mrbigjas

gingerly, although some of the fruits that have been posted hitherto have been pretty scary looking, I could at least imagine eating them. That thing you posted looks like a creature from my worst nightmare. My immediate compulsion is to run away from it. You have forced me to rethink my personal food philosophy of "fear nothing, eat everything". the buddha's hand? don't worry, you don't eat it. it's like a lemon with no pulp--all rind. if you ever saw one in person you wouldn't worry about it.

yeah it was mainly katie i wanted to reassure.

three words: foodsaver vacuum thingy

p.s. i should mention i have absolutely no idea what this bar is like. it could really suck. or rewl. we'll see.

OK it's been over a year now and the 2004 crab season is winding down. i was just about to post a new crab thread when i remembered this one, so here's a quick bump. anyway, there's a place down at 2nd/3rd & mifflin that has a sign out for all you can eat crabs for $16.95 on wednesdays. i forget the name of it, but it's right there on the corner. they have beer specials too, those nights. i'm gonna head down there one of these weeks before we get too far into fall. who wants to go?

Udupi Palace? wait, i thought this thread was about irrational attachments? there's nothing irrational about loving udupi palace. mmmmmmm udupi palace. that giant dosa with the green chilies and onions and whatnot... <homer simpson drooling noise>

all the le buses, or just the one in manayunk? who owns it now?

wait, you guys realize i wasn't seriously complaining, right? i mean, i don't expect every restaurant to be open upon my every whim. well, except maybe a vietnamese restaurant or two.

you got me there--and you forgot overtures. but have you been down there on a friday night recently? the vast majority of people down there are there to chill. in fact, those of us who are going down there to eat have to fight our way through crowds of people posturing and posing for each other on the sidewalk. those people are the major crowd of south street, not me. but either way, we're supposed to be talking about manayunk. sorry for the diversion.

whoa! thanks for the story--that's a good thing to know!

i loved that spanish rose they were carrying for a while. last time i was there, i had the garlic breadsticks. and then i didn't have anything else for dinner. and then for other reasons i spent the night in the emergency room. and about 330 a.m. the heartburn i was experiencing was about as bad as any i've ever had. so if you're going to be up all night with no dinner, i don't recommend the garlic breadsticks as your only nourishment for the day. other than that i have nothing bad to say about the place. oh, except that they don't open early enough. i was dawdling around town on saturday and stopped in about 3, and they told me they didn't open till 4. which was sad because i was hot and wanted one of those hitachino hefeweisses they serve.

KFC-Taco Bell combo, Haggen Daas, Blockbuster, Rita's, Bain's Deli johnny rocket's, dairy queen, soon-to-be abercrombie & fitch, pietro's (well, it IS), etc. south street is still a viable place, to me. there are still enough small places to balance out the chains... for now. and people go to south street to see and be seen and to shop, not as a dining destination. manayunk is in a similar position. and that's why all its restaurants are going away, if you ask me.

so at a coworker's request, we went to sammy's for lunch yesterday. i had the brisket plate, another coworker had the pulled pork plate, and the other had the baked potato stuffed with bbq chicken. it was all good, if served kinda lukewarm. i'm convinced it's not that hard to make decent bbq--it just takes some time. it's much harder to take it to that next level past 'decent' or 'good', but in general it's a pretty forgiving medium. for instance, while the brisket had a pleasant smoke flavor, it wasn't real strong and it didn't have the pink smoke ring. it was nice and tender, and not bad, although the pulled pork was better. the three sauces they made were real tasty, and we didn't have the service problems that the reviews talked about. the one weird service thing is that they don't have those little folders for your check. so they put your check on the table as is, which made us think, ok, like a diner or something we must pay up front. but you don't. i think if i went back, it would be to watch ten different football games at once and eat pretty good bbq, rather than going somewhere where you watch ten different football games and eat, like, fried mozz sticks or something. i still definitely prefer tommy gunn's for everything from the ambience to the food.

welcome to south street

since yer already blogging, any chance could you make that day today? i'm really curious as to what could cause an explosion on a regular ol' chimney starter. or not! whichever you wanna do--it's your blog!

i don't understand all this about how it's hard to get there without a car--it's totally easy, you just take the train to the manayunk station and walk three blocks and you're at main and green. or you get on the 38 or the 27 or the 9 bus from center city* and they drop you off where ridge and main split. i don't go to manayunk because there's not much there for me that i can't find its equivalent in town. there's a good guitar repair guy out there, but i don't need guitar repair done that often. restaurant-wise there was just nothing that ever attracted me to it, in part because derek davis owned all those places out there. i had dealt with him for one summer about 15 years ago when i was slinging coffee in the warwick hotel and he was chef at the restaurant there, and i decided he was a huge asshole and i would never patronize his restaurants. that was an easy boycott to maintain for all these years, since i never go out there anyway. *edit: or the 61, 124 or 125

collingswood is the suburb i'd choose if i were moving to the burbs. just sayin.

reviewed this week by craig laban: http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertain...ban/9493953.htm

i happened to turn on the part of this when they were talking about philadelphia, and there was.... THE VET. d'oh! they musta been rerunning the one they made a couple years ago or something.

you might get more of a response over on craigslist for this sort of thing. i know i'm not hip enough to answer...

hahaha, yeah... a little from column a, a little from column b....

moreso, probably.

ice beer!

they do sell horchata. they didn't call the soup birria, but maybe that's what it was. man is it good. i went in asking for menudo, and was told they make menudo on saturdays and goat soup on sundays.

another of their sunday specials is what they write on the check as 'consome,' but which is actually straight up goat soup. it's chunks of on-the-bone greasy goat in a goat broth, served like menudo or tortilla soup with a pile of onion and cilantro and tortillas. it's $11, and freaking great. but seriously, wear old clothes when you get it, because you're going to splash greasy goat broth all over yourself in the process. there's really no way to avoid it.