truth in labeling at the Vietnamese grocery store

Various kinds of cans

more braising

This time with happy meat from Rineer family farms from the Rittenhouse Square weekly Saturday farmer's market.

chuck roast, $6/lb (normally $7/lb)

with some yellow and red tomatoes

ok so the citrus didn't really add anything 

Zento

Attractive but unremarkable sushi at Zento in Old City.

margarita

Somewhere in the Bay area.

soup dumplings at Sakura Mandarin

Sakura Mandarin
1038 Race St
Philadelphia, PA 19107-2306
(215) 873-8338

Scallion pancakes on the left and mango shrimp 

(deliciously deep fried, in  terrible goopy sweet sauce)

Soup dumplings nomnomnom

 shu mai dumplings that are filled with glutinous rice

banana cake

From Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible.
I managed to remember both the sour cream and the lemon zest this time.

potato pancakes

Peel raw potatoes, shred on the big side of a box grater, add salt + pepper. Squish out liquid, shallow fry in vegetable oil (add butter/bacon/onions for fun).

nyc: Kee's chocolates

nyc: Dogmatic

The fancypants hot dogs are reasonably delicious with the potential for messy, but I go to the Dogmatic by Union Square specifically for the ginger soda which is a little spicy tingly and not too sweet. The black specks at the top of the soda? VANILLA.

nyc: Kyochon

Korean fried chicken which is honestly expensive for $1 per wing or drumette, but yummy crispy.

everyone else got salads

mmm deep fried

It turns out that 6 wing bits are enough for me.

NYC: two little red hens bakery

Midday on a weekday you can actually sit down at one of the three sunny tables at Two Little Red Hens on the Upper East Side.

Berry crumb pie on special for $2

vanilla/vanilla cupcake

chocolate/chocolate cupcake

rosemary lemon shortbread

There are a zillion recipes for this on the web. I would recommend chopping fresh rosemary as small as possible. Also my recipe involved powdered sugar creamed into the butter-- I suspect that I didn't cream the sugar in as much as I should have because there was a little bit of chewiness that I think resulted from high concentrations of the powdered sugar glomming onto itself.

pulled pork sandwich at Devil's Alley.

Not my kind of atmosphere (too dim, too loud) but the pulled pork is good and the fries are ok.

breakfast tacos from Honest Tom's foodtruck (Clark Park)

Scrambled eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, onion, guac on a taco. Basic and good.

They are on facebook and Twitter updating their location. 

peach crumble

I made the Smitten Kitchen peach shortbread and I am not all about the light delicateness of lovely flat squares. I think next time I'd pack it all into an 8" by 8" and get more hefty squares of peachy goodness. Maybe apples next time, seeing as how peaches are finished and it is now 100kinds of apples season now.

Argan: current favourite sandwich place

Argan is a Moroccan restaurant located in one of those cursed restaurant locations where nothing has historically survived because it is down a set of stairs off street level. It is also my current favourite go to place for a not too gigantic sandwich with puffy warm fresh notexactlybread notexactlypita filled with lamb and potatoes. NOM NOM NOM. The only downside is that they don't have any fried potato products.

some bananas

Ok, lots of bananas. At the Philly half marathon.

Don Memo's tacos al pastor

Tacos from the Don Memo's food truck on 38th Street between Walnut and Sansom Streets. This food truck is perhaps one of the slowest trucks ever-- you can get there at any time and it will still take at least twenty minutes. I don't like the carnitas (too fatty, not crispy), but the al pastor is nice. Also the "spicy" is a tangy tingly but not super hot spicy. 

Twenty minutes +$2/taco.

nyc: outside in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Brooklyn seems slow to get up on the weekend- Philly brunch at say Sabrina's Cafe is mobbed by 10:30 and has an hour long wait by 11. In contrast, the places in Brooklyn were barely opening by 11 and practically no one was out on the streets by then.

Brunch on the patio next to the garden at Lamb and Jaffy. The garden contains some waist high greenery and a bubbly brook type fountain in the corner and is about the same size as the outdoor dining area. We were seated next to a container pot of basil.

My omelette was good, but the baskets of shoestring fries on everyone else's table looked fantastic- the homefries were also deep fried.

Omelette w/ goat cheese, basil, kielbasa (I didn't ask for tomato but there it was)

nyc: Cheryl's in Brooklyn, near the library

Outdoors on the multi level back patio of Cheryl's Global Soul. Although the prix fixe menu isn't really a prix fixe, you can get bloody mary's and mimosas with your brunchy goodness. Food was satisfying and the shady quiet was really nice. Bloody mary was on the too peppery side for me.

More quiche

potatoes

pancakes with whipped cream and berries

Fish sandwich. Next time I will try not to just shoot a bun.

macarons

from the Sugar Philly dessert food truck, which feels like a total knockoff of NYC's Dessert Truck with dessert truck's prices. The guys who work the truck are very nice though.

Dessert Truck, btw, has both opened a brick&mortar http://www.dt-works.net/ on the Lower East Side and the truck itself is back in action. Hurrah!

Sugarphilly's macaroons: $1/macaron

brunch at Parc

from a giant group brunch at Stephen Starr's Parc Restaurant Bistro & Cafe on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Feels spendy but generally worth it. A lot of people loved the bread basket (baguette, sourdough wheat, something with cranberries).

great Quiche Lorraine with some lightly drizzled greens

Scrambled eggs

lamb sandwich

Maru Global

I think I like the idea of takoyaki, or Japanese octopus dumplings, but I'm not totally on board with the bonito flakes which make it a little too fishy for me. The interior texture is almost custardy- I think I would want to try some different flavour combinations other than the octopus. If someone made a mashed potato and cheese version, sort of like a croquette, I think I would really like that.

Szechuan

at Han Dynasty in Old City. It turns out that I don't really like the jangling nerves spiciness of Szechuan peppercorns. I only really got this effect from either the wontons or the dan dan noodles that we ordered as appetizers before the latecomers got there. We went with not too spicy for everything else, which worked out well. The owner gave us a shot of pepper oil (that several of us took TEENY trial sips of), which goes down smooth and then has a delayed jangly nerve burning action.

Grilled Taiwanese sausage

Cumin lamb in the foreground and beef something that was not spicy

Three cup chicken (pleasant)

basil lemonade

at Misconduct Tavern, which is not a bar I would recommend to my friends. But I did enjoy the basil lemonade, which was on special during Philly games. Hurrah.

NJ diner

For some reason I ordered a corn muffin and french fries. I should have ordered dessert instead. Someone got creamed chipped beef, but it just isn't photogenic.

Corn muffin

MONSTER onion rings

Reuben

rectangular crepe from Drexel campus food truck

Most of the crepes I've encountered (Houston Hall's Pari Cafe Creperie, Reading Terminal Market's crepe place- Profi's creperie ) wind up as wedge shaped pockets. In contrast, the guy at the crepe truck at 33rd and Market St in front of the Drexel library makes almost burrito like crepes with as much filling as the Pari Cafe place. He takes his time and takes care to garnish each crepe with a drizzle and a sprig of something. This particular crepe contains coconut chicken, rice and veggies- carbs stuffed in carbs.

Snackbar

Late night at http://snackbarltd.com/ (their website doesn't work in Chrome). I mostly avoid this place bc it seems like a scene, but the food was actually quite good and I would go back at another off peak hour. Also the bartender/waiter was really lovely. Macaroni and cheese was ok but not compelling, same for a dish of pasta with spring vegetables.

highly recommended: Calamari (really really good deep frying)

Also very good: Scallops on a bed of corn and some kind of grain

tarte tatin

Trader Joe's tarte tatin. I like how the pastry crust turns out (a nice short pastry) although the apples were a little mushy.

dinner at a friend's

Pesto pasta salad with more goat cheese and some baby spinach

mmmmmmm cake