serpentine

Chiming in with annoyance at Bruni. Aww, poor New Yorker gets all flustered ordering at a...sandwich shop? If he'd taken himself a little less seriously, he may have had a different take on the situtation.

Herbacidal: Yep. Society Hill Hotel/Inn/Bar/Restaurant.

I've had some nice mussels at Society Hill, too.

The folks who run Taquitos de Puebla are from...Puebla. Sandy is referring to their particularly fantastic al pastor. Searches in this forum will yield you additional drool-worthy descriptions.

Wait, the report is meaningless because it's second hand, but Vadouvan can successfully judge that the lesbians in question were nitpicky, lazy prima-donnas in regards to direction when faced with an employee who claimed to not know how far the restaurant is from City Hall? Huh. I suppose all visitors to the city have our street grid memorized as well, no-one should visit an establishment without mapping it first. Egads, it would kill the guy to say, "it's several blocks north of City Hall, look for a big condo building?"

That tasty zucchini flowers are available is not at all the point.

Generally regarded as such by whom?!

Hmm. I'll eagerly anticipate your report. If I walk fast, that neck of the woods is close for lunch during the week for me.

Oh yeah! Either 10th or 11th and Chestnut. Used to be a sandwich shop. As with most neighborhood joints, it's all about knowing what to order. In your neighborhood, Sandy, are also Effie's, Mixto, and 10th Street Pourhouse. And there's an outpost of Tampopo on Jeweler's Row in the former Blue in Green spot. And tons of pizza, of course..Zio's, NYPD, Pandora's Lunchbox. Remember that NYC just has more restaurants overall -- more terrific restaurants and more terrible restaurants.

.I wouldn't call it moot. The blue swimming crab crabmeat imported from Asia is often sold when Chesapeake blue crab crabmeat is out of season (and its cheaper than Gulf crab), but the stuff is nearly flavorless.

They don't think anything -- prepackaged goods are not affected. Tastykakes are explicity mentioned in the Inky article. (link) I will be looking forward to seeing numbers demonstrating the following assertion, from that same article: "Councilman Juan Ramos, who sponsored the bill, said it would have a clear and quantifiable impact on the health of Philadelphia residents."

I think Budweiser is revolting too, but I don't think City Council should ban cheapshit beer to save people from guzzling away empty, tasteless calories that go straight to belly flab. Banning transfats will not force residents in the city to eat more healthfully. People can stuff their faces with food fried in peanut oil, too. And besides, this ban would presumably not extend to every product sold in supermarkets, right? The public can buy all those big bags of chips and cookies they like. And eat Cheetos for breakfast as usual. Now, improving school food -- THAT would actually cause city residents to be more healthy. But that's a much more expensive and complicated proposition that would require forcing companies with city contracts to be more flexible or provide higher-quality food.

It's a pathetic move by City Council appear as if they are "positively impacting healthly food choices in Philadelphia blah blah blah" and a PR move for the city. What it is NOT is an attempt to make the city residents healthier, safer, or more willing to put down roots instead of relocating. In short, I think the cornsyrup-ification and transfat-acity of so much of our food is revolting, but I oppose the city wasting their time on this bullshit.

Your advice regarding fish... ...may also be applied to produce on 9th St.

The "Famous" Chicken and Waffles were memorably described to me and my dining companion. The restaurant had been open for less than a week. I couldn't help myself from responding "what? famous among whom?" (Needless to say, this restaurant was not Roscoe's, Wells, or Gladys Knight's.)

I'm not holding my breath. The trend in permits is getting more restrictive, not less. (See last year's new provision requring new licenses to sell beer to go. Yes, I know the law was intended to target nuisance stores, but I don't think anyone "forgot" that it would apply to non-nuisance corner bars as well.)

What philadining and I (already) said. This is actually a strong area in Philaddelphia.

With the notable exception of our many so-called gastropubs*. Good Dog, N. 3rd, Standard Tap, Abbaye, Black Door, Society Hill, Royal Tavern, etc. (No, not $1 glasses of wine. But hell, it's getting hard to find a $1 cup of coffee, too.) All of these places serve the function of being both a meeting space for the neighbors and a place to get a tasty, affordable meal. Some have more ambitious (and therefore expensive) entrees than others, but all have soups in the $5ish range and sandwiches in the 10ish-or-less range. * Yeah, ick, trendy term. But it is a helpful way to distinguish between bars that serve what used to be known as "bar food" -- chicken fingers, mozz sticks, fries, hotdogs, lackluster burgers -- and bars that serve damn fine food. Also missing is a mention of Vietnamese gems like Nam Phuong -- big, liquor-licensed places with fantastic, relatively expensive food. Reading that article made me very glad of where I live in South Philly, with exceptions to many of the referenced gripes. You want diversity and regionalism? Cafe de Laos is across the street. BYO, but hey, it even has atmosphere. Something other than red-gravy Italian? Paradiso's menu has an awful lot of Piedmont influence. (I do earnestly long for more good casual French food, though. Any aspiring restauranteurs in this area, please feel free set up shop within a block or two of my home.)

I can put in an enthusiastic recommendation for Kristian's, if you want Italian. Its just a block down on 11th Street from Felicia's. It's not BYO, but they have some reasonably-priced bottles. The food is consistantly excellent, and the service warm and efficient.

Oh, I really like the frijoles charros -- I just had this again on Saturday. But I saw someone else order it before I ordered it the first time, so I knew it would be a soup. (If I had just ordered it based on the menu description, I think I would've imagined it to be a bit like a Mexican cassoulet or a rice & beans dish.) Buckethead, I raved about the tepeche (fermented pineapple juice) at la Puebla in an earlier post -- I can confirm that it is pineapple-colored. The white drink, as noted previously, is the horchata. Also, Plaza Garibaldi has the superior queso fundido con chorizo in these parts, IMO.

If you could'a pulled off any kind of "humanly grown" chicken, you could'a made a nice dime from Weekly World News, too.

You should be ordering the cemita de pastor. It's like twice the al pastory goodness...with avocado. And a half a sandwich leftover for the next day. (OR, cook up some rice and beans and add the filling of the sandwich. Toast leftover bread to use as roll. Yes, I eat there so often that I have multiple ways to use my leftovers.) I'd also like to point out that in addition to the horchata, they've got a changing roster of aguas that are always a nice accompaniment to the food. I haven't seen the tepeche (pineapple cider) for awhile, but have recently had very nice melon water recently, and last week they were doing jamaica. Mmm.

I have a hard time ordering anything except tacos al pastor and the cemita al pastor. But the cemita especial (steak milanesa, nopales, poblano, oaxaca cheese, avocado, onion, etc.) is even bigger than the other cemitas, and is damn fine.

Not to be all negative, but Panorama? I've had company dinners there and liked it for that, but it still retains the...atmosphere of hotel-dining-room. Those tile floors and the non-view of Front Street are not romantic. And I feel that it's overpriced for what it is. The food is very nice, but not amazing, and I think the bill reflects the upkeep of the fancy wine system overmuch. It's a nice place for pure wine geekery, though. Vetri is one of the most lauded restaurants in Philly. (And has been lauded nationally, as well.) It's small, romantic, expensive, and distinctive. And yes, worth dressing up for.

Tampopo is respectable, and does a brisk lunch business. It opened, what, this summer? It's not by any means the best sushi in the city, but it's a welcome addition for those of us who work in the neighborhood (if only for the fresh tuna bi bim bob alone!) Reviewed by Philly Weekly in October.