Long Time No Blog

It's a year since I last blogged about my life in Philly. So many things have happened in my life over this past one year. I've also travelled to other places within the USA (e.g. Hawaii, Texas, Carolinas and Georgia, Boston) as well places outside the States (e.g. Canada and Germany). Now that I'm coming almost to the end of my 2-year stay here in Philly, I thought I should do a listing of some of our most/worst memorable places and experiences here. So here we go, starting with restaurants, given that we are such foodies and Philly is such a wonderful place for dining.

List of the best restaurants/eateries in Philly:
• Black Fish (contemporary American, chef formerly from a center city French restaurant)
• Distrito(Mexican, medium plates, funky atmosphere)
• Jong Ka Jib (soft tofu stew, heavenly especially during the cold winters of Philly)
• L'Angolo (simple but excellent Italian dishes)
• Parc (at Rittenhouse square, very typical French bistro food but very well-done)
• Rx (organic western food in University City)
• Taste of Portugal(out of town but worth the drive there)
• Sagami in NJ(the only decent Japanese food around)
• Aya's Cafe (reasonably priced Mediterranean, they never fail to impress us everytime)
• Tiffin (easily the best Indian in town, they do take-out)
• Carmine's Creole Kitchen (southern cuisine on Main Line)
• Cafe du Laos (only decent Thai/Cambodian food in town)


List of affordable and good eats in Philly:

• Wokano Restaurant (dim-sum)
• Honey's Sit N Eat(kosher breakast, try the pork tacos)
• Cafe Estelle (our most recent discovery, they serve organic breakfast)
• Dim Sum Garden (at 11th & Arch, we love the shiao long bao)
• Minar Palace (reopened recently, very good and cheap Indian food)
• Tony Luke's (pork sandwiches which we think are better than John's Roast Pork)
• Standard Tap's (pub food in the Northern Liberties)
• Shiao Lan Kung (szechuan chinese food, good for late night dining)
• Jim's steak (apparently better than Pat's or Geno's, according to hubby)
• Vietnames restaurants like Nam Phuong, Pho 75, Pho Xe Lua
• Ants Pants Cafe (Australian style-breakfast)
• Seafood Unlimited (affordable seafood in Rittenhouse area)
• Myung Ga(our recent discovery in NJ, good Korean food, they serve the most number of appetizers so far among all the Korean restaurants we've been to)
• Nan Zhou (excellent hand-drawn noodles)
• Sang Kee (the roast duck is even better than what we had in Hong Kong)
• Kabobeesh (excellent Kebabs, the staff was very kind to offer me a scoop of every side dishes when I first went there)



List of restaurants which we feel were overrated:
• Django (most horrible service we ever had)
• Vetri (pricey, given that it is very ordinary Italian)
• Meritage (style of cooking was very normal, nothing fancy)
• Morimoto (pricey and the ironical thing is that sushi was not fresh given that it is a Japanese restaurant)
• White Dog Cafe (nothing special, ordinary food)
• Lacroix (forget about their restaurant week special, nothing even close to what French food should be)
• Alison at Blue Bell (ordinary, not worth the drive to the suburbs)
• Melograno (we had a bad experience here, kitchen nearly caught fire when we were there with friends)
• Sabrina's Cafe (getting worse everytime we were time, the last time we were there, we had burnt fries)
• Tangerine (pricey for the kind of cooking)
• Farmicia (very ordinary dishes)
• Margaret's Kuo (nothing Chinese about the food here, totally American Chinese, even for desserts, they serve ice-cream instead of the traditional Chinese Dessert)
• Miran(easily the least authentic Korean)
• Thai Chef & Noodle Fusion (I've had the worst Pad Thai in my life here)
• Uzu(crappy Japanese restaurant run by a Korean chef)
• Ms Tootsie's (nothing even close to southern cooking we had in North/South Carolinas, you can tell that they used frozen chicken for their fried chicken)
• Devon Grill Seafood (pricey for ordinary seafood dishes)
• Fuji(easily the worst Japanese food we had here, service was bad too for a Japanese restaurant)
• Marathon Grill(chain serving American dishes, nothing extraordinary after being here for 2 years)
• Zinc(expensive, given that it is just ordinary French food)
• Joy Tsin Lau (now that we've tried most of the dim sum in Philly, this is easily the worst)
• Continental(crappy fusion food which is overpriced)
• Singapore Kosher (first of all, there is nothing Singaporean about the food here. Almost everything is deep-fried. Dim sum tastes horrible.)
• Barclay's Prime(pricey but ordinary steak)

Interesting dining experiences both within and outside of Philly:
• Marrakesh(group dining the Morrocan way, i.e. everyone dips his/her hands in the same dish, sharing the same food, excellent food. Do go with a large group for the fun.)
• Cafe Valentino at Rittenhouse (they bring out the raw food and meat in a cart to show you how fresh their ingredients were. the piano and the music add to the romantic atmosphere.)
• Buffet at a restaurant in Lancaster County(amazingly huge station)
• Mrs Wilkes restaurant in Savannah, Georgia (excellent southern cooking in a communal dining room, you get to meet people from all walks of life)
• Giovanni's shrimp truck or any of the shrimp truck in Honolulu
• Lunch in a vineyard at Niagara Falls area (Peller Estate which truly lives up to the Zagat rating for "extraordinary")
• BBQ in Texas(rustic country style food, excellent meat)
• Eating crabs sold by the dozen in Maryland (be it in St Michel's or Baltimore)
• Having a Lu'au on Maui Island (good entertainment and food at Old Lahaina Lu'au)
• Mi Terra in San Antonio (Most glittery decoration in any restaurant so far)
• Eating KFC fried chicken on Jasper Mountain (nothing about the food but the experience was most unforgettable)
• Queuing to get free coffee at the original Starbuck's cafe in Pike's Place Market in Seattle, only to find out the coupon was no longer valid
• Rushing into restaurants 10 minutes before they close for the day (kudos to all the restaurants who were gracious to accomodate us even though we arrived late in town-Goode Seafood Company in Texas, Milan Indian Cuisine in Charlottesville)
• Long but fruitful search for Yanagi Sushi on Honolulu