Sunday, December 17, 2017

#97 - Red Poke Express, #98 - Smoke's Poutinerie, and #99 La Bella Dolce Italia - Sandy's synopsis


Numismatists rejoice! COINS!

Reader, our one reader, we are united again, a year after we finished our epic South Street food journey. The moon was one shade away from a super moon and South Street felt the same. However, so much had changed. There are so many new places that have taken over the old over the past year. Like the "Coins" shop for example, in the photo above.

Super Moon!

It was difficult to pick just one place to go for our anniversary, and therefore, dear reader, we didn't. We picked three - Red Poke Express, Smoke's Poutinerie AND "Honey Love Juice". Yes, Honey Love Juice. Which we REALLY, REALLY, really wanted to be a new juice/smoothie place. A rival to the ridiculous Sip 'N Glo, right across the street. Who can make the bigger false claim about their juice?? But alas, it was not to be, as Honey Love Juice is not a real place (curse you Google Maps). So instead, we went to the very cozy La Bella Dolce Italia. 

Lets start with the Red Poke Express - formerly the OCF coffee house, formerly a frozen yoghurt place. 


The overall layout of the place hasn't changed, just the food being served. I am a fan of the latest iteration. Now, let me be clear, poke in Hawaii is better and has a lot more variety and creativity. Da Poke Shack, in Kailua-Kona, is fantastic if you are in the area. However, does raw fish with edamame, avocado a soy-sauce based...sauce and other fresh veggies taste good? 




Hell yes. The flavours just work and is a great affordable option for a healthy dinner in this area. (We ordered the "Red Poke Bowl"). I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that Red Poke Express sells sushi burritos. I love burritos (content and concept). I love raw fish. I love that you can marry those two things together. So overall, this place is a win. 

We continued our anniversary food tour by visiting a makeshift Canada - otherwise known as Smoke's Poutinerie.

So Canada is heaven? Makes sense.
Smoke's poutinerie is filled with fun, playful decor that keeps you distracted while you wait for your poutine to be made. 

I am assuming that is Mr. Smoke the Canadian.

Star Wars decor for the win
As with the poke, let me preface this with, I remember the poutine in Canada to be better. However, I should preface THAT with it was 3 am in the morning and I was most definitely drunk. Ergo, I do not think the experiences are comparable. Honestly though, can you really go wrong with french fries topped with gravy (and a Sammy for company)? 


Hell no. We ordered the traditional poutine, your plain gravy with cheese curds and fries which was delicious. There are also many different gravies yet to be tasted.  I am especially intrigued by the butter chicken poutine, the Korean poutine, and the prime beef/veggie deluxe poutine. 

Finally, to our last impromptu place that replaced Honey Love Juice - La Bella Dolce Italia. Its a cute little Italian cafe that replaced the longstanding Evil Eye Cafe (RIP). We figured we could do dessert here as we saw hot chocolate on the menu. 



The hot chocolate was....very rich...but good. I would've probably preferred it in a smaller size. The whipped cream on the top was heavenly! What I did find out while we were there was that the cafe makes bombolones. These are scrumptious italian donut-like pastries. They were out of them that day, but I would LOVE to come back to try them another time. The cafe also has coffee, smoothies, and other Italian pastries and food that I would also like to try sometime. 

So overall, our anniversary reunion was awesome. It was great being back on the blog trail with Sammy and re-connecting with you...our one reader. Until the next time...

Red Poke Express
135 South Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-923-0800

Smoke's Poutinerie
411 South Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-351-0292

La Bella Dolce Italia
628 South Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19147
267-469-2385




Friday, December 15, 2017

#97 Red Poke Express, #98 Smoke's Poutinerie, and #99 La Bella Dolce Italia - Sam's synopsis

Well well well... do we have a surprise for you! One year ago today (SD = 1 day) we completed our saunter down South Street, and as I opened Blogger to write this post, I realized I have a completely unfinished post on my feelingz about the end and that's about it. So basically, we haven't written much in the past year, even though we did make a stop at Bahn Mi and Bottles with the intent of a new update to appease the masses. But, as some of you may or may not know, our partnership has continued as I have been using my expert driving abilities to teach Sandya how to drive and park a car. I am happy to report that Sandya has not crashed my car and will be taking her driving test relatively soon. But I digress. During one of our lessons, I floated the idea of hitting up a restaurant or two to celebrate our 1-year anniversary, and thus today's reviews were born.

The former Bridget Foy's
So here we are again, back in familiar territory. I miss our blog, and seeing as we are now at stop #99, we will certainly have to go to at least one more restaurant to hit #100. And walking along South Street, a lot has changed. Red Poke Express is where OCF Coffeehouse was once located. Bridget Foy's was destroyed in a devastating fire. Many restaurants we visited have changed, and many new ones have popped up. And this is just in the Front to ~8th Street span. South Street truly is a reflection of the ever-changing tastes of Philadelphia. But I digress again.

Back at it!
We decided to go to as many new places as possible in one go, so we split one poke bowl and one order of poutine. First stop, Red Poke Express. Poke, in my mind, is a relatively new food fad in the city and is described as a raw fish salad hailing from Hawaii. As a fan of sushi and ceviche, I had a feeling I would enjoy this. We ordered the Red Poke bowl, which consisted of tuna, red onion, seaweed, edamame, avocado, green onion, sesame seeds, and shoyu sauce. An excellent choice - all around nice consistency and a great umami flavor. That's right, I used a fancy food term. This blog has really matured in its time off. After commenting that we sat at the exact same table we did when the building was OCF Coffeehouse, we sauntered on over to Smoke's Poutinerie, which also seems to be a new food fad in the city. We are just trying to stay hip and current with the times, guys.

Fun fact: I used to live in Canada!
A few weeks ago I walked by this place, very late at night, on a quest for the one and only slice from Lorenzo's, and I considered going in to get some fries smothered in gravy and cheese curds. I ended up continuing down the street for what I set out for, but if I had gone in, I wouldn't have been disappointed. Poutine is the perfect drunk person food, full of salty delicious carbs and cheese (not unlike pizza). We ordered the classic poutine, and it was exactly that - salty, delicious carbs smothered in cheese curds. There were several additional options to choose from in case you want to be a bit more adventurous, but sometimes you can't pass up good ol' gravy and cheese curds on fries. I think my only complaint would be that it was a little too salty. And this is coming from the person who claims popcorn is her favorite food, mainly because it's a vehicle for salt. So it's a lot. But I think that's why it's doubly good as a drunk food - it's got electrolytes (what plants crave!). I also very much enjoyed the decor of this place, decidedly very Canadian and with lots of phrases and images to make you giggle.

You can see the Coin Store
lurking in the background..
This takes us to La Bella Dolce Italia. But, before we get there, let me tell you about the mysterious Honey Love Juice that appeared on our map. When Sandya and I were trying to decide where to go, she did a quick search of South Street in Google Maps to look up new places. Honey Love Juice popped up and we both immediately honed in on it, because how can you not go to a place called Honey Love Juice. Turns out Honey Love Juice is (not surprisingly) non-existent. It supposedly exists at the corner of where Supper used to be, but I don't think it's a "coming soon" location either. I think someone confused it with Sip-N-Glo, probably my least favorite stop on our entire saunter behind DELIcious Bites (fuck you and your mile high prosciutto sandwich DELIcious Bites. And fuck you Sip-N-Glo with your terrible overpriced health drinks and pseudo-science BS).

Dat moon tho
Not deterred by this, we took a nice stroll in the brilliant moonlight to La Bella Dolce Italia. It was closing in about 30 min, but we still were able to grab an Italian (see: extra thick and sweet) hot chocolate with whipped cream and sit and contemplate why there's a store just called COINS on South Street. This used to be Evil Eye Cafe, so yet another turnover in our time since visiting. The barista was very friendly and nice and didn't make us feel unwelcome even though she was getting ready to close up. The hot chocolate was decadent but too sweet, even for the girl who eats ice cream for breakfast sometimes. It must have been a day of extremes for me.

In any case, all three locations are nice additions to the more touristy end of South Street, providing niche (poke and poutine are pretty eclectic food choices) and essential (small coffee shop to stop into for a quick bite or a hot beverage) spots for those doing their own sauntering down South Street.

Red Poke Express
135 South Street
Philadelphia, PA
(215) 923-0800

Smoke's Poutinerie
411 South Street
Philadelphia, PA
(215) 351-0292

La Bella Dolce Italia
628 South Street
Philadelphia, PA
(267) 469-2385

Sunday, January 1, 2017

#95 - Paddy Whacks and 96 - South Street Diner - Sandy's synopsis


I don't think Paddy Whacks is a bar I would go into if it wasn't for the blog. It looked like your run-of-the-mill Irish pub, like New Deck. The reason we picked this rather hum-drum place for our last night on the blog was because it had a lot of space. 

Space.
Sam and I got there around 5:30 pm on that Friday and the place was pretty empty with a lot of free tables. We got a nice big booth and ordered some beer and appetizers while we waited for people to arrive. We ordered the appetizer sampler that contained your regular fried items - mozzarella sticks, wings, onion rings and potato skins. They surprisingly also had cheese curds from the cow and the curd on their menu. We ordered that as well because...how could you not.

Appetizer sampler

Cheese curds
The cheese curds were undoubtedly awesome and the other appetizers were solid Irish pub fare - greasy and delicious. The onion rings and mozzarella sticks were my favorite. The potato skins were a little hard to eat.

Their beer selection was surprisingly decent with the inclusion of mad elf on tap. Which they served in pint glasses for part of the night. Suffice to say, they were lushing us up quite well for our final destination - South Street Diner. 

All in all, Paddy Whacks came through on both counts - it was indeed just another Irish bar but it suited our party very well because of the space and Mad Elf pints. 


Which brings us to the last spot for our blog. Number 96. The appropriately named South Street Diner. As I was hoping it would be, this place was the perfect end to a drunken night with some standard but fantastic diner food. I ordered the eggs (sunny-side up) with sausage and hash-browns accompanied by a vanilla milkshake. 

Drunken manna

Health potion - for the drunk
The eggs and hash-browns really hit the spot. The sausage, not so much. It was a link not a patty and I prefer patties. The milkshake was a little thinner than I like but still very yummy. Those eggs and hash-browns tho - just perfect. 

So, for the last time, I am happy to say I highly recommend South Street Diner for your diner needs. They will not disappoint. 

I have many things I would like to say about our journey leading up to South Street Diner, but I will save that for our next and final blog post. Until then, a big thank you to everyone who came out to finish the blog with us and happy new year!

Paddy Whacks
150 South Street
Philadelphia PA 19147
215-464-7544

South Street Diner
140 South Street
Philadelphia PA 19147
215-627-5258