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BAGEL ALERT

Monday, December 29th, 2008

I normally don't post something without a photo, but it's no trivial matter. I finally had a good bagel in Philly. My first good bagel in 5.5 years here in Philly. I found it at The Famous Fourth Street Delicatessen. A nicely sized plain bagel, lightly toasted with cream cheese. How hard is that to make? Apparently, very hard. I've had many a bagel in Philly, but this was the first bagel I've actually liked.

Thank you Famous Fourth Street Delicatessen.

Unfortunately, it was $2.50. I'd rather take the Chinatown bus up to NYC, see some friends, walk around my old stomping grounds and bring back a baker's dozen than pay $2.50 for a single bagel with cream cheese. Good bagels are the single thing I miss most about NY.

What, for me, makes a good bagel. Step one: it can't be a piece of bread with a hole in the middle. That knocks out 95% of the "bagels" in town in the running. Step two: it's gotta have a slightly crunchy/crusty exterior for the bite into the bagel; none of that soft/mushy stuff. Step three: it's gotta be nice and chewy inside; no dryness, no soft breadyness. Step four: it doesn't need to be covered in other stuff to make it taste good – plain, lightly toasted (or fresh out of the oven), with a nice schmear of cream cheese.

Does anybody out there have a suggestion for a good bagel in town? I tried many, many, many places in the first 1.5 years here to no avail and then I gave up and stopped trying. I recently tried Herschel's East Side Deli in Reading Terminal Market. I highly advise against ordering a bagel there. Before trying a bagel at Herschel's on the suggestion from a co-worker a couple months ago, I can't remember the last time I paid for a bagel in Philly because it's been so long since I gave one a chance.

[Note: Oddly, I was meeting 9 photogs for brunch at the deli and I didn't bother to take a photo of the whole brunch. Too busy talking and eating.]

Famous Fourth Street Delicatessen
700 S. Fourth St.
(215) 922.3274
Mon – Sat: 7:30am – 6pm
Sun: 7:30am – 4pm

Posted in Center City East, Diner, South St | 16 Comments »

POTLUCK MAKES THE NEWS

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

The Inky's Rick Nichols came by the potluck (with some delicious baked ricotta and provalone cheeses from Claudio's, a crazy Italian dessert and vino) to meet the gang. Apparently, he was also working on a story [front page of today's Inquirer Food section!]. Unfortunately, the story was primarily a print journalism thing so URLs took up a lot of space (but they are all correct – first thing I did was check them all when I saw the online version – just double checked and noticed e's blog Foodaphilia's link is broken so she gets a double mention here: go here for good stuff!) and there wasn't enough room for all the fun quotes from everyone at the potluck.

Philly's got such an incredible food scene in all corners of the city. From the physical eateries to the paid reviewers to us: the lovers of food who pay someimtes ungodly sums of money for the food we love; scour the city to find the best deals on Heath toffee bits (if we can find them at all!); try dishes from every lunch cart in the line to keep things new; spend hours in the kitchen trying to get that recipe you saw online just right; sweat in the summer baking goods in the oven for friends you care about; gorge yourself with just one more bite because you must. I'm glad the dead tree people of old media are getting interested in what the rest of us are doing for little to no pay – certainly without an expense account.

But it should be noted that some of the Philly gang are getting monetarily rewarded for their passion, expertise and excellent prose: Marisa, one half of the on-screen duo that makes up Fork You! is the lead blogger over at Slashfood; David of Philafoodie is an instructor at The Wine School on Fairmount and a restaurant critic for The City Paper and Dynise of The Urban Vegan has an urban cookbook coming out in late 2009 to name a few of the success stories.

Philly's food scene is tops. And we've got 60+ foodie blogs to prove it with new ones popping up quicker than we can keep track of and subscribe to. Take a look at this [growing] list!

Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »

FOOD BLOGGER POTLUCK 5

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

food blogger potluck 5
Previously held in Center City, Fairmount, South Philly, and Fairmount Park, the food blogger potluck came back to Center City last weekend. About 40 people gathered at Messy and Picky HQ for the 5th installment of the potluck. Approximately a dozen blogs were represented by around 20 bloggers with the other half being friends added into the mix who undoubtedly heard of the good eats to be had! We were more than happy to let everyone run amok in our place — especially with the promise of delicious leftovers to last us for weeks (or in our case, more like days)!

The dishes were very dessert-heavy, but that was all good. The sugary dishes were evened out by more wine than the 40 of us could drink in four hours. The non-sweet dishes were all the more special with meatball subs courtesy of fries with that shake; a rocket, pomegranate, goat cheese salad courtesy of Fork You!; an Indian dish courtesy of Philly Food Guys and cheeses from the hosts and the Inky's Rick Nichols who was curious to learn more about Philly's ridiculously well represented food blogging scene.

We forgot to pass around a piece of paper to have a list of every blog in attendance, but such is life. Everyone had a great time. And Picky got to take some fun photos of everyone and they couldn't refuse because they were at our house! e brought over some fun cups leftover from the potluck at her house awhile ago. They were put to good non-drinking use:

It was great to see everyone and we're looking forward to gorging ourselves at the next foodie potluck! Some more photos of the food and the nose cup fun in this flickr set.

Posted in Events | 9 Comments »

PEACHES AND CREAM

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

peaches and cream
Two things I love: peaches and whipped cream. Even better when the whipped cream is freshly homemade and the peaches are nice, soft and juicy. Luckily for me, I work at Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market which has both of the items mentioned and peaches are in full production at the orchards around Philly. It's hot out today. Reward yourself from all of your hard work with a nice treat, eh?

The heavy cream we use to make the whipped cream is from Dutch Way Dairy out in Myerstown, PA – a little northwest of Reading. It's sold in quart containers for $6.50 at FFF. At 38% milkfat, it's at the higher end of cream. According to the Wiki cream article, this places the Dutch Way Dairy cream as 'extra-heavy' or 'manufacturer's' cream. It's magical. We usually whip up a pint of cream at a time with anywhere from a teaspoon to a Tablespoon or so of sugar depending on who's making it (more if it's Picky) and what we're making it for (we used less when making cream for the super sweet vegan chocolate pie). Whip up your cream for a few minutes on a low setting on your mixer. In our case, it's a hand mixer with whisk attachment.

As for the peaches, ours come from Beechwood Orchards in Bigglerville, PA – due west from York. Picky prefers yellow peaches with their tangier and juicier flesh. We usually chunkily dice up one medium to large peach each. Add in some wild huckleberries from Paradise Hill Farm (Vincetown, NJ – just past Mt. Holly) and you've really got a winner. Wild huckleberries are smaller than blueberries and have larger seeds. I like the crunch they give when chomping down on a few and they add some body to this delightfully cool snack. Unfortunately, it's just about the end of huckleberry season so the farmstand might be out of stock of them. At $2 a pack, they were selling quickly all this week. Peaches (and nectarines) are all $2.25/lbs. and will be around for another month and change, so make sure to gorge now!

Posted in Fresh from the Farmstand, Reading Terminal Market | 1 Comment »

HORIZONS

Monday, September 1st, 2008

We've been cooking from the Horizons cookbooks for a while now (both books available for purchase at Horizons, just ask the host upstairs), and it's pretty great. However, the restaurant itself is a little on the expensive side for us, so it's taken us a while to get over there for a sit-down dinner. We had take-out from Horizons a year or so ago with friends with mixed results – like most food, it's truly best when cooked, served and eaten in a timely manner.

For Messy's birthday, we decided to go. By drinking water (not that we're normally guzzling bubbly and martinis) and sharing an appetizer, we were able to keep our bill under $50. We were surprisingly so full we didn't even need dessert to satiate our sweet tooths.

horizons philadelphia
Their freshly baked bread and herby olive oil was so yummy! It's one of the many reasons why this place is packed from open to close every single day – reservations for the upstairs dining area are strongly recommended. We got there just before 9 p.m. on a Thursday and were told the dining room was full until about 9:30p.m., but we got lucky and a table for two opened up and was bussed within a few minutes.

horizons philadelphia
We started off with spicy chipotle seitan and black bean enchiladas, and they were absolutely fabulous. Vegan cheese almost never tastes good, and this was terriffic. Whatever their secret is, it's worth the trip. In fact, this appetizer could make a suitable dinner. Picky ordered the Yucatan chopped spinach salad and Jamaican BBQ seitan for his meal (both appetizers). Messy had the grilled seitan which comes with Horizons famous yukon mash potatoes. (We both really, really like seitan. Our favorite way to eat it is with Horizon's "zesty chipotle" recipe). It was all delicious.

The Yucatan salad was quite creamy with tons of avocado holding the guts of the chopped salad together. The smoked black olives were a lovely touch adding unexpected little bursts of flavor. It's a salad big enough to share and we did – along with everything else. Our server was helpful and accommodating to our request to have our food brought out of traditional order (we ordered appetizers, an entrée and sides) so that we could create our own pace. Picky's Jamaican BBQ seitan was tasty, but not as good as the "zesty chipotle" version in the cookbook. Horizons threw a little curveball and the seitan had a distinctly smoky flavor to it which was different from the cookbook's directive, but very well done and balanced with a spicy scotch bonnet crema. (Prior to this meal, Picky was feeling lukewarm about Horizons. He had previously had the take-out version of the Pacific rim grilled tofu which just didn't cut it flavor wise. It didn't pull the Korean-Japanese meld they were going for. But that was over a year ago and maybe the recipe has been tweaked since.)

Messy had the grilled seitan with Yukon mash, horseradish cream, grilled spinach and red pepper tapenade. The portion was generous and everything was just incredibly tasty and filling. Messy had this meal when we got take-out last year and she'll continue to get it every time we return to Horizons, because it is awesome. (It is so awesome, Messy is breaking her own personal rule of trying everything "interesting" on a given menu before repeating orders.)

We're quite happy that Horizons made their move from the 'burbs a few years ago. Knowing it's close by is comforting. But saving up to dine in makes visits about as frequent as if they were still located outside of Philly. However, saving up some coin to make the trip is well worth it for special occasions — especially if you're a vegetarian.

Messy ****
Picky ***

The final word: Delicious upscale vegan food that is out of our budget. Get the cookbook!

Horizons Philadelphia
611 S. 7th St
215.923.6117
Tue – Thu: 6pm – 10pm
Fri – Sat: 6pm – 11pm

Posted in South St, Vegetarian | 2 Comments »

MINAR PALACE OPENING SOON

Friday, August 29th, 2008

minar palace
Minar Palace churned out some of the best Indian food Center City's had in a good while at their former hole in the wall at 16th & Sansom Sts a couple of years ago, but they shut their doors and left a great void within Center City. Sure, one could trek up to 7th & Girard for, in our opinion, the best Indian in town at Tiffin, but we're Center City dwellers and like to stay closer to home (even though a nice long walk after a big meal doesn't hurt). Well, Michael Klein reported that Minar Palace is just about ready to open up at 1304 Walnut St. The grand opening is set for September 3rd pending a health inspection.

minar palace
Keep your fingers crossed everybody. This place seems to have had more delays than your average opening. But until then, take a look at the new décor which Klein alluded to in his earlier post on Minar. We've got high hopes for this place and lots of friends just itching for an outing once it's ready. Their menu is finalized and available for download here [377KB] as a .pdf or you can click here for a zooming Flash-enabled version Picky just whipped up.

The photos above are from August 27th. We have no idea what the final signage will look like, but we're gonna assume they're going to take the old Time Video sign down at some point. [It's open!]

Minar Palace
1304 Walnut St
215.546.9443

Posted in Announcements, Center City East, Indian | No Comments »

VEGAN CHOCOLATE PIE

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

vegan chocolate pie
When I was growing up, my (nearly life-long vegetarian) sister used to make the most delicious chocolate tofu pie. For those who've never tried it, you can't actually taste the tofu, it just provides a super smooth and creamy texture with minimal effort. Everyone always loved this pie, even though we didn't always divulge the secret ingredient. For her birthday this year, my sister made a grown-up version of chocolate tofu pie in the form of a fancy cake with a cashew crust and raspberry sauce and toasted candied almonds. We happened to be visiting at the time and got the chance to taste some — it was divine. It was so delicious, in fact, that I decided to make myself the same cake for my birthday.

Since it's hard for me to eat nuts (I am sadly rocking adult braces for at least another few months) I figured I would make a graham-cracker crust instead. Then, I thought, wouldn't a chocolate cookie crust be even better? Then I figured I would do away with the raspberry sauce and whip up some cream on the side instead. So basically, I decided to make a different cake all together. There are a lot of recipes for chocolate tofu pie online and I combined a bunch of them to make this one. I made a terrible mistake by forgetting to melt the chocolate (you can see in the picture that the pie is a little grainy) but it turned out to be quite tasty nonetheless.

Ingredients

Crust:
20-25 cookies, crushed [I used Paul Newman's vegan version of Oreos - Newman-O's]
about 4 Tbsp butter or vegan margarine

Filling:
16 oz Silken tofu
1 package (12 oz) Chocolate Chips [If you are serving vegans, make sure the chips are vegan, many aren't!]
1 tsp Vanilla

Directions
To make the crust: Crush up the cookies. Mix with approx. 3 1/2 Tbsp of margarine or butter. Pour into a buttered (or margarined) pie plate. Bake at 350°F for about 8 minutes. Allow to cool completely.

To make the filling: Mix the tofu and vanilla in the blender. Melt the chocolate chips using a double boiler (or equivalent) over medium heat. Add melted chocolate to the blender and mix until smooth. Pour mixture into pie crust and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Serve small slices, as this pie is really rich. We served it with slightly sweetened, homemade whipped cream (Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market has some wonderful local heavy cream). I have not made vegan whipped cream yet, but I hear it can be done with coconut milk. If anyone has a tried-and-true recipe, I'm interested!

Posted in Dessert, Recipes | 5 Comments »

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