In The News

Sheetz and Wawa go head-to-head in the New York Times

The New York Times Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The New York Times tackles the eternal rivalry between Sheetz and Wawa convenience store partisans. Sheetz might have a stronger state-wide prescence in Pennsylvania, by Philly folks know the real deal. Wawa 4 life!

"I think that Sheetz people are probably a little perkier than the Wawa people," said a regular named Doug, who was making his second visit of the day to the Sheetz in Selinsgrove. "It might have to do with we’re up here where people are just a lot friendlier than they are down there."

"Down there" is Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley, where Wawa fans can exude a whiff of cosmopolitan disdain. The crowd-sourced Urban Dictionary includes unflattering definitions for "Sheetz," like "a convenience store/gas station where hicks from Lititz, Pa., like to hang out all night, every night."

Original source: The New York Times
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Grub Street New York's best pizza list has Philly flavor

Grub Street NY Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Grub Street's comprehensive list of the best American pizza pies includes a bunch of Philly favorites, including Osteria, Stella and Garces Trading Company. What, no Tacconelli's?!

Why hasn't anyone in Chicago reinvented deep dish the way Jose Garces has? Admittedly, Garces is a Chicago native and this dish is billed as a tribute to his hometown, but maybe it took the distance to Philadelphia to allow him to rethink deep dish from the outside (a thin, delicate crust made with duck fat) to inside (oven-roasted San Marzano tomato confit, a mix of fresh mozzarella and Gruyère, and toppings ranging from boquerones to chorizo).

Original source: Grub Street New York
Read the full list here.

The New York Times spends 36 hours in Philadelphia

The New York Times Tuesday, January 15, 2013

A writer from the New York Times spends "36 Hours" in Philadelphia, hitting up the Philadelphia History Museum, Johnny Brenda's, 13th Street and one particularly spicy spot:

Across the Schuylkill in University City, the newest location of the locally beloved Han Dynasty (3711 Market Street; 215-222-3711; handynasty.net) has a wide-open dining room with modern lines, rough-hewn wood and a kitschy cocktail list. Bucket-size drinks like the Scorpion Bowl and Singapore Sling are $5 during happy hour. But the food is the real attraction. Plates come one after the other in family-style portions — dan dan noodles ($7.95), double-cooked fish ($17.95) and spicy, crispy cucumbers ($6.95), each rated 1 to 10 on Han’s hot-or-not index.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the full story here.

New York Times lauds local drop in childhood obesity

The New York Times Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The New York Times takes note of urban success stories in the war against childhood obesity. Philadelphia is among the most promising cases, mostly thanks to school-based initiatives.

Philadelphia has undertaken a broad assault on childhood obesity for years. Sugary drinks like sweetened iced tea, fruit punch and sports drinks started to disappear from school vending machines in 2004. A year later, new snack guidelines set calorie and fat limits, which reduced the size of snack foods like potato chips to single servings. By 2009, deep fryers were gone from cafeterias and whole milk had been replaced by one percent and skim.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the full story here.

Foobooz names Philly's top 50 bars

Foobooz Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Local food-centric blog Foobooz releases its annual list of the city's best bars. It's no surpise that the top ten are dominated by spots with serious beer programs—top-shelf suds have become Philly's calling card. Pub & Kitchen takes top honors, up from no. 10 last year.

If you want to be number one on the Foobooz Top 50 Bars list you had better bring it every day. And Pub & Kitchen does just that, with excellent food, a well curated beverage program plus excellent and dare we say, attractive service.

Source: Foobooz
Check out the full list here.

Monell sensory biologist provides scientific explanation for why food pairings work

The New York Times Monday, October 22, 2012

The New York Times writes about Paul Breslin, a sensory biologist at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia and an author on a study that finds science at the root of our most savory food pairings.

Dr. Breslin and his colleagues asked testers to sample salami and then rinse their mouths with either tea or water. They were asked whether the rinses reduced the sensation of fattiness from the salami. Water did not work well, but the tea seemed to to neutralize the feeling.

They also found that even weak astringents like tea can have a strong countering effect to greasy food when sipped over time.

Original source: The New York Times

Read the full story here.

GQ: Philly is top-5 beer city and home to the perfect pub crawl

GQ Monday, October 01, 2012

GQ makes a pretty decent run at a perfect pub crawl in Philadelphia, which it identified as one of the top five beer cities in the U.S.

1. The Beer-Bar Brunch

Memphis Taproom

Wake up with microbrews and delicious bar grub at this Kensington standby. The mellow front dining room is fine if you're a slow starter, but things are much livelier outside by the picnic tables and the former ice cream truck that's now a bar.

Original source: GQ

Read the full story here.

Toronto's love song for Philadelphia's art scene

Toronto Globe & Mail Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Toronto Globe & Mail absolutely gushes about Philadelphia and it's proximity, affordability, easy-to-navigate grid and art attractions.

A friend had told us not to miss the massive mural in the Curtis Center building. Luckily, the doors were still open so we stepped into the deserted foyer to soak in Dream Garden – 100,000 pieces of hand-blown glass that were installed in 1916 by by Louis Comfort Tiffany, who based the design on a painting by Philadelphia-born Maxfield Parrish.

We were almost back to our hotel on Rittenhouse Square when we found Parc, a French bistro with sidewalk tables, and couldn’t resist stopping for a kir royale and some people-watching before turning in.

Original source: Toronto Globe & Mail

Read the full story here.

Nutter: Hospitality holds keys to city's challenges, assets

Huffington Post Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Mayor Michael Nutter writes in Huffington Post about the Philadelphia hospitality sector's ability to transform the city.

And so while tourism attracts new people to our city, it is a major source of jobs for the Philadelphians who live here. Construction jobs each time a new hotel or museum is built; executives, managers, customer service staff and maintenance employees operating each new hotel; skilled tradesmen and women setting up and taking down every convention stage and showroom; concierges, tour guides and marketing professionals hired as new attractions come online; chefs, servers and bartenders hired when restaurants open their doors to new customers.

Some 56,000 Philadelphians are employed in the hospitality industry, and so a major priority of our city is to keep that machine running smoothly.

Original source: Huffington Post
Read the full story here.

Six things you can get only in Philadelphia

Saveur Monday, August 20, 2012

Thankfully, Saveur's story goes beyond the cheesesteak to find six things you can only get in Philadelphia.

It was raining buckets when SAVEUR senior editor Gabriella Gershenson and I rolled into Philadelphia for a whirlwind 36-hour, 8-restaurant, million-calorie tour of the East Coast's most exciting emerging food town. This was a good thing: It meant that there was hardly a wait at all at Federal Donuts, the blazingly popular doughnut-and-fried-chicken emporium tucked away on a Pennsport side street where out-the-door lines and midafternoon sellouts are de rigueur. The sun came out for the rest of our trip, and so we criscrossed the city on foot, making our way from farmers' markets filled with jewel-like Amish produce to hushed, leafy terrace restaurants to the riotous 9th Street Italian Market, where century-old, family-run pork stores vie for space with Vietnamese produce stands and Mexican groceries. Through it all there was a continuous thread of something ineffably Philly: bright and optimistic, entirely unpretentious and yet exacting in quality. When it comes to eating, this city is operating miles beyond the cheesesteak.

Original source: Saveur

Read the full story here.

On the farm with Garces

Seedstock blog Monday, August 20, 2012

Seedstock, the sustainable agriculture innovation conference, blogs about Jose Garces' organic farm in Ottsville, northern Bucks County.

Garces has teamed up with a successful and well-known Bucks County organic farmer, Alex McCracken, who, along with his wife Jenn, owns The Turnip Truck -- an organic kitchen gardening company, also based in Ottsville. A year ago, when McCracken caught wind that Garces had purchased the Luna Farm property, he did something that he had never been bold enough to do in the past: he e-mailed Garces directly to see if he could play a key role at Luna Farm.

Original source: Seedstock blog

Read the full story here.

Frugal travel: Philadelphia as a midweek deal

Washington Post Monday, August 20, 2012

The Washington Post writes about a city that "more or less belonged to" its travel section as it went in search of some midweek travel deals.

We found ourselves alone in a museum, befriended bartenders and shopkeepers who had nothing better to do than share their life stories with us, stumbled upon some sweet weekday-only deals and happenings, and never waited for a drink or a table. Our only regret: that we hadn’t also been there for Monday and Tuesday.

Original source: The Washington Post

Read the full story here.

Esquire declares Philly 'late-night capital'

Esquire Friday, August 10, 2012

Good brew and food for hungry fellas in the wee hours puts Philadelphia on Esquire's radar as the late-night capital of the U.S.

Once referred to as the "workshop of the world," the great factory city of Philadelphia still has a third-shift appetite: It gets hungry after midnight. And it doesn't hurt that the local love for microbrewing, dating to the late 1600s, shows up on beer lists so intricately compiled they'd be described as curated in more pretentious cities. (Yes, Brooklyn, I mean you.) Epic jukeboxes and random dartboards, roasted meat and melted cheese, super-hard-to-find beers and whiskey neat — all served up without judgment in an American stronghold for going big into the wee hours: Welcome to the dark side.

Original source: Esquire

Read the full story here.

Little Baby's Ice Cream's heady video ad draws reactions ranging from creepy to arousing

Gawker Thursday, August 02, 2012

It takes a lot to creep out Gawker, but chalk another one up for Little Baby's Ice Cream, which launches today on Frankford Ave. in Fishtown. We think Little Baby's Ice Cream's new video ad is pretty genius, plus they're going to be at Second Friday on Lancaster Ave. on Aug. 10.

Ripping a page right out of the Big Book of WTF Japan Seriously, Philly-based ice cream company Little Baby's Ice Cream invites screaming enthusiasts everywhere to cry themselves to no sleep with the most horrifying, least appetizing ice cream ad ever produced.

Original source: Gawker

Read the full story here.

Pizza Brain's Kickstarter campaign will 'increase the piece' from Fishtown HQ

Tecca Monday, July 30, 2012

Fishtown will be home to the world's first pizza history museum when Pizza Brain opens in August, reports Tecca.

The brainchild of Brian Dwyer and his friends, Pizza Brain -- with its delicious slogan, "Increase the Piece" -- will open its doors next month thanks to the power of Kickstarter, where Dwyer was able to raise enough dough earlier this year to turn his dream into a reality. The combination museum and restaurant will house hundreds of pieces of pizza memorabilia that Dwyer has amassed over the years -- a collection which got him recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records last July.

Original source: Tecca

Read the full story here.

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