We spent many happy hours this Saturday in Philly's Reading Terminal Market. It sounds like a tourist trap, but it is a 90% amazing food hall. (The sushi looks awful.) The best possible food court, plus fresh fish, meat, cheese, produce, wine, pastries, bread, ice cream, candy, Amish delicacies. No big chains. We bought cheese, Italian cookies, turkey jerky, spices, peach butter, and coffee.
For lunch, I went with a Vietnamese shrimp salad hoagie. Creamy, mayonaisey, fresh shrimp on a soft roll topped with vinegary slaw, jalapenos, and fresh cilantro. (Still thinking about it longingly.) And a Guinness. The Market was very crowded for lunch, you have to wait for a free table, (in true food court style) but you can bring your food into the beer garden, and have a drink. The only beers on tap are Budweiser and Yuengling, and a few more things are available in bottles, but this is no craft-brew experience. There's a baseball game on the flatscreen, and three little Amish boys are sitting just outside the bar to watch the game. Our lunch companion, though I had only just met her, let me have a bite of her fried shrimp, beef short ribs, and kimchee hoagie. She didn't cut off a piece, or tear off a hunk, just handed it over, then took it back and polished it off. My kind of gal! I didn't ask, but I guess she could see the pathetic longing in my eyes. (I think our sandwiches came from Coastal Cave.) Michael had tacos from two different places, one had some of the best refried beans I ever tasted.
There's a Chinese food stall that served up the best chicken soup I (and Lydia) ever had, the last time we were in Philly (two years ago?). Thin egg noodles and wontons on a cold, rainy dreary afternoon. So rich, so delicious, the best food I ever ate out of a plastic quart container. It was the very end of the day, and I think we got the last serving of soup, so I suspect it was long-simmered and concentrated. And you can get an individual Peking duck roll. If there's anything I love, it's meat slopped up with a sugary sauce. Sounds sorta gross when you put it that way, but what do you think is in barbecue sauce and ketchup? SUGAR. Mmmm.
This Friday we got to town too late have dinner at the market (they close at SIX!) so we searched online for a well-rated restaurant in Chinatown, and set off in the rain to Sang Kee Peking Duck. Chewy, slippery Chow Fun noodles with beef & black bean sauce, wonton soup, congee with pork and thousand year eggs, and some amazing Szechuan stewy chicken dish with garlic, hot oil, chili pepper flakes, browned onion bits (I think). So good. I dunked a bit of greasy fry bread that came with the congee into the flaming hot oily stew. It was so wonderful that first moment, then the hot oil stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I was a little bit sorry. Two different waiters asked were we sure we didn't want white rice, and we gave in. I was then grateful to have it. Then they asked was the dish too spicy for us. I will NEVER admit defeat.
When we made to the Market on Saturday, I was surprised to discover that the place that had so satisfied last visit was, in fact, a branch of Sang Kee. So I guess we did pick the right restaurant. I love Philadelphia Chinese food.
But why do things in other cities always seem to appealing (because you can't have them)? We occasionally go to New York's Chinatown. We took some out-of-towners last summer during the heat wave, and I swear I've never SMELT anything like it, and it was filthy. We NEVER go to the Union Square Market in NY, yet we longingly fantasize about driving the two hours to Philadelphia more frequently. Y'know the grass is greener or whatever.
We also had a nice morning at the Academy of Natural Sciences (dinosaurs, taxidermy dioramas, live butterflies). After lunch we visited the Magic Gardens, an outsider art style environment and gallery space, with outdoor courtyard, every surface covered in mosaic of tile, mirror, and found objects. Then we drove over to Wilmington, Delaware to catch Ivan & Alyosha opening for Aimee Mann. I literally had to say, "yeah, I'm with the band" for the actual first time. Insanely silly to really say it. And I had a tiny Spinal Tap moment, when I lost my way back to the dressing room and had to get an usher to point me in the right direction. Everything I say or do has already been parodied in a Christopher Guest movie, or The Onion, or Portlandia, or 30 Rock.
