philadining

There are central seating areas, so indeed, you could go get a DiNic's Roast Pork, and your friend could get a pastrami sandwich from Hershel's, or a hoagie from Carmen's or Salumeria, or making things even easier, a brisket sandwich at DiNic's... or any of a hundred other things. If a guy can't find something appealing to eat at the Reading Terminal, he may have lost his will to live. As to your dinner plans, don't get lost in excessive Capogyrations. Center City Philly just isn't all that big, and a moderate walk or short cab ride will get you to one of the Capogiros pretty quickly from anywhere you're likely to be. Their summer hours are Mon-Thurs - 7:30am-11:30pm Fri - 7:30am-1am Sat - 8am-1am Sun - 10am-11:30pm I suspect you might be able to squeeze in there... (although earlier is better than later, they can run out of certain flavors.) The appeal of just stumbling out of Tinto and into Capogiro is strong, and I think you'd like Tinto in any case, but I wouldn't let its location dominate your decision-making.

I think they're shanks, either from little pigs, or perhaps pigs' legs are more delicate than it would seem... I've seen pork shanks served elsewhere that were surprisingly petite.

Is there a Nobel Prize for Bar Food? Or does anybody know anybody on the panel that gives out the MacArthur Foundation "genius" awards? Because this one is just brilliant: The Pork Wing Yep, like a chicken wing, but more, you know, porky. No breading, no deep-frying, just tender little pork shanks, a tangy buffalo-wing-like sauce, some blue cheese dip. It's brilliant, really. We had these at the Cantina Los Caballitos, but I hear a similar version is on the blackboard at Royal Tavern. I'm not sure if they're different - the ones at the Cantina had a really delicious spicy sauce, heading a little more toward barbecue sauce than a traditional buffalo wing sauce. I might just have to get to Royal to see if they're the same. I've recently made some bold declarations about "best bar snacks" but I think these might just take the prize...

It's a bit of a haul, and not all that German, but Stoudt's brewery in Adamstown has a few things on the menu, like Saurbraten, Schnitzel, some sausages...

This is only true on Sunday afternoons, right? Other times one has to get down to the 9th street storefront, right? (And it's actually Taquitos de Puebla...) or are we talking about different things?

I think you'd enjoy Ansill too. So, is this buddy up for making a couple of stops? It's a totally reasonable walk from Ansill to Cochon... Not a bad walk from Ansill to Amada, or vice versa.

UE, from your comments, I think you should go to Tinto, and/or Zahav. I like the food at Amada a lot, but I have often found it VERY loud, even in the absence of Flamenco dancers. That's perfectly fine in many circumstances, but probably not so great for catching up with your buddy. Tinto isn't exactly a cone of silence, but it's a little less clangorous. And I must say, there are a few things on the Tinto menu that are really rocking, and a little more unusual than the offerings at Amada (lamb brochetas, duck montadito, mussels, mushrooms.) I still haven't made it into Zahav yet, but Solomonov is a talented chef, it should be good... You've correctly perceived that Cochon is not all that summery. Personally, I'll eat delicious any time of year, but you're right, the general slant of the food is never going to be light and refreshing. That said, a salad and a nice piece of fish... or scallops and grilled rack of lamb... sounds pretty summery to me, it's not all stews and braises. Andanand: the menu has evolved a little since the one posted on the web, and there are always a few specials each day. As regulars, I'm sure we've been offered a few things that were not on the menu at all, like those awesome frogs legs, but the vast majority of dishes have been either on the menu, or specials that anyone could have ordered. So look for the specials, and go early if you can, they run out... But UE, you hit the nail on the head when you said that you need to stay a month. Let us know when you schedule that, we can fill up 30 days of meals!

Exactly. There's a subset of techniques, not involving heating, that are all about the pressure. But more to the point, it's a catchy title.

I do... And seriously, if you're feeling "porked out" a) this place will cure you of that sad affliction b) or you really could make a very nice meal from the salads, the sweetbreads, the scallops, the oysters, the duck, the lamb, the fish... Trust me on this, eating the food is better than looking at the pictures!

Xiao Guan, Ken's, David's all hopping until about 3. I think David's might be open until 4 on the weekends?

Just a reminder for folks visiting from out of town: some of these spots are not easily reached from downtown Philly without a car, and even with a car, some are a challenge. As Holly noted, Steve's Prince of Steaks is up in Northeast Philly. The Gray Lodge is too. Neither place is very hard to get to by car, but that part of the city can be confusing without GPS. One could take a cab up there, but it's not a short ride, it would make for a pretty pricey cheesesteak by the time you're done. Even John's Roast Pork and Tony Luke's, which are much closer to what we call "center city," are not convenient walks from any areas you're likely to be in. They're much quicker/easier drives if you have a car, and would not be totally insane cab rides. Same for Johhny Hot's. Phungi's suggestion, Talk of the Town, is pretty far south on Broad Street, down by the stadiums, but you can get there on the Broad Street subway line. Jim's, at 4th and South is pretty easy to get to. Sonny's, on Market between 2nd and 3rd is fairly convenient. Rick's, conveniently located in the Reading Terminal Market (at least for a few more months) is apparently a civic treasure, yet mysteriously no one ever seems to recommend getting a cheesesteak from there. I did not especially enjoy the last one I had, but admittedly, that was some time ago. More importantly, when in the Terminal there are better things to eat than anyone's cheesesteak. I'd take a cab to John's Roast pork (before about 2:30pm Mon-fri). If they're closed by the time you get there, it's only a little further to Tony Luke's. If the cabbie doesn't know where John's Roast Pork is, just ask to be taken to the IKEA on Columbus Blvd. It's on Synder Ave, right near there. Get the sharp provolone.

I did. Most of the folks that I've gone out for dim sum with did. A group of us hit New Golden Palace for (eat-in) dim sum a while back and we thought it was pretty good. But I'm not sure any of us realized that they'd deliver dim sum any time of day, so sincerely, thanks for that info!

You said "hopefully" doing dinner at Vetri. If not, do Osteria. I'm not sure how uniquely Philadelphian any upscale restaurant is going to be, the real hometown classics are a little more modest. As many have mentioned, either for lunch, or as a snack, get a roast pork sandwich at DiNic's in the Reading Terminal, or at John's Roast Pork, or at Tony Luke's. Get the greens and sharp provolone, and get a large if you're at John's. The other pure Philly experience is breakfast at Carman's Country Kitchen. Call ahead, that morning, and reserve a spot. Don't plan on eating much the rest of the day. I'm not sure how unique you'll find any of these, but the happening, buzz-worthy spots seem to be: Amada or Tinto, Rae, Zahav. You might also consider Le Bec Fin (recently gone a la carte, to mixed reviews...) The dining scenes with the most uniquely philly flavor are probably the chef-driven BYOB, and the gastropub. For BYOBs, you might want to try Cochon, Matyson, Melograno (unless they're in the process of moving) Little Fish, Marigold, For Gastropubs, I'd go to Standard Tap, Royal Tavern, or Memphis Taproom. The food is good regardless, but the charms of the whole format may be lost if you're not interested in craft beers. Philly's also recently gotten some interesting expressions of Mexican food, from the basic taqueria (Taquitos de Pueblo) to buffed-up modern versions (Xochitl) with a few stops in-between (Cantina los Caballitos, Molcajete Mixto, Lolita). I'm not sure how Philly-centric it is, but it's fairly unusual: Horizons makes some delicious, sophisticated food, and oh, by the way, it's vegan. And we've been lucky that lately, our Chinatown has gotten some interesting regional twists: Szechuan Tasty House; Dim Sum Garden for Shanghainese soup dumplings and noodle dishes; Zhi Wei Guan for northern noodles, breads and dumplings; Xiao Guan or Ken's Seafood for Cantonese, especially live seafood; Ong's for Chiu Chow; Empress Garden for Shanghainese (you might have to ask - or read Chinese -to find it); Four Rivers for Sichuan. And staying in Chinatown, but straying outside Chinese cuisine: Rangoon serves up very good Burmese food, and Pananag and Banana Leaf do credible Malaysian, none of which is all that easy to find in many cities. Then there's always "red-gravy" Italian for a real Philly feel. Any of that sound appealing? We can clarify, or narrow it down if you let us know what sounds good to you...

Wow, nice shooting as always Doc, and such photogenic subjects! I just love the composition of those plates. That toro tartare in particular is incredible. (and extra points for the term "unidimensional")

They are different restaurants, across the street from one another, with a long-standing rivalry. Each has its adherents, but recent descriptions seem to indicate that both are pretty solid. I'm a Vietnam guy myself, but it's not like I'd refuse to go the other side of the street...

Helen mentioned her other post about Hangzhou food, which is over in another forum, here>>

A mob of us descended on Zhi Wei Guan for dim sum on Sunday. The blue awning still says Zhi Wei Guan, and that's the easiest way to find it, so I'm going to call it that for now! A little googling reveals that Zhi Wei Guan is also the name of a well-established restaurant in Hangzhou, so I'm guessing that's its name, but they might just say "Hangzhou restaurant" to English-speakers. That said, I might just start calling it the Magic Kingdom of Dough, as advertised in the window. And we did indeed have our share of dough, mostly in noodles, a little in dumpling wrappers. We erred in not trying some of the breads, but we'll rectify this soon enough... We started with cold Sesame Noodles Then two types of "juicy buns" (Xiao Long Bao.) One had pork; another had pork, shrimp and mushroom filling. I liked the flavor of the pork buns (didn't try the shrimp version) and overall liked this preparation, although the wrappers are a little thicker than I see as ideal. That said, they held-together, which is not always the case with the more paper-thin, delicate wrappers at Dim Sum Garden. So on one hand I'd like them to be thinner, on the other I appreciate that I was actually able to get the soup-filled dumping into my mouth... There's not quite as much "soup" inside as at Dim Sum Garden either, but still overall, the had good flavor and were quite enjoyable. "Stir Fried Ground Meat in Chinese Chili Sauce" (Zha Jiang Mian) I liked this a lot. This dish is very good a few doors down at Nan Zhou, and Szechuan Tasty House offers something like it, but this one certainly ranks up there as one of the better ones. I'm not exactly sure of what these were called on the menu - was it the "Emerald Shrimp Pork Water Chestnut dumpling"? Andrew? Katie? Hangzhou Duck Noodle Intense, sticky, sweet sauce, tender duck, noodles: automatically a new favorite thing to eat. I was caught dragging my finger through the sauce left on the place a few times. Lamb in Oyster sauce - at least I think that's what it was... it's the only lamb I saw on the menu, although this didn't seem like any oyster sauce I'd ever had. Whatever it was, it was quite delicious. The only downsides were that it was a very small bowl, really maybe three or 4 inches on a side, and the lamb was very boney, so there was not a ton of meat to be extracted. But what there was, was very good. Pork Tongue with Chinese Herb Sauce I liked this a little better when it was not in a noodle soup, but the tongue itself was very good. And I might have just been getting tired of the noodle soups... maybe it's fine this way! Pork Stomach Noodle in Ginger Scallion Sauce It's dangerous game trying to get pork "belly" rather than pork "stomach" when the translations are a little vague... So this was indeed the stomach, not the fatty meaty belly. But in a way I'm glad we finally got this, I'd been wondering if I'd like it. And it was OK, not my favorite thing in the world to eat and I doubt I'd order it again, but I'd eat it if the situation arose. Sweet Soup with Osmanthus Flower I'm normally not a big fan of these dessert soups, but I loved this one. There were fresh lychee, tapioca pearls, some sticky dumplings filled with black sesame paste, and the sweet fragrant petals of Osmanthus flowers. Really very nice. I don't think we succeeded in getting a full overview of their offerings, but we got a nice taste of several of them, and I generally liked what we had. It's different from most of the other places in town, and has a few more things that bear investigating. How did we not get the "Pet's Ear Shaped mini dough soup"?!?! The house "super bun"? the "Yin-Yang bread"?!?! Oh, wait, I know, let's go back! The staff was very nice, especially in the face of our suddenly taking over almost the whole place and clamoring for food. The chef even came out at the end and took a picture with us, so I guess we didn't annoy them too much! three of our crowd missed the picture, out on a hunt for cash, or behind the camera, but this was most of the gang. See you all back there soon to try the rest of the menu!

Along the way we had a couple of other dishes that would rank in this "highlights" topic. Sang Kee: Roast Pork Wonton Noodle Soup Perhaps my favorite soup in the city. Barbecue Ribs Like pork candy, which is to say, almost the ideal food. Xiao Guan Pan-Fried Dumplings Crispy, yet tender, served with ginger sauce, if desired. Ken's Seafood: Geoduck Clam Sashimi Delicate, tender slices of giant clam, presented on ice. Fried Geoduck Clam bellies and eggplant Really just the best fried clam platter you'd ever want. We're contemplating asking them to dip everything they have in the restaurant in that batter, and deep-fry it. I might eat my cell phone if it were battered and fried like this. Hong Kong Style Pork Chops These chops are a little thinner, and mysteriously sweeter, than the equally excellent version of this dish at Xiao Guan. I'm not sure I have a favorite. They're crispy, yet still juicy, with ground pork, garlic and onion. No sauce to speak of, and they don't need any.

In an attempt to quantify some of our suspicions, a few of us ate three Peking Ducks in a row last night. (Well. OK, two-and-a-half - we were running out of steam by the last stop, partly due to our inability to restrict ourselves to only duck.) We started at my long-time favorite, and obvious benchmark, Sang Kee Peking Duck house (238 North 9th Street). I think I've had better ducks from Sang Kee than we got this time, but it wasn't too far off the average. Sadly, it turned out to be our least favorite of the three. The first course of the crispy skin was a little dry and one-dimensional, the thin pancakes stiff, maybe stale, a couple of them just split in half as we tried to wrap the duck skin. That said, we really liked the second course of stir-fried duck meat and vegetables. That's a major stylistic difference, and might account for part of our preference: the other two versions left more meat attached to the crispy skin, and did not offer any remaining meat as a separate dish. The other big difference is in the wrapper, our two preferred versions used fluffy steamed buns, which are much better suited to the thicker slices of duck. I think we just like them better overall... The winner of the three, and our recent favorite, was from Xiao Guan Garden (917 Race.) The skin was perfectly crisp, the duck meat thick and juicy, the buns soft and pillowy. A very close runner-up was Ken's Seafood at 1004 Race. We really need to get a whole duck there to make a fair comparison, but we were so stuffed that it just seemed wasteful to do this time. This one was just barely behind Xiao Guan, very similar overall, but the skin was not quite as delicately perfect... but that could be random variation, it certainly might be different next time... The buns are the same soft folded steamed buns as XG uses, and they play a major part in making the whole package so seductive. We should check a few more places, but I really think XG will be hard to beat... Ken's a VERY close 2nd. (for the sake of full journalistic disclosure, the photos from Sang Kee and XG were from earlier visits, I already have a gazillion shots of duck from those places, so saw no need to get more. The photos are accurate representations of what we got, if not shots of the exact ducks we ate. )

I know a few of us are fans of the Prime Rib sandwich at Wasko's in Phoenixville. In case you needed convincing: Go ahead, get the provolone, barbecue sauce and onions. It sounds wrong, but it's so right... I noticed that they offered a kielbasy sandwich on friday, and had more sausage in the deli case. Then I noticed packages of pierogi from Czerw's, so I had to get some. Both the pierogi and kielbasy are from Czerw's in Port Richmond, and apparently the guy at Wasko's makes a run down there most every friday, so there's likely to be fresh hauls of sausage and pierogies most fridays (he has frozen Pierogies all the time) And if you want to order something specific, check www.kielbasyboys.com and ask him before friday, and he can probably get it for you. Yes, that's right, it might just be more convenient to get great Polish food in Phoenixville than in Center City Philly.

Cool, two Chick's shout-outs in a row on Philly Mag's Taste Daily. Victor Fiorillo digs those bacony cheesey dates and Joy Manning notes the burgeoning cocktail scene. Both true: those dates are fiendishly good bar snacks, or appetizers. And we know about the drinks...

Someone upthread suggested getting a margarita at The Cantina los Caballitos. I'd agree about that, but if Dad's at all into Mexican food, I'd then just stay for dinner too. They serve pretty late, and there are several things on that menu that I'm kind of addicted to: the conchinito (roast pork) and the goat tacos in particular. (get the pineapple salsa on the side.) In that neighborhood I'm also fond of Marra's for pizza, but really only for pizza... I wanted to like Le Virtu and Paradiso more than I actually did, each had some good elements, but at both places I ended up underwhelmed. Any of those restaurants are pretty easy to find from the ballpark: drive north on Broad, then make a soft right onto Passyunk, all these places are within a few blocks, just drive down Passyunk, you'll see them. That said, L'Angolo sounds like a good plan too...

Well, this isn't tung-po rou, but we did get a really great pork belly dish there which featured very tender, light meat, perhaps steamed before being quickly stir-fried with scallions and peppers. Hope that's still on the menu, it was excellent, and really different. Also, Pork Tongue in "Herb Sauce" had kind of a red-cooked thing going on, with a pronounced anise flavor, a little sweet, very tasty. But mostly, I hope they still have the pickles...

The Memphis Taproom 2331 E. Cumberland St (at Memphis) www.memphistaproom.com This place got some buzz on the local blogs as it was about to open, much of the chat focused on its marking yet a further outpost of the northward spread of young homesteaders. And indeed, the neighborhood at the border of Fishtown and Port Richmond, "Port Fishington" as they're jokingly calling it, is a bit further north of where most would be used to venturing for a good beer and some interesting food, but I'm glad I made the trek. It's a taproom. They've got great beer in bottles and on tap, including one hand-pump. Beer list>> But they also have good food, and they take good advantage of their proximity to the Polish stores in Port Richmond by offering a "Port Richmond Platter" centered around Kielbasy from Czerw's. I'll bet you can believe that the sausage was absolutely delicious, and the pierogies, potato pancakes and saurkraut were just as good. It's really perfect beer food. And speaking of perfect beer food, they also have what might be my fave bar snack of the moment: a variation on a Cornish Pasty. The light, crispy pastry is filled with beer-braised beef, and dressed with a horseradish sauce. Crunchy, juicy, beefy... what could be bad about that? And just when you thought it was all hearty artery-clogging food, they ran this special: Imported Bufala Mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes, pesto. Cheese was creamier than I thought possible, the tomatoes actually tasted like something, and luckily that something was tomatoes. OK, maybe the cheese wasn't that great for the arteries either, but it felt healthy... For the veggie and vegan among us, there were a surprisingly large number of options on the menu. All around, we liked both our beer and food. I hand a hand-pumped Troeg's Hop Back that was pretty rocking. A few more pix here.

Sure, the ramen is the primary attraction, but I thought the Kara Age rocked. And the pickles too, although I agree that they are too expensive.