#69 Subway and #70 Phileo Yogurt - Sam's synopses

What can I really say? It's a Subway. Again. We were really hoping we'd be past this place before it opened, but alas, it was not meant to be. So we went here for dinner. They have pizza-like dishes now known as "Flatizzas," which are basically a piece of flatbread with sauce and cheese and whatever other toppings you want. I ordered the basic cheese, and it was pretty meh. Very bland and there were no salt and pepper shakers or packets to help spruce up the flavor a little. At least it was warm and the cheese had melted? Yeah, just don't buy things at Subway. Especially after all the horrendous things in the news about Jared the Subway Guy. He's a pretty terrible human being.

This was a twofer (hey, I didn't realize twofer was recognized as a real word and not slang. Also, the word "two" is really weird when you think about it for a long time, don't you think?), so we hit up Phileo Yogurt for dessert. I got a combo of chocolate and cake batter froyo with some assorted candy and strawberry toppings. I have to say I wasn't all that impressed. The froyo flavors weren't all that nuanced and the toppings weren't great either. They had some candy and some cookie bits, etc. as well as some fresh fruit, but their liquid toppings were limited and no sign of whipped cream anywhere! I like Kiwi a lot better (maybe because it's close to campus so I go there more often, but it also has a better selection of toppings and I found the froyo flavors themselves better and more... well.. flavorful). But let me admit something - I don't really care much for the whole froyo mentality. Maybe it's growing up in a summer vacation paradise where there are several homemade ice cream shops in every town within a 30 mile radius, but froyo is not really my thing - give me real ice cream any time of the day!

Subway

411 South St.

Philadelphia, PA

(215) 592-4660

Phileo Yogurt

419 South St.

Philadelphia, PA

(215) 873-8361

#68 Tuk Tuk Real - Ed's synopsis

You read that correctly... we've got a review of the now-defunct Tuk Tuk Real thanks to our good friend Ed. Ed finished up in the spring and moved to lovely England; but, he was (and still is!) a big fan of our blog and wanted to jump ahead and try Tuk Tuk before leaving Philly forever. We of course obliged, and were able to celebrate good friends and memories at one of our blog spots. Turns out Tuk Tuk didn't last so long, so you dear readers get a review of a fleeting moment in time (how fitting) as well as the current thai restaurant Circles from Sandya. So without further ado, here is Ed's guest review!

Our featured blogger
with Sandya!

Way back on March 24th, I got together with a great group of friends for one of my last dinners in Philadelphia before I moved to Manchester, UK just 6 days later! In addition to South Street stalwarts Sam, Sandya, Steph, the group included Lauren, Matt P. and Lukas. The place: Tuk Tuk Real, an intriguing Thai/Mexican fusion BYO that had opened up just a few months earlier. We brought an adventurous attitude, a big appetite, and lots of delicious beer. As for the food, I remember a really delicious plate of massaman curry nachos and some good tacos, but not much else. What I really treasure from that night was getting that group together, some of whom were meeting for the first time, and whom I almost certainly will never see again all in the same place.  When Tuk Tuk closed a few months later, it felt entirely fitting, as if to underline the nostalgia I feel for that night and the last years I spent in Philly. 

Thanks guys for all the good memories on and off South Street. Here are the more "restaurant review" thoughts I had immediately after the meal which I would have included in a more timely review (like if the restaurant were still open!). 

I love Mexican food, and I love Thai food, so I was really excited when I read about Tuk Tuk Real opening. Chili, lime, cilantro.... tamarind? Great! I also liked the backstory: Circles head chef Alex Boonphaya teaming up with his sous chef, Silvestre Rincon to bring us a combination of their national cuisines. Look at that photo, these dudes seem like friends, not just coworkers, Boonphaya drinking Modelo and Silvestre drinking Singha. My dad was a cook for many years in a kitchen with people from Austria, Germany, Mexico, Scotland and Switzerland, and learned bits of culture from all of them. (Science also involves working long, stressful hours with a very multinational coworkers, come to think of it). 

So what could go wrong, right? I think their biggest mistake was lack of clear focus in the menu. What does "Thai-Mexican fusion" mean, and what do we want from it? Typical Thai dishes (curries, noodles, salads) with Mexican flavors, or Mexican preparations (tacos, burritos, nachos) with Thai flavors. Tuk Tuk's approach appeared to be "all of the above." There were whole sections for tacos, burritos, tortas, curries, stir fries and other large plates, salads and starters.  Pretty much everything sounded good, but it was tough to choose, and it wasn't clear how big things would be or how we should order for a big group. We ended up ordering a lot of dishes which came out in an unpredictable hodgepodge. Some were good and creative (nachos), some good but not surprising (tacos with thai-flavored meat) and some were bland and poorly executed (obligatory vegan tofu/nopales curry). I think a Thai Mexican concept could be fantastic, but it would have to be really clearly focused on a few good dishes, not coincidentally like my favorite taco/burrito places in Philly: Tacos Don Memo and Honest Toms.

Tuk Tuk Real (now Circles)

429 South Street

Philadelphia, PA

#68 - Circles - Sandy's synopsis

I was extremely disappointed when I heard Tuk Tuk Real was closing. To have Circles take it's place however is the best consolation prize.  Circles is my wife's and mine go-to delivery place for Thai food - we think they are fantastic. We love getting their curries and soups on days when cooking at home seems too gargantuan a task. Now, we can walk 5 mins to go pick food up and eat it at home in our pyjamas. If it wasn't for the blog, I would never have known what it was like to have a sit down dinner at Circles.

Eating Circles food in clothes that were not my pyjamas was definitely weird, but definitely worth it. For some reason, when ordering delivery from Circles, I couldn't bring myself to order appetizers or any of their specialty curries. It was too fancy for delivery. And my pyjamas. So having the option to have a sit down meal meant ordering appetizers and fancy specialty curries.

For appetizers, we ordered the vegetarian steamed dumplings and papaya salad to start. I wasn't the biggest fan of the dumplings but the papaya salad was a win.

For the specialty curry I ordered the Roasted Rohan Duck Curry - which conjured up images of the vast plains of Rohan where...the duck roam alongside the majestic horses? I then realized that the default pronunciation for Rohan in my brain is the Lord of the Rings movie's pronunciation. Even though I grew up in an area of South India where Rohan (pronounced Ro-hun) is a very common name. I'm not sure how it is pronounced in Thailand but I guess what really matters is whether the curry tasted good - and it did. 

   

That duck was succulent and paired wonderfully with the coconut milk based, Panang like curry. 

I also got to taste a bit of the Khao Mok Gai - a braised chicken with a sweet chili and lime sauce on turmeric rice.

The sweet chili lime sauce was unbelievably fresh and delicious and paired very well with the chicken.

All in all, this was a great night of food, and a nice change from sitting on the couch and eating their massaman curry with tofu (also delicious). Circles makes some of the best fried tofu I've had in Philly. If you haven't ordered from Circles before you should. If you can bring yourself to order the fancy stuff on delivery you should, because Rohan would taste wonderful in pyjamas. If not they have three locations - Northern Liberties, South Philly and now Headhouse to choose from for a sit down meal. 

Circles

429 South Street

Philadelphia PA 19147

267-639-2396

#67 - Fat Tuesday - Sandy's synopsis

My favourite thing about Fat Tuesday was the 90s music they played in the background. The upbeat tunes of the Backstreet Boys was better than the food and drink at this fine establishment.

Fat Tuesday is known for their alcoholic frozen daiquiris. You can mix and match flavours and also add an extra shot of Everclear for a dollar extra. (Neither Sam nor I took them up on that generous offer, unfortunately). I ordered a combination of the banana and pina colada flavours and it unsurprisingly tasted like cough syrup instead. It made me regret not getting the extra shot of Everclear. At least that way, I might be too drunk to care about how awful it tasted.

For food, Sam and I shared a couple of appetizers - the fried green beans and the nachos. The green beans were actually decent and tasted like fried chicken wings.

The nachos  however were probably the worst nachos I have ever had. Food rarely makes me feel nauseous, but something about the cheese wiz on these nachos made me want to hurl.

We powered through as much of the food and booze as we could before leaving, vowing to never return. 

Fat Tuesday

431 South Street

Philadephia PA 19147

215-629-5999

#67 Fat Tuesday - Sam's synopsis

We tried really hard not to go here. I was really hoping they didn't have food, because I had no interest in taking a trip down Bourbon Street in Philadelphia. But alas, we were fated to go anyways. So we went, and it was exactly what I expected. Crappy boardwalk-style food and giant alcohol slushies. The second part isn't so bad, except the slushies are more sugar-y and less alcohol-y. You can get an extra grain alcohol shot for $1, but we weren't really feeling it on a Tuesday night (but hey, at least we went on a Tuesday for comedic value). The place was pretty dead but I imagine fills up with the crowd of Jersey folks that you'd rather not know on the weekends. We ordered fried green beans and Irish nachos. The fried green beans started out okay, because they did have a nice crunch to them, but after eating 10 or more my stomach was no longer having any of it. Irish nachos are just waffle fries with toppings - in this case; cheese whiz, tomatoes, lettuce and onions. These also started out okay, but I was pretty sick of them after a few bites. This is not surprising, as I imagine this food is purely meant as drunk fare. And I'll give Fat Tuesday that - this stuff probably tastes pretty great if you're drunk. But if you're there completely sober, stick to the slushies. You can mix and match to make a drink of your liking - I went with strawberry daiquiri and margarita - and add extra booze as I mentioned. But the drinks are a bit expensive and you can certainly get more bang for your buck by buying a shot of whiskey at any other bar in the city.

Fat Tuesday

431 South Street

Philadelphia, PA

(215) 629-5999

#66 - Woolly Mammoth - Sandy's synopsis

This has been a long hiatus. Perhaps our longest so far and Sam is correct - it is mostly my fault. I've been rather busy since the last posting and so our blogging came to a bit of a standstill. However, I officially do not have anymore more major life events coming up and can dedicate more time to eating. Not that writing one's PhD thesis doesn't involve a lot of eating, it does, but now I can resume our systematic interrogation of South Street's awesome food offerings.

Next on the docket was a bar called Woolly Mammoth. It has a really cool logo and has always intrigued us. It reminded me of Tangier a little bit (sadface!) - a dive bar that had good beer and was never too crowded. As can be seen in the introductory photo, Woolly Mammoth has a nice selection of draft beer. Additionally, they subscribe to Philly's obsession with the beer+shot specials (fondly called citywide specials) and have a plethora of daily citywide-esque specials that are guaranteed to make you regret things the next morning.

They have a standard bar food menu from wings to french onion soup (very like Tangier). I ordered the wings and they were good. I don't think they were as good as Tangier, well nothing can be right? They were very enjoyable though.

There are a few things I really enjoyed about Woolly Mammoth. I loved their dive bar atmosphere. I loved that they weren't overcrowded. I enjoyed their choice of draft beers. Finally, I enjoy that they seem to have regulars that have a good rapport with the staff. If I was in the neighbourhood for a low key night, this would be a place I would consider going.

Woolly Mammoth

430 South Street

Philadelphia PA 19147

215-923-8780

#66 Woolly Mammoth - Sam's synopsis

Greetings fervid blog readers! It has been quite some time since our last post, and again I blame Sandya. Not only did she get married this past year, she also adopted a three-legged dog, successfully defended her thesis in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, and received the first job she applied for - way to go Sandya!

So needless to say, there's been some lag time between our last visit and this post. But even though I am currently pursuing a similar path as Sandya (only on that thesis defense route - my cat certainly prefers to stay a one-pet only household, and check back in a few months on that whole job front), we are committed to finishing this blog! And we are so close! So here is my review for Woolly Mammoth, and we'll be getting back into gear over the next few months to complete our saunter.

local brews + Jeopardy!

We began our journey attempting to eat at Fat Tuesday's. It didn't appear that this was a food-friendly place (or a place we wanted to spend much time at in general), so we left. We've since discovered that Fat Tuesday's DOES in fact serve food, so that will be our next stop, although somewhat begrudgingly (who knows, maybe they'll surprise us). The next stop was Woolly Mammoth, a somewhat dive bar that Sandya, Erin and I spent an afternoon at during the winter. We didn't order food at that time, but had a few beers and enjoyed a pleasantly relaxed time. This time around though, we did of course order food and enjoyed several beers before Monday night quizzo. 

The beer selection is pretty good, especially considering the bar's location on the touristy part of South Street. There were a lot of local beers on tap, so I went with an IPA from PBC. Solid beer for a solid meal. For dinner, I ordered the french onion soup (because of course I did) and a caprese wrap with a side of fries.

deceptive cheese!

The french onion soup came out first. Upon first glance, I felt cheated by the seemingly lack of cheese in my soup. However, upon immediate physical inspection, it turns out the giant glob of cheese was actually just submerged in my soup - what a glorious revelation! In addition to cheesy goodness, the soup had a nice balance of salty and sweet broth, lots of onions and a sufficient supply of bread for dipping. Definitely one of the better french onion soups I've had in awhile - I would order it again.

My caprese wrap came out shortly after, and it was also great. Fresh, balanced ingredients, with balsamic dressing on the side (which I appreciated since it helped prevent the sandwich from getting too soggy), and perfectly crispy french fries. Since I ate all that soup as well, I saved half my wrap for lunch the next day and it was equally delicious. 

Our waiter was very pleasant and quite unique; he had a very distinct style and was chatting with a regular for most of the time we were there, but still attentive to our needs. The place was pretty empty, but it was obvious from the vibe and the clientele actually in attendance that it's a bar with many eccentric regulars, but is still successful at attracting a wide variety of tourists and locals alike. The prices were on the cheaper side too, and given that it's a sports bar-like establishment, the food was definitely high quality. I'd be happy to return here on a weekday night or a weekend afternoon for a bite to eat, a local brew, and some people watching.

Woolly Mammouth

430 South Street

Philadelphia, PA

(215) 923-8780