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Archive: November, 2011
East Passyunk gets so much buzz, it's easy to forget there's a whole other half of the Avenue that runs from Broad Street all the way into Southwest Philly. Revitalization has trickled west like drip coffee, bringing freshly renovated commercial spaces and hope for new businesses like Pho Le (1620 W. Passyunk Ave.), a tiny Vietnamese café, sandwiched between a beer distributor and auto-body, that's been open a few months.
Congrats to the three City Paper writers nominated for 2011 Philebrity Awards! CP staff writer Dan Denvir and Critical Mass blog columnist Ryan Carey were recognized in the General Excellence in Writing for a City Publication category. And food critic Adam Erace is in the running for Phoodie of the Year, which was won last year by our very own Drew Lazor.
- Since he started in July, Dan has been working overtime to report on everything from Occupy Philly and the city's lack of sex ed courses to the Department of Human Services' crackdown on pot-toking parents.
- Ryan contributes two weekly columns to Critical Mass: Man Cave, a dude-centric analysis on pop culture and local haps, and LOL With It, a discussion about everything Philly comedy.
- Adam, who was nominated with his brother Andrew for his work at South Philly's Green Aisle Grocery, helps us dine smarter with restaurant reviews and writeups about the local food scene. Some of his recent contributions include critiques of Tashan and Farmers' Cabinet and a review of Marc Vetri's latest cookbook, Rustic Italian Food.
We're proud of all of them and would love it if you'd pop over to show them a little love on the Philebrity Awards voting page.
Go team!
Vedge (1221 Locust St.), open for just two weeks, has rolled out happy hour. Every Monday to Friday from 5 to 6 p.m., post up at Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby's bar (or in the adjacent lounge) for $3 drafts, $5 wines, $5 cocktails and $2 shooters of Isastegi Sagardo cider. The full dinner menu is available during this time, but they're also offering a trio of snacks — Korean seitan tacos (veryveryverygood), smoked portabello tacos and wedge fries with porcini salt and onion dip — for four bucks a pop.
Photo: Drew Lazor
Munish Narula's Tashan (777 S. Broad St.), which earned a bang-up review last week from our Adam Erace, is hosting a fast-and-loose beer "dinner" next Wednesday, Dec. 7, with Meadville, Pa.'s Voodoo Brewing. In contrast with most events of these nature, which have eaters paying a flat fee for a multi-course, beer-paired meal, Tashan chef Sylva Senat is keeping it casual: He'll pair various small plates from his menu with four-ounce pours of Voodoo beers, all for $8 each. (Brewmaster Matt Allyn will be in the house from 7 to 9.) Peep the pairings after the jump.
Photo: Drew Lazor
Thanksgiving has come and gone, and if your fridge is looking anything like mine, baggies and containers of leftovers are threatening to take over. Here’s a way to kill two leftover birds with one stone: turkey tacos with chipotle-cranberry salsa. Just swing by your nearest Mexican grocery, or Tortilleria San y Roman (951 S. Ninth St.), where you can score a kilo of fresh corn tortillas for a couple dinero, for the Latin essentials necessary to transform your all-American leftovers into an easy Spanish-speaking dinner.
Photo: Adam Erace
Clue: The owner of this place has another restaurant that serves the same cuisine.
Remember this? When everyone in Philly a militia of infuriated Meal Ticket commenters threatened violent regime change when the owners of The Khyber (56 S. Second St.) announced their intentions to convert the well-heeled rock club into an izakaya? As we know now, that Japanese plan was soon shifted to Queen Village (782 S. Second, where Stephen Simons and Dave Frank are plugging along) and the Khyber became the NOLA-fied Khyber Pass Pub.
Opa (1311 Sansom St.) is being very Greekily generous this holiday season where lunch is concerned — from now till Jan. 1, the MidVil bar and restaurant is offering a gyro, plus a side of fresh-cut oregano fries and a soda, for $5.95. Andy Brown's chicken and lamb gyros alone usually run $8 and $9, respectively, so that's some dealage; diners are encouraged to smash the plates after finishing their food, too.* Opa's lunch runs weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
* This is a lie, please don't smash Opa's plates.
Photo: Courtesy of Opa
Notes from the Weekend is a Monday feature that sees the members of Team Meal Ticket compiling all the food/drink highlights uncovered during prime eatin' time, Friday to Sunday. Consider this a place for good deals, great dishes, wicked cocktails, recipe triumphs (and tragedies), bizarro conversations and more. We're eager to share our notes, but especially excited to read yours.We encourage you to leave notes from YOUR weekend in the comments. Have at it! (View past NFTW installments at citypaper.net/notes.)
Food, drink and opening-date details for Supper chef/owner Mitch Prensky and Franklin partner Mike Welsh's collab in the Fairmount neighborhood are still a bit scarce, but we now know the duo's takeover of Lucky 7 Tavern (747 N. 25th St.) will be called Lemon Hill, named after the historic Fairmount Park mansion situated about a mile from the restaurant's 25th-and-Aspen locale. There's talk that the bar/restaurant will open before the end of 2011 — right now they're overhauling the sports bar (pictured), which never quite took flight — but nothing's confirmed as of yet. Will keep you posted.
Photo: Felicia D'Ambrosio
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