MarketStEl

So I'm back from lunch. The owner is very friendly, the food is good, and the place has a lunch-counter feel and a homey atmosphere. But I don't think I could recommend it for your show, for a few reasons: --Supply of food. It looks like, in their effort to maintain authenticity, the owners haven't been able to find reliable supplies yet. "Pinky" (one of the co-owners) explained to us at lunch how they were looking for andouille sausage from a favorite supplier whose plant had been in the Lower Ninth Ward, and how said supplier had only very recently begun producing sausage again at a facility in Metairie--and how her husband managed to snare a modest quantity recently, which we guess explained the relative paucity of sausage in the jambalaya and red beans and rice with sausage my colleagues ordered. The place had also run out of French bread by the time we got there (they must order once a week or so, because the restaurant opens at noon and we got there at 12:45 p.m.), so my shrimp po' boy ended up being served on a Kaiser roll. --Service. One of us ordered the jambalaya and received a very small bowlful. As this was one of the $7.50 specials, he suspected a rip-off--which was not the case; somehow, they had gotten the order wrong and served him a side dish portion, for which he was charged only $1.50. Still, given that the restaurant wasn't that busy and the kitchen was right there on the other side of the lunch counter from our booth, the order-taking shouldn't have been so haphazard. --Location, and here I'm thinking about your viewers, not any of us reading this. I won't explain here, but rather let my pictures do the talking. Those will go up later today when I post a report on my visit to the Pennsylvania board. However, I would encourage anyone who reads this to give the place a try--they definitely put a lot of love into their cooking. (Edited to add: Address and directions will be posted with my review on the Pennsylvania board.) And if you are willing to have another Philly foodie tag along on your travels, depending on your schedule vs. my own and where Holly takes you, I'd like to join in as well.

careful, you don't want to give yourself away as a tourist (I don't think the camera crew will draw any suspicion... ) watch the terminology: I'm thinking back to the local lingo I hear around Philly and I don't think we don't put our meats on buns around here, I think we use rolls! ← Only cheesesteak I ever had in LA came with a choice of sprouts or avocado. So rather thay worrying about buns or rolls, I'm focusing on limiting Chris to a Whiz Wit, with nothing from the garden. ← Do you really mean nothing from the garden? If so, that'd have to be a Wiz Witout. Sorry, onions qualify as rabbit food, even fried, on a technicality. Edited to add: P.S. We're visiting De' Essence of New Orleans at lunch today. Full report to follow.

Beat me to the "Bambi" reference. The funny thing is, a lot of the people who see those Disney movies also watch what Penn professor Alan Kors once described to me as "those everything-in-nature-eats-everything-else-in-nature Discovery Channel documentaries." Cognitive dissonance rears its ugly head again.

When I blooged I posted so many photos I learned to almost like Image Gullet. ← That's a little more affection than I'm willing to give it right now. Let's just say I tolerate it, and I wish the tech staff would turn on the delete feature for pictures you post yourself. I couldn't have done my blog without tabbed browsing, though. MSIE has some catchin' up to do. Let me echo Katie's sentiments about your part of the state. (Trivial aside: The original service plazas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike--America's first superhighway--were designed to mimic traditional Pennsylvania fieldstone farmhouses. I believe a few of these survive along the initial 160-mile segment from Irwin to Carlisle, opened in 1940. The service areas on the Carlisle-to-Valley Forge extension, opened in 1950, are also fieldstone but low-slung, more like ranch houses.) I just hope the rivers are beginning to recede out your way.

As a Kansas Citian by birth and upbringing, I must question your interest in 'cue in Philly, as it's really an imported item that the locals botch as often as they get it right (I mean, Famous Dave's as a "Best of..."?), but then again, so is German food (though Germans were the original "Them" in this state--Benjamin Franklin railed against German immigrants in the 1700s the way talkers go on about Mexicans today), and so is New Orleans cuisine, which I fervently hope I will be able to report on from Chester sometime tomorrow. Be that as it may, there's a pretty decent hole-in-the-wall in a West Philly neighborhood most folks don't venture to--not even the folks on this board, who go everywhere--that serves pretty good 'cue, IME. The sauce is Carolina-style, which is to say, vinegar-based. It's called (IIRC) Belmont Bar-B-Q, and it's near the corner of 55th and Baltimore Avenue. I could always arrange to route my trip home from work via Angora Regional Rail station and walk over there to meet someone. BTW and FWIW, I had the best doughnut I've eaten in quite a long time about a week ago from a bakery right up the block from the Chester train station. It's only open in the morning (5 am-1 pm), and it looks like their stuff goes quickly--by the time I swung by at 7:35 on a weekday morning (the bus I catch to Widener idles right next to the station), two-thirds of their trays were already empty. The place is called Phatso's, and it's won a slew of Daily Times "Best of Delco" awards. More on this too if you like. Edited to fix dyslexic spelling of "doughnut."

It's not as expensive or complicated as it seems. Produce at a farmers market is often cheaper than at the grocery store, and is always tastier, fresher more nutritious (produce loses nutrients the longer it sits). For simplicity, consider a CSA, in which you put your money up front, like a magazine subscription, and receive fresh, seasonal produce throughout the year. And remember that the total at the end of the receipt is not the only thing to consider, because it's not the only thing you pay. There are real, and serious, costs to cheap food. They come in the form of Ag subsidies, healthcare costs related to diabetes, obesity and other diet-related disorders, and the environmental impact of all that procewssing, packaging and shipping. You think you don't pay for all of that? You pay, believe me. Here's a good example of the positive impact buying locvally could potentially have. My home county, (Johnson, IA), has about 45,000 households. if each of those households were to redirect just $10 of their weekly food budget to buying locally - from a farmers market, CSA, whatever - that would keep nearly $24,000,000 in our local economy. Think what that could mean for our infrastructure! For our schools! For our quality of life! no translate that to your own community. Imagine what that same idea would mean in a city the size of Philly? Or New York or Boston or LA? Serous money to drive the local economy to new heights. ← I'm aware of your point about farmers' markets vs. supermarkets, but my own forays into Philadelphia's best produce market--the Reading Terminal Market--produce inconsistent data. Usually, the most expensive produce sold at the RTM is sold by the Lancaster County farmers who travel into the city to sell their own and by the local/organic farmers who hold sway in the market's center court on a rotating basis or sell their produce through the Fair Food Farmstand, while the two full-time produce stands that buy their wares through the usual wholesale channels (and thus carry mainly stuff from Florida and California except when the large local cash crops like Jersey tomatoes are in season) usually have the lower prices, which are consistently lower than those at local supermarkets. I have, however, decided to put my money where my mouth is, and have shifted some of my produce purchases to the Lancaster County folk and the FFF. There is a noticeable difference in quality and freshness, judged by how long things keep in my crisper, so it may well be that the local product, despite the price difference, is actually the better buy. Something else to factor into this equation is community gardens, which are fairly common in Philadelphia thanks to a decent supply of vacant land where houses or factories once stood in many neighborhoods. I don't know whether they make a significant difference in the eating habits of Philadelphians, but I suspect they do help make up for the relative lack of access some poorer neighborhoods have to good, fresh produce.

As satirical songwriter (and Harvard chemistry professor) Tom Lehrer said about "New Math": It's so simple So very simple That only a child can do it! --Sandy "yes, I really do look like my avatar, only my hair's really salt-and-pepper" Smith

These are the sum of my vast civic powers: 1. I'm in charge of our two-man police department. 2. I break tie votes at borough council meetings. 3. I do ceremonial things like parades and have performed a few weddings. 4. I sign an awful lot of paperwork. Me and Mr. Giuliani, ya know? So you will form your exploratory committee for President in...? Seriously, what borough? You're in Adams County--that's south-central Pennsylvania. Gettysburg's the county seat. (I swear, the Web is wonderful!) There must be oodles of history close by as well! Will we get to see any of the battlefields? They sure looked it! Congrats and belated best wishes for good fortune (I'm afraid the weather will remain lousy) to you, the third Pennsylvania blogger in as many months. (We're on a roll here--a potato roll, I hope!) I'll be following along during my downtimes.

Okay, now that I've managed to upload the photos: Best of Philly Review Tour, Part II: The Northeast, Great and Not So Great Our first stop on this leg of the tour was Joseph's in Fox Chase. This survivor of the onetime DiLullo mini-empire (I don't know if Moonstruck next door is still in the family) is still churning out good, solid pizza. As the sign on the door states that Joseph's has been in business since 1898, it could be expected that the restaurant would have an old-timey decor. What we hadn't expected is that our area would more closely resemble a 19th-century bordello: While our section of the restaurant was fairly quiet, the softball pizza party in the back of the restaurant livened up the place. The pies themselves were above average. We ordered a standard margherita pizza and their Wild Mushroom special, but were disappointed to find out that the wild mushroom pizza, a combo of shiitake, oyster and white mushrooms, was no longer on the menu. So we settled for a "Perfect Trio" (sausage, peppers and onions) instead. Our margherita pizza had plenty of cheese, good quality tomatoes, and fresh basil. The crust was the thick kind, chewy but not doughy. The toppings on the Perfect Trio, we thought, lived up to its name. The treatment of the sausage was unusual: instead of chunks of Italian sausage scattered over the pie, it had a base of ground sausage spread evenly across the entire surface, then topped with the peppers and onions. Together, the toppings provided the dominant flavor to this pie, which we didn't mind at all. Their red sauce was good, with just a little sweetness. The crust was well browned with just a smidgen of char near the edge: Nikki (sknik) came up with a rating system to supplement my original three categories (Still Worthy, No Longer Worthy, Didn't Deserve the Honor to Begin With): How far would you travel for this pie? This is a little more finely-graded system, with gradations running from "down the block" all the way up to "50 miles," broken down into expected subdivisions (1-, 2-, 5-, 10-, 25- and 50-mile pies). We did have to note that DiFara's in Brooklyn would by dint of our having gone there to eat have to rate as a "90-mile pie." While these pies are quite good, and IMO Still Worthy, none of us thought they were worth a special trip to sample--1-mile pies, using Nikki's scale. From there, we went to the nearest outlet of Santucci Brothers Square Pizza, in the Pennypack Shopping Center on Pennypack Circle. This place didn't look too promising on its face--a completely bland, undecorated, tile-floored space that just screamed "Franchise operation!" The menu assured us, though, that this place was "Owned and Operated by the Santucci Brothers." When we got into eating the two pies we ordered, though, we wondered whether we had the right Santucci Square Pizza. We ordered a red and a white pie here from their extensive menu: the red pie with spinach and ricotta, the white with crabmeat. Make that "krabmeat." The bright red color of the "crab" tipped us off immediately that this was imitation crab, which didn't quite stand up to the cheese and garlic. Did I say garlic? Sorry, my mistake. The menu said that the white pies were made with it, but until we sprinkled garlic powder on our slices, we couldn't detect its taste. The tomato sauce on the spinach-and-ricotta pie also lacked something--a hint of sweetness. "This sauce wants basil badly," I said after my first bite, and my three companions all agreed. At least the crust avoided the common curse of square-pie crusts, as it too was not overly thick or doughy as so many square-pie crusts are. The crusts were nicely browned, but showed no signs of char: Even though our waitress was extremely friendly and efficient, we found this place a letdown--a No Longer Worthy one-block pizza, in our judgement. Given the likely splits in the Santucci operation over the years, however, we are willing to entertain the possibility that one place bearing the family name may still turn out a great square pie. This one wasn't it. From that nadir, it took us about a half hour to reach our zenith: We got there at the stroke of 6--perfect timing. Our table had been set up to accommodate five diners, just as I had requested. Sorry you couldn't join us, Charlie. Tacconelli's was as busy as Santucci's on the Boulevard was empty (there was only one other diner during our entire visit there). During our leisurely visit, we got to talking about "destination restaurants"--a subject raised in another discussion on this board--and decided that even though (as a poster on the other discussion said) "it's only pizza," this place qualifies. While I'm sure that Tacconelli's is patronized by its Port Richmond neighbors, I don't think too many of the people around us Sunday evening were from the neighborhood. The decor at Tacconelli's recalls a basement family room, which I found appealing. Even more appealing were the pies themselves. We ordered one of our three crusts white, with spinach: The second was the standard margherita "control pie": and the third (which it looks like I failed either to upload or to photograph) was split between sausage and prosciutto. The crusts all had excellent char: and the outer part of the crust on the margherita pie was the crispest thin crust I've ever eaten--cracker-crisp, in fact. The margherita pie was perfectly balanced, with plenty of fresh basil to complement the tomatoes. The white pie was not as garlicky as some of us might have wished it were, but it had a noticeable garlic taste. A couple of us found the prosciutto pie a bit too salty; I found it just fine--but then again, I've been known to order anchovies on pizza every now and then. As the menu warned us it would, it took almost an hour for our pies to emerge from the oven, but it was worth every minute we waited for them. We did wonder, though, why the newest Zagat accolade hanging from the wall (a 2006 honor) referred to this restaurant in the plural. I didn't think that the Tacconelli's in Cherry Hill, even though it's run by relatives, had any other connection to the original. Papa Tacconelli still runs this show--we caught a glimpse of him at the oven, and he did emerge from the kitchen for a minute to walk into the other dining room. For the sake of pizza lovers throughout Philadelphia, I sure hope he finds someone he can train in his way of making pizza to ensure that this place survives him. This was most definitely Still Worthy. Nikki rated it a 25-mile pie; I'll double that to 50.

I count five people: Jan, Mummer, skinik, gbredben and myself. I am now calling to reserve two crusts at Tacconelli's for tomorrow. We will meet at 3:30 p.m. at Joseph's in Fox Chase. From there to one of the Santini Brothers places, thence to Gaeta's if everybody thinks we can handle four, otherwise, thence to Tacconelli's. Or (you may toss your brickbats when ready) maybe we should save Tacconelli's for when more people can make it? After all, why leave so many people out of the tour's high point? Edited to add: Naaaah. Everybody else wants to revisit Tacconelli's, we can always come back again. Three crusts have been reserved for tomorrow at 6. I figure we'd make it there by then.

I have no idea officially what language the streets are in but it is certainly asian of some sort. ← Then it's probably not Vietnamese, which is written using the Roman alphabet, with diacriticals all over the place.

Lessee...the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Franklin Institute are both on Logan Circle. As far as kid-friendly dining there is concerned, I can't think of lots off the top of my head. It's a bit of a trek (about 10 blocks), but 30th Street Station has a food court in its south concourses with plenty of options, both fast-food and good food fast. (I'd recommend Delilah's, especially if you like soul/down home cooking). If you're going to ride the ferry across the Delaware to the aquarium, you may want to check out a couple of places in Old City on the other side of I-95. There's a really good turn-of-the-century (the last one, that is) ice cream parlor, the Franklin Fountain, on Market Street in the 100 block. They do the period-piece thing to a T, and their ice cream's very good too. There's also a good Tex-Mex place, the Mexican Post, in the 100 block of Chestunt that serves decent fare and can handle your family. Some of the other restaurants in the area probably could as well, but many of these--fabulous though they are--might also be a stretch for a very casually dressed family on a budget. Still, it might be worth it to just walk around the area (Front to Third, Arch to Walnut) and see if something strikes your fancy. There are few stinkers among the restaurants of Old City. I just think the Mexican Post would probably be the best on the overall package of atmosphere/food/price.

Sorry to hear that. The date's the 25th, BTW, not the 24th as I erroneously posted upthread. I think I count five people in all?

What Russ just said. I think it might be worth noting, however, that for some--make that many--Americans, not spending more for food may not be a choice. If you're feeding four people on food stamps, for instance, you will in all likelihood soon give up on buying local or "whole" foods, as doing so eats up your monthly allotment faster. So where does that leave you? Right back in the aisles full of corn-derived products.

So you'll be in Philly in the fall, then?

What can you tell us about their pizza? I'm more than willing to entertain interesting off-list suggestions, but the number of places we visit depends on the size of the party--the fewer of us there are, the less pizza we can handle.

Hey, folks, the 24th is upon us! Show of hands, please, once again. What say you to a 3:30 pm start, meeting at Joseph's in Fox Chase and proceeding from there to Santucci's, then ending at Tacconelli's? (We'd need to set a time for Tacc's and reserve crusts.)

Has it been a week already? I was just getting into this! Wait a minute: We saw your fabulous kitchen, but did we see the inside of your fridge? (I think we did but am not sure.) Anyway, it's been real fun living your life vicariously. I only wish I could have tasted it too!

1) Maybe. 2) I doubt it. And that's a shame.

I live around the corner and down the block from what was to have been Paul Lazrow's conveyor-belt sushi joint, and after following his baptism by fire, I guess I should wonder how any new independent restaurant opens in Center City at all. Did Greg Ling have deeper pockets behind him? So I see you have some media relations experience, Matthew. It can get frustrating. (I put out a fair bit of effort to get advance press reporting for the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus' Kimmel Center debut. When even the outlets that tell you "Yeah, we want to do something on that" then do nothing, you begin to question your competence--and maybe your sanity. It's a little embarrassing to have your fellow singers ask "So what happened to that camera crew?" during rehearsal.) The only thing I could recommend to counter that is persistence, but ultimately, I think that in this town, this is an argument for more voices and outlets in the hope that some of them will zag where the Establishment zigs. Might Key to Philadelphia, the new entertainment/activities guide from the former publisher of the South Street Star, be such a vehicle? (Maybe I should see whether they're open to suggestions.) Your point about pizza is well taken also. I guess pastry is also relatively simple; you certainly don't need all the space and overhead required to run a restaurant for a pastry shop. But I'm pretty sure that Napoleon didn't thrive solely on business from its Port Richmond neighbors. Maybe the owners "knew people who knew people," as you so aptly put it, but they did something that got the attention of patrons who would otherwise have no reason to visit the neighborhood. What this suggests to me is that, while difficult, it ought to be doable on a restaurant scale as well. 69th Street Terminal is a heavily trafficked district with excellent transit connections to boot; why wouldn't a really inventive restaurant have a fighting chance there? Finally, I hear yet again the chief lament, the all-purpose explanation for anything having to do with why Philadelphia hasn't really lived up to what it seems everyone agrees is its enormous potential: Everything here is so insular and inbred. In which case, I hope all of you are on board with the various efforts (e.g., Campus Philly) to encourage students to come here to study and stay once they graduate. Along with those bargain-seeking New Yorkers, these are the best sources of fresh blood not wedded to The Way It's Always Been Around Here. I can guarantee you there are a few locals who would back you as well. I know at least one.

Hollly raises a valid point and one that a savvy restaurateur might take into account when deciding whether or not to open that restaurant that could push the local dining scene into a higher orbit. Tacconelli's reputation demonstrates that Philadelphians will travel to out-of-the-way neighborhoods for clearly superlative fare. Jeez, I'd walk there again from Somerset El stop as I did on my first visit--and walk back after dark as I also did. (Not that I'd recommend you follow in my footsteps, so to speak.) And one of the best new restaurants of the 1990s, Café Napoleon, began as a pastry shop in the same neighborhood Tacconelli's calls home, then moved to Chestnut Hill and spread its wings some before making the leap to Center City. We might still be singing its praises today had the Delaware River Port Authority not decided to begin an interminable PATCO elevator construction project right at its front door within about two months of its opening in town at 1500 Locust. So perhaps the way out of the infinite loop of very-good-but-not-great that Vadouvan describes is for some enterprising restaurateurs to start looking in some of those outlying neighborhoods that already support some decent restaurants (e.g., 47th and Baltimore, 69th Street Terminal, Roxborough, East Falls...) and open a place that will start tongues wagging, thus giving the food writers some juicy dish to report, which will in turn pique interest, which will....

Actually, I found the exchange between Mackey and Pollan refreshing in its tone. That was probably due in part to the fact--which both acknowledge--that both correspondents share many of the same larger goals when it comes to reforming the way food is produced in the United States, but I'd like to think that similarly civil exchanges could take place between parties who are not necessarily in agreement on the major points. All it would take to begin is an acknowledgement that in most cases, one's adversary is acting from a genuine desire to improve something, or at least stop it from getting worse. (Granted, this is not always the case.) This may also explain why -- besides the difference in potential to affect a large audience -- docbrite's complaint about WFM's treatment of the foie gras producer disappeared down a hole. Regardless what we may think about the delicacy and how it is produced, there is now a large segment of fairly well-informed people who consider those production methods inhumane and needlessly cruel. Whole Foods' management is clearly in this camp, and given that upholding high standards--or at least standards that are better for the environment and the animals that will be killed--is an essential part of the company's identity, it would be IMO a lapse if it were not to insist that its suppliers adhere to its standards. Now, it may well be that what should have happened with the foie producer was that WFM should simply have said "We will no longer purchase this product" rather than require a supplier to abandon its production completely as a condition of further purchases of anything, but frankly, WFM was acting within its rights by so doing, and if such tactics are employed to achieve ends of which we approve (as the School District of Philadelphia did recently in finally getting the local construction trades unions to open up their apprenticeship programs to the heavily-minority graduates of the city's public schools in a meaningful way), we often applaud the "strong-armer." So while I understand docbrite's dismay at the differential treatment he received when raising a legitimate concern with WFM and approve of his means of protesting such treatment--and of publicizing it--I'm not sure it reflects a major failing on WFM's part.

While not meaning to diminish the validity of the author's argument--and to fully engage it, I would want to wait until I've read the book--if I had to divide the world of food politics into two camps, which I will arbitrarily label for now "masscult" and "virtuecrat", this clearly falls into the virtuecrat camp and thus is more like Whole Foods than unlike it. And neither address one big question except by way of noting how the corn subsidy distorts everything else on down the food chain from the cornfield. That question being: So what should the average struggling Jane who has to spend her money very carefully do? "Buy local and seasonal" is nice advice, but when doing so adds anywhere from 25% to 100% to your food bill, it loses some of its luster. And what about the people like the 38,000 or so souls around my workplace, for whom shopping for groceries means the Save-a-Lot two towns over or the Pathmark two towns in the other direction, or some expensive small grocer with a limited selection? Does buying local and seasonal even make it onto their radar screens? Or have I just been deaf to their responses to these questions?

Wow, that's quick! However, I will keep you posted on the N.O. place in Chester.

Hijacking this for a minute: Have you checked out the "PIZZA CLUB 2006" thread on the Pennsylvania board? We have embarked on an epic adventure this year: the "Best of Philly Review Tour." Of course Tacconelli's--the only six-time winner of the 50-odd Philly pizza places that have won the coveted Philadelphia magazine honor (a few of which didn't deserve it to begin with)--is a stop on the tour. Why don't you join us?