Food magazines just love Zahav. Philly Mag gave it “Best New Restaurant.” Bon Appetit included the Israeli restaurant in its “Hot 10 Summer Blockbusters,” Esquire named Michael Solomonov’s latest to its “Best New Restaurants of 2008″ and now Food & Wine includes Zahav in its “Best Restaurant Dishes of 2008.”

Yep, Zahav’s fried cauliflower with lebneh is one of the top ten dishes the editors of F&W have tasted all year. Kristin Donnelly has the details in the December issue.

My favorite was the cauliflower florets, fried until sweet and caramelized. Crisp enough to pick up with your fingers, they’re a terrific bar snack, served over a pool of tangy, dill-flecked lebneh (a thick, creamy yogurt) for dipping.

Zahav [Official Site]
Food & Wine, December 2008 Contents [Food & Wine]

Sometimes our Metro column, The Bite runs a little tight on room and a crumb will hit the floor. Today was one of those days. So here’s what you missed.

Johnny Brenda’s has most recently made news for having a stand at Lincoln Financial Field this Eagles season where they will sell pork and meatball sandwiches. And while hipsters are still trying to wrap their heads around that one, the Fishtown bar has been busy experimenting with fresh donuts on their weekend brunch menu. A recent visit found three types, jelly, whiskey and coffee cake available for $1.25 each. Try the coffee cake donut; it even comes with a stick of cinnamon on top.

Johnny Brenda’s

Cool down with a summer drink that is light and has some zip. Try Xochitl’s Michelada. Described as “My Frozen Beer,” the Michelada is a delicious concoction of draft beer, lime slice and spicy tomato juice, served over ice in a salt-rimmed glass. Think of it as a Bloody Mary crossed with a beer. it’s light, refreshing and finishes with a kick.

Xochitl [Official Site]

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We couldn’t agree with Kirsten Henri more regarding her “Eat It!” note in her Eat Beat column this week. We also discovered the tacos al pastor at Los Taquitos de Puebla during the Italian Market Festival and have been craving them since.

There are tacos and there are tacos and then there are tacos al pastor—tangy marinated pork bits tucked into a tortilla with warm pineapple and onion. A swing by last month’s Italian Market Festival brought to my attention the tacos al pastor at Los Taquitos de Puebla, a tiny taqueria tucked into the quieter, increasingly Latino end of the Ninth Street market. From a distance it’s easy to mistake the taco stand for a shawarma stand, since the luscious pork is shaved off a standing rotisserie much like a gyro or doner kabob.

Eat Beat [Philadelphia Weekly]

There are few foods that are as identified with Philadelphia as the soft pretzel and nowhere can you find a soft pretzel as good as the ones found at Fisher’s Soft Pretzels in the Reading Terminal Market. Kneaded into form by an assembly line of young Amish women, then baked and shoveled into the waiting bin. You’re asked if you would like yours with butter or not. Say yes. Decadence is its own reward. The fresh crisp crust on the outside breaks way to steaming warm bread on the inside. The butter, salt and pretzel all melting on your tongue.There’s no other pretzel that even comes close.

This week’s craving takes us to the South Philadelphia Tap Room to satiate a hankering for their New Bold Spuds. The description on the menu, spiral sliced, fried crisp with tap room sauce, doesn’t even begin to do justice to these out of this world potato crisps. Think of them more as fried to order potato chips served with a great spicy mayo based sauce. And its a generous portion too, served in a heaping pile filling a twelve inch tray, you’ll be amazed when you finish them off, but you will. And you’ll be thinking about them again before you know it.South Philadelphia Tap Room [Official Site]

It’s hard to imagine there’s a sillier question than the one we were asked a couple weeks ago at Fogo de Chão, “can we interest you in filet wrapped in bacon?” Come on now, we’re sitting at Philadelphia’s newest steakhouse, a shrine to meat. Do you think we came here for the salad? We came here for the meat. And meat we will have. And if its wrapped in bacon, you better bring lots of it.

And we’ve been craving the bacon wrapped filet since we left Fogo. The delicious steak, the seasoning protected by its bacon shell, its juiciness locked in. From the first bite it is an explosion of flavor.

Fogo de Chão is open for lunch and dinner seven days a week. Dinner will set you back $44 for the all you can eat extravaganza, lunch is the same deal but for just $24.

There are few dishes as simple and satisfying as Dmitri’s grilled octopus appetizer. The simple olive oil and lemon based sauce. The grill marks, the slight charring only serving to accentuate the flavor. The texture, neither mushy or gummy, this is octopus like it’s supposed to be. Mmmmmmmm, Octopus. And for our money, the Dmitri’s on 2nd Street 3rd is just a bit better.

We here at Foobooz get to eat out quite regularly but that doesn’t mean we satiate every craving. So we’re going to start listing our Craving Of The Week. This week we’re hankering for the Sausage and Mussels at the Standard Tap.

Available in a small or large portion and served in delicious broth with hot peppers, the Tap’s sausage and mussels is a dish we often find ourselves itching for on cold winter nights.

Standard Tap [Official Site]
Photo by variable resistance, via Flickr