Rich Pawlak

The best hoagie you've ever had. (And it is, it is! Next time you're in town, get to Chickie's: equally good, and worth a comparison.) I've really gotta make it up to Old Forge one of these days. No excuse for it. This SHOULD be the first PIZZA CLUB road trip. I had completely forgotten about Ghigarelli's pizza; Old Forge pizza is unique; man are we gonna have a lot to pick from. ]And yes, Holly, you were bamboozled, and you should also visit Texas Lunch, Pittston Ave. and Birch St, for another good version of the Sranton-style Texas Weiner, as well as Vince The Pizza Prince, a few blocks away, for a legendary pizza, when you next hit Scranton.

The next DDC dinner, in July, will be at RANGOON, in Philly's Chinatown, hosted by Andrew and Beth Fenton.

David and Judy Desilva really do know how to put together a DDC dinner. Goddammit, that was good food at Ravenna. Plated beautifully, and a deceptively filling light dinner, each course stood on its own as an artful repast unto itself. My antipasti course, chicken livers, crispy and glazed with dried cherries and balsamic, were outstanding, and I don't even care for chicken livers. The primi course I chose were cloudlike pasta bundles stuffed with acorn squash and napped with a very summery sage butter. My entree, seared day boat scallops over a rich, dense risotto was a deceptively simple presentation, sweet of the sea, and earthy with the salty tang and bite of the cheesey risotto. More cheese for dessert, as Ravenna offered the option of an equally deceptively dainty cheese plate, with a salty parmesan, something soft and creamy (our waiter was just not up on his cheese, but no matter, we can be, even 40 strong, a daunting bunch to serve), and two other cheeses, stiny and less stinky, I'll call them, but all of them a great foil for the brilliant drop of lavender honey at the center of the plate. Truly, a brilliant finish. Each course of our 4 course dinner was a choice of two or three, so I'll interested in what others thought of the other choices. I didnt notice a lot of plate sharing ( I was dodging falling bottles and glassware, mind you), which indicates to me that people were very pleased with their respective choices. Despite the fact that our noisy table managed to spill almost as much wine as it drank, and our table looked like an obscenely purple Rohrschach test ( a cry for help and attention , we all concluded), this was the pure essence of a DDC dinner: surprisingly good food, boisterous comaraderie, a cozy setting and a great vibe. I swear it couldn't have possibly been better

The nearest White Castle may be on Route 1 in Edison, NJ, just south of the onramp to the Garden State Parkway, about a 90 min drive north from Philly.

I've always thought it was, of course, watered down lager, but, to my palate, it tastes salty. Always.

Oh, cmon now.

I will concur with the recommendation of Lupo's and Sharkey's for spiedies, and if I were visiting my relatives in Endicott, NY, we would head to Sharkey's. There had also been a place in Endicott called Geno's, which was as good as any spiedies done in my family, but I have NO idea where in Endicott it is. Do NOT fall into the trap of trying chicken spiedies; the original spiedies were LAMB, then pork, then beef, and sadly, eventually chicken, which does not help the spiedie cause, much, much too dry a cut of meat for spiedies. If you want to be an absolute Endicott traditionalist, you will first secure a large, round, sliced loaf of bread from Battaglini's Bakery in Endicott, and you will place your spiedies in a folded slice of that amazingly flavorful, sturdy bread, and you will know true spiedie bliss. Buy some of that bread and take it home, it is remarkable bread, and worth the effort to find the small bakery. And then you will do spiedies at home, and amaze your friends. You'll get your butcher to cube the meat from a Spring leg of lamb; it will net variable poundage, but make sure the cubes are trimmed of all fat and gristle. Then make an oil and white wine vinegar marinade, adding generous amounts of salt, pepper, oregano and marjoram, finishing with a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of chopped fresh mint. Marinate the meat for at least a day. Prepare a CHARCOAL grill, and after bunching the meat tightly on the longest metal skewers you can find, light the coals until they are white with ash. Reserve the marinade for basting. Place the skewers on the grill, allowing for a little space between each skewer, and turn frequently, basting frequently as well. Make sure meat is well browned which should actually take about 20 min per batch of skewers. Assemble bread slices, and (you know whats coming next) as spiedies are done, remove from grill, grab meat with bread slice and pull off. Die and go to heaven.

Mama's is on Belmont Ave, adjacent to two cemetaries, a delicious irony. Their cheesesteaks are also the most unusually made I've ever seen.. They grill the meat and onions, eventually tossing them together. Then they add the cheese, mozz, American, provalone, whatever is chosen, and then proceed to toss it together and roll it into a molten mass with two spatulas, chop a big hunk of it off the mass, and push into hollowed out loaves of Italian bread, an amazing sight, if you get to watch.

Thanks, Maria, you're helping to dust out the cobwebs!

I do think that DiNic's precedes Tony Luke's by more than a few years, first at 10th & Oregon, and before that, tiny Nicolosi's off 7th St below Moore.

To my most recent knowledge, only Dalessando's and Jim's use Amoroso rolls. Geno's uses Villotti-Marinelli bakery rolls (the bakery has a differnt name now, Villotti-something), and Pat's and Tony Luke's use National bakery rolls, from Thorofare, NJ. Same rolls used by the Rocco's Hoagie places.

From one Richie to another, OUTSTANDING! Great pics, detailed assessments, and you picked the one you liked. And best of all the Roast Pork blew everything away, as it should.

I must add Troeg's Sunshine Pils to the Summer List---damn, what a bright, lively, sharp quencher, a great beer with Sechuan Chinese food and grilled shrimp! And grilled pork loin!

Any geezers remember further back than THIS decade? or last? I'm trying to recall some of the BYOBs during the Restaurant Renaissance of Philadelphia, during the 70s....

For an article I'm doing, I'm trying to recall some of the better known BYOBs around Philly in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Anyone remember them? So far I remember the orginal Black Banana, Le Banane Noir, and Of Time And The River, on tiny Leithgow St. , where Marakesh is/was, and the Marigold Dining Room, off-campus Penn, and after that, I'm drawing a huge blank. I know there were more. I know this will bring out the old fogey in us, but cmon, help a brother out! Thanks!

Don't worry, the Terminal is not a tourist thing. Well, it is, but it's way more than that. I mean, it's not like you went to Hard Rock Cafe or something. I am personally a proponent of american on cheesesteaks, although almost everyone here disagrees with me. When you finally get to have a cheesesteak at Chink's on Torresdale Ave. in NE Philly, you'll get why American can work on a steak; it's the only way they serve em. I dont know what Mal did to her steak at Rick's, but with us at Geno's she did whiz and onions and those evil cherry peppers from the big jar. Girl has major brass ones.

it's beer, right? Gotta be beer. Whew.

Well, Steve's is actually in NE Philly, at two locations, Where are Steve's two locations? I've only been to one (I think on Bustleton, near a Circuit City). And I agree, it's way better than the places that get all the tourist hype.

We had a great time hosting Malarkey around town last week, well, for the Memoral Day weekend at least, taking our beer and food friend to as many places as she could reasonably digest. I can report that she has quite an appetite and really was a trooper with the heavy schedule we put her through. As well as being a regular contributor here, in the Pac NW, Beer and Wine forums at least, she is also one of the regulars in our weekly beer chats on Friday nights (No Bull Inn, starchat.net), so we felt obliged, nay determined, to make sure she drank some lager beer while she was here. We gave her a modified Golden Age of Beer in Phila. tour last Sunday, with stops at Monk's for brunch, Ludwig's, Ten Stone, Bridgid's, Standard Tap, the Grey Lodge and Nodding Head, all in one day (McGillin's and McMenamin's were oddly closed that day), and she was able to partake of some of Philly finest, including Yards, Sly Fox, McKenzie's, Iron Hill, Victory, as well as some good German stuff and the requisite Belgian selection at Monk's. In between there were also stops at Pasion for dinner, La Colombe for coffee, Bonte for Belgian waffles, Geno's for cheesesteaks, a rainy lunch at Rouge on Memorial Day, and a plenty more places Mal got to with out any of us, like Reading Terminal Market, Caribou Cafe. Even a last-minute trip to Tacconnelli's for pizza just before her plane left. I was particularly negligent in my picture taking, but she wasn't, so I'd expect her follow-up to be pretty colorful and inormative. Mal with Mike Gates, enjoying beers at Ludwig's The prodigious beer menu at Ludwig's (well whataya want, I'm a beer geek...) Our mid-tour stop at Geno's where the lines were unusually long, even at Pat's across the street The equally impressive menu at Ten Stone, about when my batteries ran out in my camera... But I know Malarkey took a ton of pics both in Philly and at the Devon Horse Show, the other reason she paid our fair area a visit, so I'm sure she'll be posting those here soon. It was fun to play tour guide and show off the town, however brief the stay for her. Mal, it's all yours.

Well, Steve's is actually in NE Philly, at two locations, while Dallessandro's is in Roxborough, which is NW Philly for sake of argument. You'll do fine with your choices, but if your friend hasn't heard of Steve's, one of the very best cheesesteaks in twon, I might not trust his judgement on other Philly specialties.

Thanks, Jason, especially for the pics. I am always struck at the absolute uniformity of Greek festivals. These pics look identical to scenes at the St George Greek picnic in Hamilton, and other Greek picnics I've been to over the years. The only variation seems to be the grilled octopus, which I have heretofore never seen at the many Greek fests I've attended. I think there may be a manual on how to run these. That's got to be the explanation.

You know, last Friday in our online beer chat(the No Bull Inn, on starchat.net), I drank my last Monk's Sour, so I dont have the bottle for reference. You may be able to get more info from the Monk's website, www.monkscafe.com, but in the past, I've only seen reference to the fact that it is brewed for Monk's in Belgium. I agree, it's a great beer, but I veer toward crisper stuff for summertime.

I forgot to add another terrific Philly microbrew, Yards Saison, Yards Brewing Co., Philadelphia, a delightful citrusy quencher that also makes a great mimosa.

This summer I am determined to explore the wealth of both summer beers and summer-friendly beers. So far, I've been grooving on: Flying Fish Farmhouse, Cherry Hill, NJ, crisp, bursting with hop and herb notes. Sly Fox IPA Series, Phoenixville, PA, being made with 9 different hop varities; so far the Kent Goldings, Styrian and Cascade varietals have been spectacularly puckery and floral. Pilsner Urquell , Czech Republic, has been popping up all over Philly (and is on tap everywhere in Miami Beach), and on tap you realize what a truly great, tangy beer it is. I'll be on the hunt all summer. Suggestions?

My story is similar to Curlz: an e-mail, followed by some phone tag, and , eventually, a long afternoon chat about my Sunday dinner memories. And about once a month, I strive for a good, earthy, loud Sunday dinner of pasta, meatballs, sausage, salad and fruit and nuts. The only deviation from the Italian flavor of the dinner occured during the dinner of which Susan in FL made mention; she and Russ brought ramekins of creme brulee for dessert, and we served them with, shockingly, Ommegang Brown Ale for dessert, a terrific pairing. Man, that was a great Sunday dinner.....