#21 Indian Restaurant and #22 Magpie Artisan Pies- Sam's synopsis

Okay, so I have been terrible about keeping this updated. My apologies, the holiday season work craze has taken over my life, but I will give the people what they want!  So here it is, in all its glory, because I'm sure you've all been on the edge of your seats waiting to read this:

Because we are adults and get to decide when we eat dessert, we actually did this jaunt of the saunter in reverse and went to Magpie first. However, for the sake of continuity, I will share my thoughts on Indian Restaurant first, then fill you in on dessert-before-dinner.

delicious papadum

So, I order take-out from Indian Restaurant a lot. I'm pretty sure the delivery guy knows me by face, because he always seems to recognize me when I answer the door. I always get the same thing too - an order or two of papadum, an order of garlic naan, and an order of palak paneer. Since I am not of Indian origin (unlike Sandya), my opinion on what authentic Indian food does not exist so you real foodies may want to take my assessment with a grain of salt. However, this is one of my favorite take-out spots - it's fast, it's tasty and it'll fill you up so you can bring the rest in for lunch the following day. I absolutely love their papadum, I think it's some of the best I've ever tasted. For those of you who don't know what papadum is, it's a very thin wafer that often has lentils and other spices baked into it and it is delicious, non-harmful crack. So, of course I get us a double order for the table and I'm pretty sure I ate at least 50% of the 10 or so wafers myself.

We were quite the sizable crowd, so we decided to get a few dishes for the table to share (at least, those of us who either hadn't already eaten dinner or who don't have a gluten allergy). We decided on chicken biriyani, lamb and vegetable kofta. I enjoyed the kofta the best, the biriyani was not super flavorful and I'm not a huge lamb fan. But, I think in the future I will stick to my take-out staple of palak paneer, as I find that more flavorful than the dishes we had.

Also, let's not forget to mention the creepy mannequin that greets you as you enter and leave the restaurant. She's got quite the wig. Check out Sandya's post if you want to be a little terrified.

Prior to stuffing our faces with all of this food, we went to Magpie for you guessed it... pie. Magpie is an adorable shop. For those of you who watch Portlandia, it is the physical embodiment of "put a bird on it," but I mean that in the nicest way possible. The inside is soothing and really makes you want to settle in and eat a slice of pie while sipping a warm beverage, which is exactly what we did. I was also a big fan of the music selection - and at some point I'm pretty sure Andrew Bird came on which made me smile for multiple reasons.

such cute decor!

mmm.... pi(e)

I ordered a chai, of course. I'm pretty sure it was Oregon Chai, but it DID have a lot of foamy milk on top, which is my favorite. For pie, I went with a slice of the pumpkin streusel - they had chocolate peanut butter mousse but it was all sold out by the time we got there, which made me very, very sad. But, as it was (and still is) deep autumn when we went, it was easily the next best option. The pie was very delicious - the crust was perfectly flaky and the filling was smooth and creamy. Th color was also very pleasing (hello fall!), and there was caramelized pie crust/brown sugar generously sprinkled on top, which I imagine was the streusel portion of the pie. My only complaint was that the spice was a little overwhelming - I would have preferred a slightly more subtle flavor. But as you may have come to realize, I don't tend to enjoy loud flavors of anything (what can I say, my tastebuds were not trained very well growing up). I did try a bite of some of the other pies and they were fantastic - especially the chocolate coffee cinnamon pecan. When I go back, I will likely get a slice of that, unless there is some fantastic monthly pie still available.

I think I'll stick to ordering take-out from Indian Restaurant, but Magpie is a quaint little shop that fills its niche rather well.

Indian Restaurant
1634 South Street
Philadelphia, PA
(215) 964-9451

Magpie Artisan Pies
1622 South Street
Philadelphia, PA
(267) 519-2904