Friday, December 6, 2013

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


We decided to visit Magpie first as they close at 8pm. Entering the restaurant was like being transported to another world - far away from the dreary winter days that turn dark at 5pm. This new world was bright and it promised comfort by means of the pie - one could not but feel uplifted.
I couldn't help but notice how organized everything was and this made a part of me so very happy. We know that Magpie Artisanal Pies is beautiful on the outside. It is safe to say it is beautiful on the inside too with pristine white counters, splashes of wood and black chalkboard. 


The menu has some pie staples and a couple of added seasonal items.


Since that is a horrible photo of their menu, please go here to see their fall offerings (both savory and sweet):

What isn't on their online menu is their coffee selections. They have the usual lattes, cappachinos and mochas but also something I hadn't seen before - a pie flavoured coffee titled "Magpie coffee". The description sounded like it was pie in a cup of coffee - like they ground up pie and somehow made coffee with it. It had pie spices (cinnamon, cloves etc) in coffee with flavoured whipped cream -and it was different and delicious. 


After that great start we moved on to the pies. I ordered the coffee chocolate cinnamon pecan. The others in our group ordered the butterscotch bourbon, pumpkin streusel and the smoked gouda butternut squash. The sweet pies all came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and the savoury pie came with salad. All around the table conversation stopped because, yes, as you guessed, the pies were delicious and required our entire attention. 


When we surfaced to speak again, there was consensus amongst the table - the pies were delicious. I absolutely wanted to stay and try everything- especially their savoury pies. Unfortunately blog duties needed to be fulfilled so forge onward we did to Indian Restaurant.

The entrance was creepy as we were greeted by this charming manikin:


The lighting inside was unnecessarily dim and the food mediocre. We ordered an assortment of curries and naans and they fell a little flat in the taste department. Also, the mango lassi had ice in it - and that is a big "no no" in my book.

There are better places in Philly for Indian food - Desi Chaat House, Ekta  and Philadelphia Chutney Company being the top on my list. 

So in summary - visit Magpie pies as often as you can until you have eaten all of the pies. Indian Restaurant can be skipped over - unless you are desperate for Indian Food and you happened to be in the neighbourhood and don't want to pay the delivery charge to get it from elsewhere.

    Indian Restaurant                    Magpie Artisan Pies
                               1634 South Street                     1622 South Street                               
215-964-9451                        267-519-2904




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