Philly-best S. and E. Asian restaurants/groceries?

[trillium]

hi all,

My partner is going to be in Philly for a conference starting on Wednesday. He has a laminated map of the city, frommer's guide and a bunch of posts I forwarded him from here. He's not afraid of taking public transportation or cabbing it. He's hoping for some advice on where to find some decent East Asian food (anything --Pakistan through Kerala). We got really spoiled in Chicago and miss "real" East Asian food here in Portland. If the place is open all night and feeds cab drivers, it's a plus. Same goes for Greek food. He's also wondering if it's worth eating any Chinese food while he's there (Chinatown is close to the conference center). He's ethnic Chinese from Singapore and he's picky (he doesn't think so, but he is). He was reading about Susanna Foo's place with great suspicion...

Any hints on a Chinese grocery where he could find good lap cheung (the kind hung up with strings, not the stuff in plastic) and dried shrimp (the big sized bulk kind that isn't colored red/pink) or an Indian grocery with a good selection of snacks would be appreciated too.

I think he's going to need to eat out with his boss a few nights, where he'll need to eat somewhere less adventurous then what he plans on doing on his own. He was eyeing places like the Striped Bass and the fusion latin place whose name I'm blanking on. These are still well thought of, yes? Is there a secret eGullet handshake I should teach him before he makes a reservation?

thanks

trillium

[herbacidal]

He's hoping for some advice on where to find some decent East Asian food (anything --Pakistan through Kerala).  We got really spoiled in Chicago and miss "real" East Asian food here in Portland. 

okay, let's do this one at a time.

i'd probably call that south asian, not east asian.

keralan, now that's something i haven't seen too much of, or heard about outside of a F+W / Travel + Leisure article a while ago.

Can't say that I think any South Asian places here are especially notable.

There's Shivnanda and Cafe Spice, both in Old City, the latter more for beginners to the cuisine. Outside of those 2, everything else I can think of within city limits is the "buffet" type.

Kabul and Arianna, 2 Afghan places also in Old City, are pretty good, I was at the former years ago, and the latter about 2 years ago.

If the place is open all night and feeds cab drivers, it's a plus.  Same goes for Greek food. 

The only cabbie place I know of is Chef Abu's, on 9th about 3 blocks north of Vine.

He's also wondering if it's worth eating any Chinese food while he's there (Chinatown is close to the conference center).  He's ethnic Chinese from Singapore and he's picky (he doesn't think so, but he is).  He was reading about Susanna Foo's place with great suspicion...

Not particularly. It's probably better than Portland, but still not necessarily notable.

I would view Foo's with not suspicion, but rather disdain. But maybe that's just my mood.

Any hints on a Chinese grocery where he could find good lap cheung (the kind hung up with strings, not the stuff in plastic) and dried shrimp (the big sized bulk kind that isn't colored red/pink) or an Indian grocery with a good selection of snacks would be appreciated too.

Just walk around Chinatown, he'll see the places with stuff in the windows, and he'll probably know what to look for. There's a place on east side of 10th between Cherry and Arch, Mai Lai Wah on corner of 10th and Race, Ocean City on 9th just below Vine St. Expressway.

That first one is a shop that just does meat, "jaam liu" in Cantonese. The other 2 are parts of restaurants.

He was eyeing places like the Striped Bass and the fusion latin place whose name I'm blanking on.  These are still well thought of, yes?  Is there a secret eGullet handshake I should teach him before he makes a reservation?

Most of the "name" Latin places are fusion. Exceptions are tacquerias, Las Cazuelas, Los Catrines, and a few others.

He's either thinking of Cuba Libre or Alma de Cuba. Wait, how can I forget Pasion!.

I hope that's the one he's thinking of, b/c that's the 1 I'd recommend.

Striped Bass would also probably be a good choice.

The secret handshake is: grasp left hands, 360 spin around, grasp right hands...

He can contact me for more info in any area. I've never had the chance to speak to any Singapore Chinese in depth, would be sorta cool. I'm ABC Cantonese myself.

[trillium]

He's hoping for some advice on where to find some decent East Asian food (anything --Pakistan through Kerala).  We got really spoiled in Chicago and miss "real" East Asian food here in Portland.

okay, let's do this one at a time.

i'd probably call that south asian, not east asian.

And you'd be absolutely correct. Meant south asian, typed east....oops

keralan, now that's something i haven't seen too much of, or heard about outside of a F+W / Travel + Leisure article a while ago.

Can't say that I think any South Asian places here are especially notable.

There's Shivnanda and Cafe Spice, both in Old City, the latter more for beginners to the cuisine.  Outside of those 2, everything else I can think of within city limits is the "buffet" type.

Kabul and Arianna, 2 Afghan places also in Old City, are pretty good, I was at the former years ago, and the latter  about 2 years ago.

There is a big south indian influence on cooking in S'pore. Keralan food is great. So is Andhran. So is food from Madras (dosai bigger then my head!). Sigh. Oh well. The buffet thing does not sound promising. At least this way I won't be jealous.

If the place is open all night and feeds cab drivers, it's a plus.  Same goes for Greek food. 

The only cabbie place I know of is Chef Abu's, on 9th about 3 blocks north of Vine.

Have you eaten there? What sort of food?

Just walk around Chinatown, he'll see the places with stuff in the windows, and he'll probably know what to look for.  There's a place on east side of 10th between Cherry and Arch, Mai Lai Wah on corner of 10th and Race, Ocean City on 9th just below Vine St. Expressway.

That first one is a shop that just does meat, "jaam liu" in Cantonese.  The other 2 are parts of restaurants.

So Chinatown has real shops, not just restaurants for tourists? The best places to buy stuff in SF where hardly ever in Chinatown ('cept for herbal stuff). Even in Chicago it was hard to find lap cheung that wasn't packaged in plastic.

Most of the "name" Latin places are fusion.  Exceptions are tacquerias, Las Cazuelas, Los Catrines, and a few others.

He's either thinking of Cuba Libre or Alma de Cuba.  Wait, how can I forget Pasion!.

I hope that's the one he's thinking of, b/c that's the 1 I'd recommend.

Striped Bass would also probably be a good choice. 

I'll pass on the recommendations and the contact info (can you PM me your actual email address?). Maybe you can demonstrate that secret handshake in person...heh heh

thanks a bunch

trillium

[SG-]

Here are a couple of places to check out:

- Penang for some familiar straits fare, malaysian chinese really, decent roti canai, satay, curry laksa, hainanese chicken rice:

http://www.phillychinatown.com/penang.htm

- Indonesia, also in chinatown for indonesian food, gone a little downhill of late but gets the basic flavours down.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/philly/enter...ols/4246537.htm

- NO South Indian to be found here, only the typical standard US northern indian moghul food. Still searching high and low for a south indian place.

- I would pass on Susana Foo, fancified overpriced chinese food basically, anyone who tells you otherwise is LYING!!! Pasion is worth checking out for Latin.

- Never been to Portland myself so not sure about the quality of chinese food but Ocean Harbor in chinatown has decent dim sum.

- Chef Abu is African by the way, got some good reviews but have yet to make it myself.

- For groceries head over to south philly along washington ave and 11th St, there's been an explosion of Vietnamese supermarkets and restaurants over the past few years. He can find a wide range of asian groceries (quite good waxed/dried meat products) there even spotted some belacan and somewhat questionable cincaluk!! Yeo's products from are quite prevalent too . Grab a quick bite at some of the vietnamese restaurants while you're there too, or stop by Geno's and Pat's for some cheesteak.

Regards

SG

[SG-]

Another find recently were "see hums / kerang" in some of the chinatown groceries stores, not sure where he would cook em though and probably recommend against shipping them back.

[trillium]

Thanks for the lowdown, SG. He's gone, but I'll pass it on tonight. I think Penang is a chain with different family members running them, right? There's one in Chicago. I thought it was good, he didn't (like I said...picky). They didn't put the REQUIRED cubes of pig fat/skin (don't remember the name) in the chaw kway teow and that got him all huffy.

Cincaluk that is questionable? Was it foaming out of the bottle? Or a strange grey color instead of pink? We actually had a hard time moving our kitchen stuff from Chicago to Portland and it makes me laugh when I think about what we took and what we threw or gave away. The bottle of really good cincaluk (from S'pore) was included in what made the cut, vs things like the oregon white truffles in butter that didn't!

thanks again,

trillium

[SG-]

Yup same chain although I'm not sure which sibling this is an offshoot off. Like I said it's decent but not great, what do you expect I suppose, malaysian food is not exactly mainstream in the US food culture. Heck even Indian, Chinese and Japanese for the most part serve cookie cutter menus "moo goo gai pan, general tso, tandoori, tikka, teriyaki, dragon roll, etc" and they've been around much longer. They did sprinkle some lard cubes in my hokkien mee when they first opened but seems like they've done away with it. I'm sure they'll hook you up with it if you ask specifically, I'm usually too embarassed ..

As for cincaluk, more misses than hits the last purchase was a foamer.. have since given up buying it altogether. Hey, how are oregon truffles by the way, any good? any cheaper than italian? You folks must get pretty good mushrooms etc..

[trillium]

Hey, when it comes to pig fat you can't be too embarassed! It's pig fat after all!

Oregon truffles are really good, but they taste very different then Italian ones. I actually bought them by mail while I was in Chicago, but I didn't realize you could actually get truffle enui, which is how we ended up with too many truffles (4 oz is a lot of truffles). Here you can buy them in the nicer grocery stores while in season. I think I like the white ones better then the black, the white were more pungent and less fruity tasting to me, but they were both pretty powerful. You can check out

www.oregonwhitetruffles.com

I think the prices should have come down from what was listed, we got a lot of rain this spring, but you can always email Dan Wheeler for an updated price list.

The mushrooms are fantastic. Chanterelles in the fall go for really cheap (relatively) depending on the harvest. Right now it's morel season and they're very abundant from all the fires last year. Around $18/lb and really nice.

regards,

trillium