On The Town: Philadelphia

(Credit: Photo by J. Smith for GPTMC)

A few months ago, the folks at MegaBus were giving away bus tickets. Literally giving them away. Originating in Toronto I had the choice of free tickets to either Buffalo, New York, Harrisburg, DC or Philly. Having never been to Philly (except for maybe 3 hours) I decided that this would be the time to check out the city of Brotherly Love.

When I think of Philly I generally think of two things: (Iiiinnnnnn West Philadelphia born and raised…) and cheesesteaks. I wasn’t planning on going to West Philly, but cheesesteaks were definitely on the list. Here’s a rundown of what I ate in Philly.

Jim’s Steaks
400 South Street
Philadelphia PA 19147

My first bite of food in Philly was the humble cheesesteak. Our bus got in after 10PM so we were hungry because our last rest stop was at a Subway in Syracuse hours before. Luckily since I’m an awesome trip planner I picked a dinner option that was a.) close to our hotel and b.) not a waste of a meal.

When people talk about cheesesteaks in Philly they get very opinionated. The spots that most people have heard of are Geno’s and Pat’s, but a lot of people find them kind of touristy. Jim’s also comes up fairly often. Since my time in Philly was short I chose Jim’s because of it’s proximity to our hotel and it’s decent track record.

We got there around 11PM on a Saturday night and there was a bit of a line but it moved quickly. I ordered a cheesesteak with onions and provolone. They give you a choice between Cheez Whiz, American and Provolone. The thought of Cheez Whiz repulses me (no matter how integral it is to a cheesesteak), I don’t do American cheese so I settled on Provolone. The cheese steak was HUGE. Probably around 12-inches long and chockful of meat.

Truth be told I didn’t love Jim’s. The meat was REALLY bland. Not sure if it’s a cheesesteak tradition to not put any type of seasoning on the meat. Also the flavour of the provolone was WAY too mild to hold up against all of that meat. Next time I’d skip Jim’s and opt for awesomeness over convenience.

Cafe Estelle
444 N 4th St
Philadelphia, PA 19123

Apparently people love Cafe Estelle. While doing my preliminary research this place came up a lot as a great brunch pick. Since I love brunch I had to check it out. Cafe Estelle is great because they make a lot of their foods from scratch. I’m not only talking about the breads and pastries but their bacon, sausages, mozzarella, mayo, club soda and ice cream (among other things). Not too shabby.

The brunch menu is two-sided with one side featuring their weekly standards and the other side featuring specials. The brunch menu is very breakfast-food heavy which isn’t a bad thing but if you prefer the more lunch-centric items be forewarned. My mom ordered the sausage-gravy stuffed french toast. Hold up. Wait a minute. What? Yes, sausage-gravy stuffed french toast. The name says it all. To me it was like the perfect bite of breakfast pre-fab for you. Every bite had the goodness of french toast and syrup but ALSO allowed you to have the meaty goodness along with it. Very neat. I ordered the special omelet and a side of sausage. I did NOT enjoy the housemade sausage at all. They weren’t links and were instead patties (which I always see as a bit of a cop out) and they were really dry and a bit salty for my taste. The omelet was good but a bit heavy for my tastes. I don’t remember everything in it but it did involve Brussels sprouts and bacon which I thought was neat.

Overall I enjoyed Cafe Estelle, liked the vibe and liked what they were doing

Supper
926 South Street
Philadelphia, PA

Supper was one of the restaurants that I was really looking forward to. It was on my radar for a little while and then a few weeks before my trip The NY Times ran a story about eating in Philly and Supper was highlighted.

As I was having my pre-dinner rest I got a bit nervous about the menu and something I’d been hearing. Apparently the portions are tiny and on the pricey side. I thought the menu prices looked reasonable but if the portions are tiny, no bueno. Luckily when we got there the menu was totally different. While it had been organized as firsts, plates and large plates, now the menu was classified more traditionally as a firsts and entrees.

Supper is all about seasonal cooking and local ingredients which is the ongoing trend. They make it a point to highlight which farms the day’s foods come from (I always find that a bit overdone but whatevs). The bread is baked in house and it was so good. I had the roasted garlic bread and was in heaven. We started off the meal with the Smoked Chicken Wings. They were so sticky and delicious and served on top of a taming sauce. They were also REALLY big wings which tends to freak me out. While I enjoyed the wings I didn’t really taste any smoky flavour at all.

For my main dish I was deciding between Pork Belly and Duck & Waffles. I opted for the Duck & Waffles because it just sounded so fun. The dish consists of a confit duck leg on top of a pecan sage waffle on top cabbage with a maple bourbon jus. SO GOOD. The portion was in fact tiny, the waffle was maybe a 3-inch triangle and the duck leg was pretty small as well. Luckily I wasn’t starving after the bread, chicken wings and the wine that I was sipping on. The dish was surprisingly filling. My mom had the burger. It was HUGE and one of the best burgers I’ve had (a bold statement). It’s a ground brisket burger with applewood smoked bacon, Gruyere, caramelized onions and roasted tomatoes served with a side of duck fat roasted potatoes. It’s all as good as it sounds.

Because they have an in-house pastry chef I couldn’t turn down dessert. The big decision was between banana bread pudding and coconut cake type deal. We went the coconut route and were not disappointed.

Barbuzzo
110 South 13th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107-4532

Our last meal in Philly was one that I hadn’t put too much thought into. I heard about Barbuzzo through the NY Times article and ambiently through a few other sources but I didn’t do much research beforehand. Pre-dinner as I was thinking about my meal I went to the website and noticed that Barbuzzo was nominated for the Best New Restaurant award by the James Beard Foundation. That’s a big deal. It also raised my expectation level significantly of the meal to come.

Our dinner reservation was for a Monday night at around 7:45 and we got there the very narrow restaurant was PACKED. It was pretty crazy. Luckily we only had to wait a minute or two for our table which we had to shimmy ourselves into (when I say this place is narrow, it’s narrow). Unfortunately I wasn’t starving so I opted out of what I hear is a great charcuterie plate. I bypassed the appetizers in favour of a side of roasted Brussels sprouts with pancetta and the pizza of the day. The Brussels sprouts were AMAZING. My mom and I couldn’t get enough. The flavours just worked so well together and everything was perfectly cooked. These were without a doubt the best Brussels sprouts I’ve ever had.

The pizza of the day was a lardo pizza. And by lardo, yes I mean pig fat. It was a white pizza topped with slices of lardo, artichokes and mushrooms. The lardo was really silky and definitely melted in my mouth. It was very non-offensive. The crust on the pizza was a bit chewier than I would normally like but overall the pizza was pretty fantastic. For dessert we decided to try the much-heralded Budino which is served in a jar and is a butterscotch pudding with a chocolate cookie-crumb bottom and topped with salted caramel and whipped cream. It was nothing short of amazing and as soon as I went back to the hotel I googled the recipe. Barbuzzo was definitely a hit.

Final Thoughts
My trip to Philly was entirely too short from a culinary perspective. There was not enough time to do all the food-related things I wanted to. We did manage to hit up the Reading Terminal Market but didn’t get to eat there. I think there’s a lot of great food stuff happening in Philly right now that’s worth taking a look at. I would definitely do another Philly trip when the weather warms up.