This weekend, the New York Times discovered that THERE IS A MAGNIFICENT CRAFT BEER CULTURE IN PHILADELPHIA! Of course, we have known this all along, but getting a shout-out in the Times makes it more likely that our out-of-town friends will actually believe us when we tell them about it.:

Much of the upswing can be attributed to Philadelphia’s bubbling night life. The new breweries, said Don Russell, who as Joe Sixpack writes a weekly column about beer for The Philadelphia Daily News, “are filling a need that’s out there being created by the local bar scene. Every single bar that has been opening up has a multitap system and is featuring microbrews.”

Combine that robust tavern scene with cheap real estate in emerging neighborhoods, and you’ve got the ingredients for a beer blast. In recent years, a half-dozen breweries and specialty pubs have opened in Philadelphia, ranging from boutique breweries that make micro batches to green-powered plants looking to become the city’s next biggest thing.

We knew that cheap real estate was good for something. EBB, Yards, and Dock Street are all name-checked in the article.

Breweries of Brotherly Love [NYT]

What does the New York Times have to tell us about dining today?

Shocker: men and women are treated differently in restaurants. Guess who gets quoted in this sexual profiling article?

Stephen Starr, who owns Buddakan and Morimoto, said that women more often hesitate if the name or look of a dish is too blunt a reminder that they’re biting into an animal. “If it’s something that says chorizo with some sort of egg, they’ll eat it,” Mr. Starr said. “If it’s a suckling pig, they’re not going near it.”

We beg to differ, S.S. We think’suckling pig’ is one of the sexiest combination of words in the English language.

Can food save a town from dying? The Times heads to Vermont to see for themselves. Why don’t they come check out Philly? We’d say that the food scene is one of the few things that are keeping our fair city relevant.

Molecular Gastronomy geeks, start your sous vide machines. Diner’s Journal will be hosting a chat with the founding father of the movement, El Bulli chef Ferran Adria.

Is that salmon really Scottish, or is it just putting on that accent so you’ll find it sexy and take it home? Watch out for loopholes in new food labeling laws.

The Michelin and Zagat guides to New York are out.

New York Times Dining Section [Official Site]

From the Wednesday NY Times Dining Section:

Fresh and local, Alaska-style? Moose meat. 

Next big thing? Mozzarella bars. 

Will sardines in your OJ make you healthy? Who cares? It appears that people have started ‘eating to enjoy‘ again.

Elsewhere:

Which of the nine types of heavy drinker are you? [Guardian]

Drinking water will not make you less fat. [Daily Mail]

Vegans and vegetarians six times more likely to suffer shrinkage. Brain shrinkage. [Times of India]

Last year Citizens Bank Park received lots of praise for its food from everyone from PETA to the Food Network. And the praise continues as the New York Times sung our ballpark’s praises in Sunday’s travel section.

But the prize for vernacular food probably goes to Citizens Bank Park, the four-year-old home of the Philadelphia Phillies. Most of the action takes place in Ashburn Alley (named for the Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn), a brick promenade behind center field where fans can practically hang over the visitors’ bullpen or dine under the giant Liberty Bell sign that lights up and rocks back and forth when the Phillies hit a home run.

Ashburn Alley is home to hoagies, Chickie & Pete’s crab fries (French fries dusted with Old Bay seasoning) and two of the city’s respected cheese steak purveyors, Rick’s Steaks and Tony Luke’s. Tony Luke’s had the better cheese steak of the two (though their other locations are notably superior). Even better is Tony Luke’s juicy roasted pork and provolone sandwich, dressed with tender broccoli rabe, as good a meat sandwich as there is in the majors.

Also not to be missed is the Schmitter sandwich from McNally’s, an outpost of an 87-year-old Germantown tavern at the end of Ashburn Alley. It’s not named for the Phillies legend Mike Schmidt, but rather, I was told, after a long-gone McNally’s customer who always ordered it with Schmidt’s Beer, the now-defunct Pennsylvania brand.

The Schmitter packs, from top to bottom: melted cheese, a generous squirt of a “special sauce,” griddled salami, more cheese, sliced tomato, fried onions, griddled steak and another slice of cheese, just to help keep the beef in place. It was the unhealthiest thing I encountered on my cholesterol-gathering trip, an unholy alliance of meats, cheese and mayonnaise tucked into a Kaiser roll. It was also impossible to stop eating after the first bite.

Buy Me Some Sushi and Baby Back Ribs [New York Times] via The Illadelph
Finding the Hits, Avoiding the Errors – Interactive [New York Times]

The grossest part of this beef recall is the fact that Philly school cafeterias served beef for lunch four times in one week. Even hard-core carnivores don’t need that much red meat. [philly.com]

Chatting with Neil Stein, twice in one day! He’s still out of jail and doesn’t care about money anymore. Which is easy when you don’t have any left. [philly.com]

Surprise! Dairy products taste better when they’re not part of the industrial complex. [NY Times]

Attention: you will now be consuming cocktails in the form of tiny pearls of liquid encapsulated in a skin. Or not. [NY Times]

Could you love someone who eats meat if you’re a vegetarian? Would you forgive your man if he acts like a swine, but not if he eats it? Or what if you’re kosher and she’s not?

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the NY Times has an article on the role food plays in relationships:

No-holds-barred carnivores, for example, may share the view of Anthony Bourdain, who wrote in his book “Kitchen Confidential” that “vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans … are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.”

Returning the compliment, many vegetarians say they cannot date anyone who eats meat. Vegans, who avoid eating not just animals but animal-derived products, take it further, shivering at the thought of kissing someone who has even sipped honey-sweetened tea.

Could you date someone who didn’t share your culinary leanings? Or marry them? It certainly makes picking a place to go out on Valentine’s Day more complicated.

Then again, if Mayor Nutter, who does not eat meat, can dine at Morton’s for the sake of bringing City Council together, then maybe vegans and carnivores can make sweet omnivorous love.

I Love You, but You Love Meat [NY Times]

 

Highlights from the NY Times Dining section:

If you get a little anxious when your table isn’t ready on time, just imagine how the restaurant experience is for diners with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

What am I? Chopped liver? Mmmm, I wish.

The founder of Illy Coffee, Ernesto Illy, died. I’m hoping he remembered to leave me one of the gorgeous Francis! Francis! espresso makers in his will.

NY Times [Official Site]

Highlights from today’s NY Times’ Dining Section:

George Costanza was wrong, double dipping is nasty, according to this study inspired by the Seinfeld episode. Think about this scientist’s comment when you’re at your Super Bowl celebration:

“The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you.”

This is not a concern in New Jersey, where men communally eat meat dipped in margarine at silverware-less banquets called ‘beefsteaks’.

More news on mercury levels in seafood and a helpful piece on what types of seafood have the lowest levels of mercury. Stock up on oysters and anchovies!

A long article on interstate wine shipping, which might make your eyes cross just a little bit.

Customers in Cambridge, Mass raised $30,000 to save legendary ice cream parlor Toscanini’s, which was going to close because the owners owed back taxes. Wonder if anyone would have held a fundraiser like that for Neil Stein?

Foodwise, it’s a bit of a slow news day ’round these parts. So let’s turn our attention to NYC, the great gaping maw of the North, to see what’s happening there:

Mesa Grill, the flagship restaurant of Bobby Flay’s empire, got a one star spanking from Frank Bruni in today’s NY Times. Also, did you know that Mr. Foobooz, Bobby and I are now the best of friends?

Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Times does an article in their travel section on Fishtown. Yes, our Fishtown.

These days artists easily outnumber fishermen and heroin addicts. Thanks to a recovering waterfront and spillover from gentrifying neighborhoods like Northern Liberties, Fishtown is joining the ranks of warehouse districts nationwide that have undergone a renaissance. Young professionals and creative types are moving into renovated apartments and luxury condos. Upscale restaurants, galleries and high-end shops have followed.

Among the restaurants and bars mentioned:

• Johnny Brenda’s
• Ida Mae’s Bruncherie
• Hot Potato Cafe
• Johnny’s Hots

Thankfully they did include a mention of Rocky too.

Rebirth Along the River [New York Times]