dough while the sampler burger is on the same brioche roll as the other three). Edited to add: And all four burgers were served medium rare without my having to specify doneness to the waitress -- a sign that this place knows burgers. Together they add up to an 8 oz. burger (the size of their regular patties) for $2 less. Granted, however, that this is like eating sliders compared to a full-size burger and thus qualitatively different even if quantitatively the same. Had one at the Phillyblog happy hour last week. We really ought to do a Phillyblog-meets-eGullet dining event soon.

Is that smear, or schmear, as in "a schmear of cream cheese" -- cream cheese clearly being a spread in its native form, but transformable into a dip through the addition of other ingredients, including liquids that thin its consistency? Maybe the interchangeable use of "dip" and "spread" for the foods you describe, Fat Guy, might have something to do with their consistency: They are not so thick that a potato chip dipped in them would break (my standard for distinguishing "spread" from "dip"), but neither are they so thin that they would not stay on a knife used to apply them to slices of bread or the like. You can spread dips on bread or crackers, and you can dip things like pretzels into peanut butter or (room temperature) cold pack cheese food, both of which I've usually heard referred to as spreads. But the set formed by the intersection of the sets "spread" and "dip", terminologically speaking, seems smaller than suggested in the original post.

I see that I will be spending the next week in the presence of a master who's only barely legal to drink in the US. You're off to a great start -- and you managed to get both of the obligatories out of the way on Day One, which has to be some kind of record -- so I've got a feeling this blog is going to be one of the great ones. Any particular reason I missed encountering you on my day in Seattle back in April? So I see we have the same disease! At my left as I type this are proofs from two newsletters. In another open window on my computer desktop is a bear of a manuscript I'm editing (rewriting might be closer to the truth) for a retired physician-turned-wannabe bestselling author; I promised it to him by month's end, and I'm about 60% finished. In another window is a Phillyblog discussion. Five blocks away is the Wellness Center, where I ought to be working out right now. I need to touch base with a psychology professor about Op-Ed essay ideas. And what am I doing right now instead? Oh, one more thing: Melbourne and Sydney "towns"? Please tell me a little about Portuguese chicken and what distinguishes it from other varieties. More on this below. You most certainly do! That's much better! I think that in most cases, it's the former. The stores are afraid that you're coming in to swipe trade secrets or something like that. However, it's also image management. Reputation is one of the most valuable assets any business has, and owners--well, good owners, anyway--go to great lengths to make sure that reputation is protected from harm. (Bad owners go to great lengths to make sure that reputation is distorted in their favor.) As the owner has no idea what you are planning to do with those pictures you're taking, and it would be awkward indeed for him to ask you while you're engaged in the activity (and risk having you give him a misleading answer to boot), the default position is to forbid your taking them. Larger chains usually have some sort of procedure whereby you can obtain permission to take photos in their stores ahead of time.

The readers' poll season has officially kicked off in the 'burbs, with the Delaware County Daily Times' annual "Best of Delco" advertising section appearing in today's edition. These readers' polls are little more than popularity contests. Ballot-box stuffing is not an uncommon phenomenon, especially in categories where there are either few contenders or establishments with fanatically loyal followings. But that doesn't mean that the winners are necessarily undeserving. Sometimes a crowd favorite deserves the honor because it truly serves high quality fare, such as Charlie's hamburger stand (Best Burger 2007) or Nifty Fifty's (Best Milkshake 2007). But there are those results that leave one scratching one's head. Take these two: Best Bakery: Phatso's Best Doughnuts: Dunkin' Donuts I probably never would have heard about Phatso's if I hadn't started working at Widener, but this little storefront just steps from the Chester train station turns out fantastic baked goods, including the best doughnuts I've eaten in quite some time. While Dunkin' Donuts has Phatso's beat when it comes to variety, the chain can't hold a candle to the Chester bakery on quality. Apparently, Delaware County residents recognize Phatso's quality when it comes to things like wedding or birthday cakes, for the establishment picked up its fifth consecutive Best Bakery prize in this year's "Best of Delco" roundup. I would think that those same people would recognize the superiority of the doughnuts too. I'm sure there are perfectly reasonable explanations for this disconnect, but none come to my mind right off the top. Maybe you can help me. Or maybe you might have your own examples of egregious leave-takings of the senses like this one.

I've seen Pennsylvania Noble at the Fair Food farmstand at the Reading Terminal. If you look at Katie's latest post in that thread (top of page), you should be able to get some idea of what they have right now - I don't hink it changes too radically from week to week. ← And if that's not enough information, you can always go to the Green Valley Dairy Web site. The dairy farm is in Lancaster County, near Kirkwood. There's a complete history of the operation on the home page, and you can even purchase their cheeses online. As the minimum online order is 2.5 pounds, though, if you wish to send a lesser quantity, follow the advice above--Fair Food always has some in stock, and the cheesemaker himself has a table set up right next to Fair Food most Saturdays.

I just sent friends in Oakland and a fellow eGulleteer in Seattle 3/4 pound blocks of Pennsylvania Noble. The Green Valley Dairy guy wrapped the blocks extra securely for me so I could ship them myself. I then put them in bubble wrap and sent them Priority Mail. They arrived in very good condition, but I haven't heard back from the recipients whether they liked the cheese as much as I do. I know from experience that Pennsylvania Noble will keep for several days without refrigeration -- actually, I kept a block in my pantry for about two weeks without ill effects once. The owner of Green Valley suggested to me that I not refrigerate the cheese, though obviously what he keeps in storage prior to sale must be kept refrigerated (or otherwise temperature controlled). I guess he removes enough cheese from the fridge prior to sale to have enough at room temperature to offer as samples. In any case, since Pennsylvania Noble is something they won't be able to find out their way, I think it would make an excellent cheese gift for distant friends.

(emphasis added) Then why did they even bother making this? "Because we can, that's why"? Any reports of this product actually being consumed by anyone?

Not helping the situation further, is this news... Organic Consumers.org - related article 5/21/07 usda.org - Proposed changes to Nat'l List of Approved Substances ← Okay, Steven, I understand the point you made upthread. An "organic" standard that allows ingredients that were in some way contaminated by nonorganic substances is hardly "organic" at all. But what's the problem with the sausage casings?

Talk about a reduction!

And if they work in Philadelphia, who gets their wage taxes? And when they travel to, say, San Francisco, and someone out there asks where they're from, where do you think they say they're from? If they use their actual community, the following exchange will likely ensue: "Where's that?" "Oh, it's outside Philadelphia." I think this issue cuts both ways. The whole city-vs.-suburb thing IMO has hobbled this region for decades. If I object to the (formerly?) widespread attitude among suburbanites that their lives wouldn't be affected one whit if an H-bomb were dropped on Broad and Market tomorrow morning, then I can't just let the notion that mediawise, city is city, suburb is suburb and never the twain shall meet, pass unchallenged. Hundreds of municipalities, five counties, one Greater Philadelphia.

Now that's just hair splitting, V. Must we explicitly put "Greater" in front of "Philadelphia" in order for a discussion about local topics to extend beyond the Philadelphia city line? There's a discussion board on Phillyblog about "The 'Burbs." I would hope that if someone wanted to diss a restaurant review that ran in the Bucks County Courier Times, we could do so in this topic. I am not attacking journalism as a whole. Chill out. The issue of editorial and advertising isnt at all the issue, it's about content. Both are under the same banner of newspaper. It has a uniform voice which is the amalgalm of it's contents. Edited to add: Philly Mag and STYLE also have good food writers. ← I'm pretty sure that the editorial staff of the latter are also encouraged to write about advertisers. I think the point everyone is trying to make is that even though publishers or the ad sales staff have leaned on the editorial staff to cover advertisers [positively] in the news columns, the gold standard is for the two to be separate -- and if that is the case, then both of the following are true: --Just because someone advertises in the paper doesn't ensure favorable coverage; --The ads a newspaper carries are not a reliable guide to the editorial content. BTW, I' not sure that it's insecurity she was expressing.

At last something to do with all that broccoli stockpiled at the White House, perhaps? (Yes, I know this was two Presidents of the United States ago, but if it's anything like Civil Defense crackers, the broccoli is still around, I assure you.)

...yeah, but the White Australia Policy was still in full force then... Confidential to heidih: Bimbo Bakeries USA has 13 plants across the country. It is the U.S. subsidiary of Grupo Bimbo S.A. de C.V., based in Mexico City, Mexico's largest baking company. Seems Bimbo is just the name the founder chose for the company, which was quickly given to the baker bear character that remains the company's trademark. I never heard of them until the 9th Street Market area developed a sizable Mexican presence. More recently, I've seen the Team Bimbo van on the streets of South Philly.

Yeah, you really don't want to go through those double doors that separate the stockroom and prep areas from the selling space. To use the bathrooms at the 10th and South Super Fresh, though, you have to. (Edited to add: And regardless which side of those doors the bathrooms are on, it's been my experience that supermarket restrooms at chains other than Whole Foods are only marginally better maintained than SEPTA station restrooms. The RTM's restrooms, by contrast, are in far better condition than all of the foregoing.)

I hate wraps. Have you weighed in on the topic Fat Guy started on this subject? It looks like this sentiment is universal, or nearly so, on eG -- I've yet to see anyone chime in with a defense of these creatures. I don't think I've ever had a hoagie. May I suggest an Italian hoagie? Female Oreos? I'm not going any further than that, no siree.

Comment on the post immediately above: The poster visited the recently opened Philadelphia location, on historic Washington Square. The poster is also quite likely the best chef in Philadelphia today.

So I see this blog is going to be the berries! And salutations from one scribbler to another! Not only is it a word -- it's a magazine! DC's city magazine, to be specific. So at this time of year, are you a huckleberry hound? I see Peter the Eater beat me to the pun. ***** set me up. Might I know what airline you work for, and whether it is possible to fly it from Philadelphia to Seattle? (As you say it's a regional airline, I imagine the answer to that last question is "No.") Frankly, given that airline food has been pretty bad for as long as airlines have served food, I'm perfectly happy with the packets of peanuts and snack crackers Southwest Airlines hands out. I can relate to both the size of your kitchen and the unpretentiousness of its equipment. Nice dining nook, too! I'm 48 and I remember those racks too. However, neither my mother nor my grandmother had one -- and we had a 1964 Home Show Special kitchen installed in what had been the rear sun porch of my childhood home in Kansas City; I think that's 1960s enough. (Fortunately, the great Harvest Gold and Avocado kitchen craze didn't occur until the 1970s.) Thank you for upholding the grand fridge shot tradition -- and for one-upping it with utensil-drawer photos! 1) Your kitchen reminds me of my own in many ways. (There are some pictures of it in my foodblogs.) 2) Somehow, I've always managed to balance my plastic storage containers and lids, which is more than I can say about my checkbook. I'm sure you're aware that Tillamook has taken their cheese national, and not just in Whole Foods stores. I can find it at my local Acme (Albertson's to you) along with the Cabot, the Heluva Good (New York State) and the Cracker Barrel. I think I like Tillamook Cheddar even better than I do Cabot, one of Vermont's best Cheddars and for years the best Cheddar you could get in the regular dairy case in Northeastern supermarkets. If Cabot is doing the same thing Tillamook is, you might want to do your own comparison between the two cheeses sometime. So noted for the next trip I make to visit my brother and niece in Woodinville. I don't know if you saw either of my foodblogs, but the restaurants I shared with you in them are by and large far from the best Philadelphia has to offer, and they're still very good. Should you ever find yourself on the Right Coast, I would encourage you to visit Philadelphia, whose restaurant scene has grown phenomenally over the last decade or so and also ranks up there among America's great food cities. That said, I'm looking forward to returning to Seattle. I loved the city as much as I did the dinner I had at Union. Edited to revise my description of Cabot, as there are some small Vermont producers, such as Grafton Village, that produce Cheddar as good as or better than Cabot's. But Cabot is still among the best.

An acceptable variant spelling of 'espresso', according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Did you really not know what he meant, though? ← Oh, I knew what he meant. What I didn't know was that "expresso" was a correct spelling.