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Archive: March, 2011
Monday, March 21
Jolly's Dueling Piano Bar is making a move in Center City.
South Street's Ants Pants is going under the knife to make more room for their customers.
West Philly's Biba is busting out a deck, just time for the impending warm weather.
Philly's got a few finalists in the 2011 James Beard chef/restaurant awards.
Golabki and tom kha gai and non-fishy fish deals and more in Notes from the Weekend.
Tuesday, March 22
A quick primer on how to join the commenting community on the new-look Meal Ticket!
Chef Akiko Moorman is hosting a "We <3 Japan" dinner/cocktail benefit at the coming-soonRotisseur.
Wawa has prime rib. Is is delicious or suspicious? Adrian Pelliccia finds out.
Wednesday, March 23
Meet the Boba Brothers, two UPenn students who've created a bustling bubble-tea business.
Maru Global chef and Tokyo native Ryo Igarashi is raising money for Japanese tsunami relief.
Good ol' CVS Peach Rings are in the Weekly Candy spotlight this week.
Thursday, March 24
The future looks sunnyside up for the quickly expanding Green Eggs Cafe crew.
The excellent Erawan Thai Cuisine is expanding with a new location in Chinatown.
Friday, March 25
- Bid adieu to the arduous process of preparing instant noodles! You can kiss your days of battling with those flimsy paper lids goodbye with these funny plastic figures: Cupmen by designer Akira Mabuchi. Don't worry about the steam leaving the cup, your Cupman's got it covered. Their heat-predictive little arms turn white when your noodles are good to go, so they'll never be undercooked.
- Among this week's thousands of intriguing and decadent recipes shared on the web, I give you this simple gem: candied beet chips. Spring veg is now coming into abundance (if the weather cooperates), and despite its status as a root, the beet is at its most delicious height in summer. Make some candy out of it.
- Firecracker pops for the kiddies ... painkillers for the adults? A Staten Island ice cream truck got busted this week for selling ice cream cones as a front to sling Oxycodone more discreetly, New York Times reports. Wonder how they got caught; hustling the addicts into the truck after ice cream hours to score isn't obvious or anything.
- Wired collected an amalgam of photographs of agriculture lots taken from space. Crop tactics and vegetation patterns become so interesting when they are morphed into what look like abstract art. Look at Libya! The ribbons of water in Kazakhstan and Egypt!
- On a visit to South Africa and the Seychelles, this guy ate grilled bat, and the whole process sounds pretty gnarly. The wings. Sick.
- Oh my god. Are we serious right now? That guy from Jersey Shore, "The Situation," has patented a vodka infused with Caseins for protein and body mass regulation. It is melodramatically named Devotion. So you can have abs like him while you're pumping fists in the club. Makin' millions.
Looks like Erawan (123 S. 23rd St.), which holds the distinction of being the longest-running Thai restaurant in Philadelphia, is expanding into Chinatown. They're currently renovating the restaurant space at 925 Arch, the longtime home of Siam Cuisine. A tentative grand opening date is set for next Friday, April 1; they'll serve lunch Tuesday to Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and dinner Tuesday to Sunday from 4 to 10 p.m.
Latte art competitions might not be as inherently engrossing as football (or even professional badminton), but here are a few very important reasons to check out the Thursday Night Throwdown battle royale hosted by Aaron and Elizabeth Ultimo at Ultimo Coffee(1900 S. 15th St.) tonight. First: coffee people are smart and interesting, especially when they're coming to Newbold from Bodhi, Spruce Street Espresso, Shot Tower, Elixr and others. Second: Ultimo's built-in neighbor, Brew, will be pouring Philadelphia Brewing Co. Walt Wit and Newbold IPA. Third: SPTR chef Scott Schroeder is currently balls-deep in the deviled eggs he'll serve tonight. "A real nice classic," he says, "like my mom would make, but kicked up a notch." Expect a rouge of smoked paprika instead of the usual sweet and chopped dill pickles blended with the yolks. "Better Than My Mom's Deviled Eggs?" We'd say so. Wanna compete in the Throwdown? Sign up by 7. Pour at 8. They'll also be collecting donations for Japan relief efforts all night.
Though they’ve been funneling in Saturday and Sunday brunch overflow for a few weekends now, the Green Eggs Cafe (1306 Dickinson St.) crew is close to completing renovations on a space next door that will add two dozen seats to their already bursting-at-the-seams capacity. "We've been setting up tables in there on the weekends, pulling them back out to work on the room during the week," says managing partner Stephen Slaughter, who estimates the permanent addition, fitted with glittering glass mosaic tiles, coffered ceilings and a floor-to-ceiling windows, has slashed weekend wait times from 45 to 15 minutes. But that’s not the only thing Green Eggs has up its sleeve.
- Adam Erace sails from South Philly to Sicily at Monsù, the new Italian Market restaurant from Peter McAndrews (Modo Mio, Paesano's). Here, Siggi-by-blood chef Damien Messina does a wonderful job playing with all the atypical ingredients that characterize the singular cuisine of the oft-conquered isle — prickly pear, apricot, cocoa powder, couscous being but a few.
- The folks at Mondial Café mean well, they really do. But that's not enough to make the interminable experience at the Albanian-owned restaurant a fun one.
- In Feeding Frenzy this week: All the particulars on The Farmers' Cabinet, plus tidbits on Jolly's, James Beard love feor Philly and a new look for Ants Pants Café.
- Laurel Rose Purdy is at it again, rounding up all the sweetest food/drink events in What's Cooking: read on for details on this weekend's Scrapplefest and Oyster House shuck-off, plus two can't-miss chef-collab dinners.
Once a week, Meal Ticket shares its latest sugar-laden obsessions. Do not tell our dentist.
IN QUESTION: Convenience-store Peach Rings! The best thing about these puppies is that they're available at practically any drug store or rest stop in any part of the country. While they vary in terms of quality and flavor, my favorite is the ubiquitous 99-cent, CVS variety — the kind that's stamped with a "seal of quality." Some might prefer the springy, gelatinous-ness of the fancy-pants Haribo peaches, but I'd take these foamy creatures over those any day.
AVAILABLE AT: Practically any pharmacy, gas station or bodega. For reliability, though, get my brand — they're always available, and they're usually sold at the bargain basement price of 99-cents per bag.
HOW MANY DO WE TYPICALLY EAT IN ONE SITTING: Even though I always purchase these with the intention of spreading their consumption out over a period of days, they're typically gone within the hour. Yes, the whole bag, and no, my stomach is never grateful.
FINER POINTS: The sugary coating of these puppies is great, but I've gotta say that the chewy consistency is what makes them a real candy tour de force. The more you chew them, the frothier they become. It's not an entirely digestible sensation, but at least they're full of enough chemicals to keep from getting stale in the bag. Sometimes, I find myself hungering for this totally artificial "food" experience.
Ryo Igarashi (above), chef/owner of Maru Global Takoyaki (255 S. 10th St.), who grew up in Tokyo, is using his terrific takoyaki as a platform to help his countrymen devastated by the recent earthquake and tsunami. A portion of the profits from tonight's $20 three-course monthly beer dinner with neighbor The Foodery (324 S. 10th St.) — lime-cured, torch-seared natural beef, anyone? — will be donated to Red Cross relief efforts in Japan. Six $15 limited-edition T-shirts are on sale, as well, with $10 from every sale donated, and all through April, 15 percent of money generated by delivery orders goes right to Japan. (Maru also has a Red Cross donation box on-site.) Check out tonight's full Foodery beer dinner menu after the jump.
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