#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

#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):

http://www.iluvmagpie.com/page/menu.aspx

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

#20 New South China - Sam's synopsis

I don't have much to say about New South China. It's an American Chinese restaurant. It's got your standard menu. It's got your typical bare-boned interior with a few jade green tables and a picture of the Great Wall.

picture of the Great Wall? check.

I guess after already eating at two fast food chinese places, I'm less than enthused as we continue our saunter and eat at more (and I know there's at least 1-2 others coming up in the future). There's very little variety among restaurants in terms of what dishes they offer and how they prepare them, so I at least went for something that I don't always order. I got a dinner special of chicken and broccoli with fried rice and an egg roll. The chicken and broccoli was fine, but it tasted a little too greasy and didn't sit right in my stomach right after I digested it, which is why I believe it would have been a perfect meal if I was either a) hungover or b) craving really unhealthy, salty tasting food that masquerades as being slightly healthy because it has vegetables in it. The rice was nice and fresh, and the egg roll was crispy, but a bit too fried for my taste. I will at least say that I attempted to save my leftovers for lunch the next day, but I decided I was still hungry and ate the rest a few hours later - and they held up. Having leftovers that still taste good is very important to me. I still think overall that Fortune has been the best Chinese restaurant, but if you're looking for your standard egg rolls, sesame chicken and fried rice, New South China's got you covered.

chicken and broccoli

   but who will know these things?!

My fortune was not nearly as prophetic as Sandya's, but I guess there is some truth in it..

New South China

1640 South Street

Philadelphia, PA

(215) 732-7789

#20 New South China - Sandy's synopsis

New South China will forever go down in history as the place that gave me the best fortune from a cookie. Besides that, it is a pretty standard American Chinese takeout place. As seems to be the case for all the Chinese takeout places we've been to so far, it is very clean on the inside. New South China went creative on their decor with some rather psychedelic lighting.

Their menu was less innovative and had your usual Chinese takeout staples. They have a good deal on dinner combo platters (~$8).  I got the moo goo gai pan combo which comes with Pork fried rice and an egg roll. The moo goo gai pan was okay - I preferred Fortune's. The pork fried rice however was a complete win - charred ends of veggies and rice included. I enjoyed the fried rice very much and would probably always get it if I ordered from there. Speaking of ordering, they have online ordering enabled (www.newsouthchinaphilly.com).

By far the best part of dinner however was the fortune in my cookie (bow chika bowow).

I will let it speak for itself. 

Succinctly.

End.

New South China

1640 South Street

Philadelphia PA19146

215-732-7789

www.newsouthchinaphilly.com

#19 Pumpkin - Sam's synopsis

very romantic

Pumpkin gets the honor of being the first restaurant on South Street (starting from the western end) that is already well-established as a foodie's heaven. And it definitely deserves to be carved out in that niche, because it was well worth the wait of finally making it out. We tried to get reservations 2-3 weeks ahead for restaurant, but the entire restaurant was already booked for the entire duration. Once we arrived at the restaurant, I understood why - there were maybe 4 or 5 tables in the whole restaurant, and the waitstaff does a great job of making you feel welcome. We had 6 people, and because the restaurant is so small, we were granted the table for the entire evening - or at least, for several hours - so there was no feeling of being rushed in eating, drinking or waiting for guests to arrive. The inside is very rustic looking, with lots of washed out wood paneling. The intimacy of the restaurant made it feel very welcoming, yet you also get a sense of feeling like you're part of some secret club, because you're one of the few people who somehow were able to get a table. But I never got an air of pretension, which I will admit I sort of thought I might experience upon dining there. So that's a good thing.

check out that beautiful color

Pumpkin is BYOB (and cash only, so keep that in mind if you plan to go!), so we had a few bottles of wine and a great sour Belgian beer to last the evening. We cracked open a few bottles while waiting for everyone to arrive, and then our meal began. We went on Sunday, where there is a fixed price menu (or prix fixe for all you fine dining folks out there). The menu included 5 dishes, 3 of which you got choose between 2 options. Amongst the 6 of us, I think we managed to get every possible option on the menu, so I got to sample everything. Warning: several photos of food from an iPhone (although not passed through an Instagram filter).

pork terrine

The first course was a chilled beet soup with Randy Marsh's favorite food item, crème fraiche. I am a new convert to beets as they sort of freak me out because I have weird texture issues with food, but I really enjoy their flavor and of course their gorgeous color. I'm not a big enough foodie to comment on presentation in any more than a simplistic manner, but I always enjoy dishes that have either a variety of colors (it usually means I am eating a wide variety of vegetables, which is a good thing) or really play up the vibrant hues of a particular food item. The soup was a beautiful reddish pink, and the texture was delightfully foamy. The next course was a choice between pork terrine and chowder. I think I've mentioned this before, but I am not a huge seafood fan even though I hail from Cape Cod, so I went with the obvious choice of the pork terrine and did not try the chowder. Check out Sandya's review for an opinion on that. I am also not the biggest fan of pâté (terrine is a slightly coarser version of pâté), because again, the texture issue, but this was wrapped in bacon, so how can you say no to that? It was delicious, but it was a little hard for me to get over the texture issue - but that's a personal quirk, not a fault of the food itself.

mmm coddled egg + pork cheek

The next dish was gruyère cheese served with a carrot salad. Gruyère is among my favorite types of cheese, so I was certainly happy with the flavor, and the carrot salad added a nice crisp freshness to balance out the crumbly and dry texture of the cheese. The main dish then arrived, which was a choice between salmon and pork cheek. I went with pork cheek, because although I do love salmon, any non-breakfast dish that uses some kind of egg in it immediately catches my attention, and this one came with a coddled egg. It was a nice medley of pork, egg and polenta - the pork was very rich, but it was the right portion size and the egg was a perfect choice to go with all that flavor. I tried a piece of the salmon, and while it was cooked very nicely, I didn't find that the flavor was all that impressive, so I was glad I chose the pork.

heaven in your mouth

And finally, my favorite dish, dessert! The choices were butterscotch pudding or almond financier - and let me tell you, they were both amazing. I went with the butterscotch pudding, and it was by far my favorite dish of the meal. The crushed gingersnap, the rum soaked raisins, and the whipped cream (perhaps a little on the clotted cream side) together with the pudding - get it all in one spoonful and it's heaven in your mouth. The flavors and textures worked so well together, it's definitely one of the most memorable desserts I've had in the city.

With so many delightful dishes, it's hard not to comment a lot about Pumpkin. The food was fantastic, the company was wonderful, the waitstaff were friendly and attentive, and the vibe of the restaurant was very welcoming. I might just have to give it the honor of being the best stop on our saunter so far, but I imagine it has some competition coming up when we get to the other famed restaurants on South Street - Supper and Percy Street BBQ.

Pumpkin
1713 South Street
Philadelphia, PA
(215) 545-4448

#19 Pumpkin - Sandy's synopsis

Pumpkin was one of the first farm-to-table restaurants I'd heard of in Philly and having finally got the chance to go, it was worth the wait. We went for their Sunday dinner - a prix fixe, 5-course menu for $40. Every dish on this menu was amazing. The kind of amazing that makes you want to savor every bite in your mouth. The kind of amazing that makes you wish your meal would never end.

So let us begin this journey.

Our first course was a cold beet soup

It looked gorgeous and deep red with a very nice consistency. Rich beet flavour. Perfect.

The second course was our appetizer and it came with a choice between a pork terrine (with almond, arugula and mustard) and a chowder (with smoked mussles, potato and leek). I went with the chowder because I love me some mussels.

The mussels were delicious, steeped in a lovely light broth that you were eager to sop up with some bread. I did get to taste the terrine and it was fantastic and definitely had the  richer flavour between the two.

The third course was a cheese course - Gruyere, with a carrot salad.

Yes, the cheese was very good but what got me was the salad. I usually do not like carrots (or salads for that matter). I did like these carrots. They were tangy and refreshing.

Let me take a detour here and talk about the ambiance. I understood immediately when I walked in why it was so hard to get a reservation for Pumpkin - it is a very small restaurant. We needed a table for 6 people and we could only get a reservation about a month from the date we booked. Ergo, you will need to book well in advance for a larger group. The decor is soft on the eyes and rustic. There is light music in background that I didn't even notice was playing until half way through our meal. Despite our large group in this small place, we didn't seem to be intruding into any other table.

It is a BYO so as we drank our wine and beer and chatted, it was time for our next course - our entree.
It was a choice between: Verlasso Salmon (with beet, lemon and fennel) and pork cheek (with coddled egg, polenta and a smoked pepper vinaigrette). Verlasso is a company that farms salmon sustainably. Sigh, sustainably is not a word. In a sustainable manner then I suppose.

I went with the pork cheek because I'd never had that cut of meat before and I'm not the biggest fan of salmon (or tuna) cooked. It was a fatty piece of meat from what I remember. I remember enjoying it, but I don't remember any particulars.

I do remember being very happy when I was done eating it. Happy enough to get myself a damn fine cup of coffee. Yes, this meal was that amazing. The coffee was really really good too so I inquired into their bean source. They get their beans from Philly Fair Trade Roasters (www.phillyfairtrade.com) and you can order beans from them online. If I wasn't a broke graduate student - I would.
Onwards to dessert then! Another choice between: butterscotch pudding (with rum raisins and ginger snap) and almond financier (with lemon curd and berry confit). I'm wary of anything with almond flavouring but I'm also wary of anything with raisins. Dilemma. Raisins you can pick out if you want to, so the butterscotch pudding it is.

I didn't have to pick out the raisins. Rum does make everything better. And the butterscotch pudding was just melt in your mouth heaven. It was a damn near perfect night with great company and great food. Thank you Ed, Atrish, Sandeep and Scott for coming out with us. As for everyone else - this place is a little expensive, so it might not be your everyday meal kind of option. However, if you haven't been here yet, save up some. Then draw that saved money out from an ATM (they are cash only) and have yourself a wonderful evening with the folks down at Pumpkin.

Pumpkin

1713 South Street

Philadelphia PA 19104

215-545-4448

www.pumpkinphilly.com

#18 South Street Deli & Grocery - Sam's synopsis

sorry ladies, he's taken

First off, we have a new blog layout and a new logo for our twitter account, so check it out! Shout out to Lee for using his mad iPhone photography skills and discovering the panorama feature.

South Street Deli & Grocery is a college student's dream. But it's also more than that. I say it's a college student's dream because there are shelves of ramen noodles, clear plastic boxes of assorted candies and chocolate covered entities and an icebox full of ice cream (basically, any cheap food item you ate in college, you can find it here). I say it's more than that, because the food items made in house are varied and delicious. You can order breakfast sandwiches, hoagies, french fries and even a home-cooked Dominican meal (which sadly we did not get to partake in - gotta get 'em before 6 pm!) - all pretty good options for such a tiny market.

Where the magic happens

I went with something called the Junkyard Deluxe - which had ham, turkey, and at least two types of cheese - american and cheddar (although my memory may be a little foggy). I also opted for red onions, lettuce, tomato, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, oregano and any other sandwich accoutrement you can think of - except for mustard and mayo because they're gross. Yes, I admit I have weird aversions to a lot of typical food items. Anyways, the sandwich was delicious. Unlike Sandya, I am a big hoagie fan and am always for carbohydrates, especially those of the bread variety. The roll was hearty yet fluffy, and all of the ingredients tasted very fresh, with just the right amount of seasoning from the salt, pepper and oregano. We also ordered some french fries - which were crispy on the outside and also seasoned lightly with salt and pepper - a perfect combination in my mind. There is one lone table outside that we were able to sit and enjoy our meals, otherwise plan to get your food to go.

those awesome-filled shelves

mmm...hoagie...

crispy french fries

The place seems to be a family-run ordeal, and the staff were very friendly (especially the woman making our sandwiches, since we asked what was in just about every sandwich and she politely explained them to us). Like I mentioned, the shelves are packed with college room fodder, but there's also a bit of an eclectic mix of foodstuffs and drinks available. I used to live near a convenience store called Kimey's in Powelton Village, and they had similar offerings - hoagies and cereal, but also asian treats and chocolate peanut butter and strange candies I've never seen before. I think this must be a trend in local, family-run convenience stores in Philadelphia, but it's a trend I can totally get behind.

South Street Deli & Grocery

1739 South Street

Philadelphia, PA

(215) 546-1580