Food and Music

City Paper and Meal Ticket are the official media partners of the 2011 POPPED! Musical Festival, scheduled for Friday, Sept. 23 and Saturday, Sept. 24 at FDR Park in South Philly. While the music lineup for the two-day event is alluring on its own — looking forward to The Shins, Pretty Lights, The Hold Steady, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Rakim, Girl Talk and many more acts — the festival's Food Bazaar, a collection of local food vendors, trucks, carts and full-fledged restaurants that'll be feeding the hungry masses, will be just as a big a draw. Set in a separate area away from the music, the Bazaar will feature both GA and VIP options; we're proud to be lending a hand in curating the lineup, along with Philly Homegrown, The Food Trust, chef Corey Fair of Modern Farm Table and POPPED! organizer Alexis Rosenzweig.
Good way to start the weekend: Chef Edwin Ramirez over at The Legendary Dobbs (304 South St.) will be handing out free blunts at happy hour tonight from 6 to 7. Before you ditch that half-cracked green Dutchie, perhaps we should clarify: The blizzies in question are actually a signature item of Ramirez's, a tortilla filled with boneless buffalo chicken, lettuce and blue cheese and twisted up tight like a White Owl a skinny burrito. Like all the best blunts, they're designed to be wielded with one hand only, leaving the other hand free for beers/high fives. Check out a video of Ramirez rolling one of his blunts above. He is really good at that.
Several weeks ago, Icepack reported that there had been movement on the sale of Ortlieb's Jazzhaus in Northern Liberties (847 N. Third St.), the legendary live music and drinking venue that closed its doors last year. First word went around that a money New Yorker was looking into the narrow jazz room, then several locals with an affinity for adventurous live music. Turns out the latter was true.

Starting at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 21, Fish (1708 Lombard St.) is teaming up with Italy's coolest brewmaster — Iacopo Lenci (above), owner of Tuscany's Brùton Brewery. Lenci may have been raised as part of an acclaimed winemaking family, but he’s long been known for bending and breaking the rules. Lenci, in collaboration with his father, can be found most days pouring non-traditional craft beers and booking shows at his Tuscan brewpub. Well, not tomorrow — just this once, Fish will step away from pairing wines with their seafood and let this slim punk rock dude with giant sideburns run the show. As the $80, six-course meal unfolds, diners will be able to try specialties such as a king crab dish with Lenci's Bianca (an Italian blonde wheat) and wild boar and salmon with Momus (a malty dark amber ale), all while jamming out to music and learning from one of the biggest personalities in the Italian craft beer movement. Space is limited to just 30 guests and we've told there are only a few spots left; call 215-545-9600 to reserve.

We first made note of MilkBoy's plans to open a Center City café/bar/music venue waaaay back in December 2009. Though they have run into more than a few speed bumps in their efforts to open (perhaps you're familiar with the unions in town?), the Ardmore-based coffee house and recording studio is poised to open its 11th-and-Chestnut Philly digs as early as June 10 — or, depending on construction delays, closer to the first week of July. Those estimates come via MilkBoy Communications, the brand's newly minted PR hub.
Sooooo glad we just came across this, a new Comcast OnDemand children's program entitled "LET'S EAT!" It appears to involve Kurt Hunte, one of the dudes from Plastic Little, and pro wrestler Hydra from the Philly-based league Chikara cooking kid-friendly recipes in a Pee Wee's Playhouse-esque kitchen. ("The only thing more fun than eating a cheeseburger and then eating a pizza ... is eating a CHEESEBURGER PIZZA!") If that's not incredible enough for you as a standalone reason to watch, about 1:35 in, Spank Rock and Amanda Blank materialize and rap kid-friendly raps about eating, with edible -costume background dancer support from the Vaudevillains Mummers troupe, reprising their Philly Phood Phantasia roles from New Year's Day 2010. Life is weird and glorious.

Matthew Feldman first told Meal Ticket about his plans to open Lucky Old Souls at 1713 McKean back the summer of 2009 — by summer 2010, he'd made notable but minimal headway. Now, the local jazz enthusiast is proud to announce that he's secured final approval for a liquor license from the PLCB. (It was held up by neighborhood appeals, you know how it is.) Renovations on the Newbold building that'll house his bar, restaurant and venue — it's been vacant for a quarter-century — will begin very soon, and "Feldie" is confident he'll be open for business before the end of 2011.
To keep the music heads sated while construction goes down, Feldman has organized "Jazz on Colorado Court," a series of free concerts that'll take place on the 1700 block of McKEan, in the outdoor space adjacent to the future home of LOS. The shows will run every Saturday in May from 3 to 6:30 p.m.; musicians Wade Dean (May 7), Venissa Santi (May 14), The Mini Q's (May 21) and Three Blind Mice (May 28) have signed on to play. Mobile vendors Honest Tom's, Tyson Bees, Buttercream and Little Baby's Ice Cream will park to feed the crowds.
Last week, we posted on ?uestlove's Twitter quest ?uest to find cooks qooks to whip him up dinner, with one moving on to feed him and the Legendary Roots Crew at the June 4 Roots Picnic. Questo's team has been trickling out the five finalists for the contest (scheduled for April 3) via Twitter, and we're happy to see some familiar faces in the running — peep South Philly Tap Room's own Scott "@foodsyoucaneat" Schroeder on cam prepping a chicken-fried steak cheesesteak that looks imperative. And here are vids from two other finalists, Kenny (he works on the line at Bistrot La Minette) and Clara; keep an eye on @cook4quest for info on the final two contestants.

Earlier today, ?uestlove shot out a video indicating that he's on the hunt for a chef to whip him up a private dinner — one we're assuming will go down in Philly.
The Roots drummer requests that those who wish to nominate themselves as potential cooks qooks should shoot a 90-second (or less) pitch clip to questlovesfood@gmail.com, and/or tweet it to @cook4quest. No official word on what the selected chef(s) will earn, or on the timeline/endgame of Questo's contest, but we're quite intrigued by how this Twittered-up experiment might turn out. We've always been fans of his food-centric commentary.
UPDATE [23mar11]: A few more details per the contest's Twitter — the deadline to send in your 90-second vid is this Friday, March 25, at 5 p.m. And it looks like the cook-off — the winner (there'll be five finalists) will serve as Questo's cook at the June 4 Roots Picnic — is going down at an undisclosed location on April 3.
When I first reported that Four Corners Managment's Avram Hornik and Mark Fichera (Drinkers, Lucy's) had leapt into bed with R5's Sean Agnew to purchase 10th and Spring Garden's Spaghetti Warehouse, no body figured they'd just make food and sell liquor as the license they were after allowed them such. They were going to — supposedly — open a concert hall called Union Transfer with help from New York booking boys Bowery Presents. September 2011 has been the tentative go-to date. While we haven t heard from Hornik or Fichera, Agnew and I have kept a steady if still secret communiqué going in relationship to said pasta ballroom blitz.
Since the space closed before Christmas, Agnew has been traveling through the Kongs. Currently he is in Hanoi (DJing in a bar during this chat), heading onto India and then? “Heading home for a long time,” writes Agnew.
There are a lot of rumors that he wouldn’t answer for or fess up to — like how much of an owner (if any) he’d be in the venture, what possible food could be involved, what the hell is Bowery Presents doing there, were capacities planned or openings set? He wouldn’t confirm or deny a thing. Agnew gave me a lot of stuff off-the-record and it makes sense that everyone involved is cautious. “I am in talks right now to help run and book shows in this possible new venue. If all goes well it should be really cool.” OK, sounds tentative. But. For those saddened or pleased that Hornik’s Jumbo Theater attempts in Northern Port Fishington died, you had to admit: It never got a chance to breathe. What Agnew did offer as a solid should be a big relief to R5 indie heads who adore the DIY booker. “When and if it happens, it will not be the end of R5,” he says. “We will still continue to exist and book shows in other rooms.” Solid, that. Meal Ticket will have more news when Agnew gets to India.
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