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Archive: June, 2012
Man’s best friend, meet man’s best french toast.
The canine community can now join the locavores of Philadelphia in celebrating Guillermo Tellez, the chef of Charlie Trotter and Striped Bass fame long known for his commitment to sustainable culinary practices. This weekend Tellez will hold his second annual Bring-Your-Own-Dog Weekend Brunch at Square 1682 in the Hotel Palomar by Kimpton (121 South 17th Street).
Notes from the Weekend is a 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.)
On Wednesday, Basic 4 Vegetarian Cafe, which offers an array of veggie burgers and faux-meat sandwiches (BLT with soy bacon, soy corned beef, etc.), will celebrate 31 years at the Reading Terminal Market. From noon to 2 p.m. they're giving away slices of free birthday cake after receiving a City Council citation (Councilman Squilla in the house). They're also creating an "anniversary" lunch special (veggie burger, medium lemonade and cookie) that will cost you just $8.31 and runs through the end of August.
Make someone's eyes water! Tattooed Mom's (530 South St., 215-238-9880) is holding its first-ever handmade hot sauce contest on Tuesday, June 12, from 5-9 p.m. There will be $1 tacos (beef or bean), $3 Tecates, half-price drafts during certain hours and a lot of people drinking cold water. You can be one of them!
Notes from the Weekend is a 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.)
When it first became apparent that Dave Gleason and Heather Garry from the pub-grubbing Good Dog Bar would be taking over the corner space left behind by The Witch on East Moyamensing Avenue, the first thing considered was how it would be a nice addition to an already-burgeoning food neighborhood, what with Federal Donuts mere yards away. But Garry, Gleason and third partner Tom Darby’s idea for The Industry, which finally opens its doors tonight, is more than that: It’s a love letter to the restaurant/hospitality biz.
“At Good Dog, we’ve always offered an ‘in the biz’ special — a Sunday-through-Wednesday thing where we give 20 percent off the tab if you sling booze or food,” says Garry. The new spot has some serious but casual design elements for the open, 80-seat dining room with its long, 18-seat bar and even-longer communal dining table crafted from rough pieces of edgy walnut. (Artist Ben McBrien’s rustic touches of reclaimed wood enhancing the warm green room.) “At The Industry, we’re going to extend that offer to seven days a week, and have a little fun with it.” (Twitter handle: @theindustrybar).
But it’s not as if The Industry will play host only to food-biz worker bees. Remember that the location is at a hub of great food in a powerfully hungry area of town. “We are really excited to be in South Philly and have a great staff lined up including Chef Pat, Bob ‘Heel’ Achilles making drinks and Lisa Watson, who has been managing Good Dog for the past seven years,” says Garry.
Chef Pat Szoke (pictured), who has also done his time at The Farm and Fisherman, Vetri and Buddakan, plans to focus on seasonal fruit and vegetables. Look for fare such as crispy pig-ear lettuce wraps with Frank’s hot sauce, julienned vegetables and bibb lettuce; Kentucky-fried guinea hen with Mexican street corn and cucumber salad and lamb-neck gravy with fresh ricotta and grilled bread; and sweet-corn arepas with blistered tomato, cremini mushrooms, poblanos and crème fraîche. “For summer, guests can expect to see fish, grilled head to tail, served whole with a sweet corn succotash,” says Szoke. “As soon as we open, we will be serving brunch, so think locally sourced eggs and vegetables and fresh house-baked breads. I'm currently working on version of a cinnamon bun.”
The Industry opens to the public tonight, June 6, at 6 p.m. (1401-1403 E. Moyamensing Ave., 215-271-9500). Last night was the family-and-friends soiree, which I heard was a blast. Here’s hoping that last night’s crew had access to Szoke’s “hangover cure” brunch menu today.
VICE magazine's video series, Munchies, tails well-known chefs during their late-night exploits, which, as you might expect, often involve whiskey, beer, off-color jokes and sandwiches. Last month, they featured Amis chef Brad Spence, painting the town red in a baby-blue track suit. Tomorrow, Jeff Michaud of Vetri restaurants Osteria and Amis gets the follow (we hear Mike Solo, Erin O'Shea and Jonnymac also make appearances), and Alla Spina (1410 Mount Vernon) is throwing an impromptu viewing party at 10 p.m. Chef Damon Menapace is putting together a special late-nite menu for the screening, while the bar is serving up $2 Brooklyn lagers. It is, however, Beer Week, and you better believe beverage guy Steve Wildy, whose Twitter handle (@sommillionare) we love, is coming correct with a mother load of weird Italian brews. Take the happy-hour savings and put them toward something rare from Alla Spina's secret reserve collection.
View galleryWashington Avenue is the definitive HQ of Vietnamese cooking in South Philly, but Liem Ma (who owns Pho & Cafe Viet Huong at 11th) is pushing east to Pennsport. His massive Mekong River (1120 S. Front St.) opened just last week, slick with gleaming hardwood floors, stacked stone accent walls and a facade vaguely reminiscent of a swish Cherry Hill strip mall. Die-hard pho hounds will probably decry its sanitized good looks — "Can you believe there aren't even any roaches here?! NOT authentic enough for me!" — but the food (especially the pho broth, strong on the star anise) is legit. Just ask all the Vietnamese families lunching there over the weekend.
photos by Adam Erace
John T. Edge, author of The Truck Food Cookbook and famed food-culture chronicler for the New York Times, Saveur and other outlets, will be at Yards Brewery Wednesday to talk about and sign copies of his book. Edge scoured the country's street-food landscape and collected recipes. Nicely, a portion of the sales will go to the newly formed Philly Mobile Food Association. Get all the details about the event here.
Soft-shell crabs, those succulent harbingers of summer, have scuttled up to Rittenhouse Square. Every Sunday this summer at Matyson (37 S. 19th St., 215-564-2925), chef Ben Puchowitz is featuring the freshly molted crustaceans on a four-course $35 pre-fixe menu. How they'll be prepared will change each week. For the inaugural menu this past Sunday, June 3, Puchowitz crusted soft-shells in cornmeal and served them over purple potato, corn and fava bean hash with a sick-sounding peach-kimchee puree. Here's the full menu. Reservations a must.
- barstool scientist
- Booze
- Brew Revue
- Chef Salad
- Closings
- Coffee
- Contests
- Dealage
- Dirty Dishes
- Don't Front
- Eat This Immediately
- Field Trip
- Food and Art
- Food and Holidays
- Food and Movies
- Food and Music
- Food and Politics
- Food and Sports
- Food and Web
- Food Blogs
- Food Books
- Food Events
- Food News
- Food TV
- Gifted
- Happy Hour Hopper
- How-To
- In Print
- Interview
- Meal Ticket
- Menu Time
- Not So Quickfire
- Notes from the Weekend
- On Wheels
- Openings
- Patio Drinking
- Philly Beer Week 2010
- Photos
- Private Chef POV
- Product Placement
- Recipes
- Snack Time
- Stiff Drank
- SUPPER
- Tea
- Testing
- Ticket Stubs
- Top Chef
- Vegan
- Vegetarian
- Video
- Weekly Candy
- Weird Regional Foods
- We're Here to Help
- Where'd We Eat?
- Drew Lazor's Ill-Advised Rant Factory
- Pregame
- Ill-Advised Ranting
- The Week Without Meat
- Philly Beer Week 2009
- Real Big
- Where'd I Eat Last Night?
- Top Chef Masters
- The Good Word
- Next Iron Chef
- Arterial Terrorism
- Food and Radio
