Desi Chaat House

Sitting here in November with freezing toes and fingers, it's hard to believe that it was 100-degrees the day I visited Desi Chaat House in University City, but it takes extreme situations to get me to cross the Schuykill River into the western regions of the city. We were looking for a reason to get out of our un-air-conditioned house, so savory Indian snacks it was!

Desi Chaat House's searingly bright orange corner store is set up for take-out, although there are are a few seats at a window counter and a small table wedged near the door. A few outdoor tables along the sidewalk are available, too.
The affordable menu has odds and ends like wraps, soups, biryani, lassis, ice cream, and shakes, but the main draw at Desi Chaat House is obviously the chaats. Chaats are savory snacks made of various crispy little bits of fried dough combined with all sorts or toppings and mix ins like onions, chickpeas, yogurt, chutneys, and spices. There are twenty or so chaats at Desi Chaat House to choose from. I'm only familiar with about five chaats on the menu, so after choosing my favorite, we just pointed and hoped for the best.

Behind the counter are canisters containing all the different crispies, bottles of sauces, and pans of vegetable add-ins. Once you place your order, they get to assembling your chaat in a to-go container, reaching here and there, going down the line until the masterpiece is assembled.
I'm ashamed to say I do not remember which one of the specialty chaats this is. Bengali, Mumbai, Punjabi? Either way, what you have is a salty, sweet, spicy, tangy potpourri of many different crispy bits, accented with potatoes, onions, radishes, lentils, nuts, cilantro, yogurt, tamarind sauce, and spicy chutney. It's a profoundly delicious textural playground of intense flavors that cover any Indian cravings you might have.
As a special, Desi Chaat House had my favorite Indian chaat, dahi puri — crispy fried semolina puffs filled with potatoes (and sometimes curds or chickpeas), then topped with yogurt, sweet chutney, spices and sev. Unlike any place I've ever eaten dahi puri, Desi Chaat House gives you the makings of dahi puri, and has you assemble your own. This involves breaking out the top of each individual puri puff (not too easy with a plastic fork), then filling and garnishing them. I'd much rather they made them for me. These dahi puri were great, but there was so much more going on ingredient-wise in the filling than I'm used to. I have a feeling that the chaat artists at Desi Chaat House lack restraint when it comes to ingredients. I also missed the finishing sprinkling of spicy chili powder that usually comes with dahi puri when they are made in a kitchen.
The vegetable samosas comes sitting on a vibrant bed of chickpeas, onions, yogurt, cilantro, and sweet and spicy chutneys. Unfortunately, the yogurt makes the already soft, pre-made and cold samosas even soggier. Perhaps one needs to request freshly made samosas. Service is definitely friendly at Desi Chaat House, and if the guys behind the counter have a moment, they will chat with you, and perhaps offer you a free dessert, like they did for us. I wish I could recommend the pistachio and almond-topped Lahori-style rice pudding from Desi Chaat House's grab-and-go fridge, but it is impossibly thick and sweet. Imagine rice mixed in sweetened condensed milk. This Pakistani take on rice pudding is not my favorite style.

While not printed on their paper menu or on their chalkboard menu, there is a 8.5x11-inch piece of paper posted listing which chaats are gluten free or nut free. Also, you can request any chaat be made vegan by simply leaving off the yogurt.

Despite a soggy samosa, having to assemble my own dahi puri (it's not really that hard), and a too sweet dessert, I'm in love with Desi Chaat House, and their vast array of chaats. I happen to love chaats more than curries, but If you love Indian food and Indian flavors, you are also going to love Desi Chaat House.

Desi Chaat House
501 S. 42nd St., Philadelphia, PA 19143
215-386-1999

Midatlantic

Rarely making an effort to cross the Schuylkill into West Philadelphia, it was not Daniel Stern's (R2L, and previously Gayle and Rae) recently opened restaurant featuring cuisine from the Mid-Atlantic states that persuaded me to make that river leap, but it was a Burger Club Philly meating held at Midatlantic that did the sweet talkin'. And there's not even a veggie burger at Midatlantic!

Behind the long glass facade of Midatlantic is an open and modern restaurant with a rustic reclaimed wood wall behind a shiny steel bar and open kitchen. Sliding steel wall panels at one end of the room create a small private dining area, or can be pushed back to make the room even larger.

An outside patio area is equipped with a long, eye-catching caged box of flames which would be pleasant on cool spring and autumn nights, but no one dared dream of stepping outside this evening with temps in the 20's.
Feeling I should stick with Pennsylvania specialties, I started with the pretzel and Welsch rarebit fondue (PA Dutch meets British, I guess). Expecting the iconic pretzel twist, I was surprised by the long, dense, pretzel with hints of rye. Pretzels come in all shapes, I know, but I'll offer that turd-shaped is not the best presentation. The beer-infused cheddar cheese fondue was thick and pasty with a hard broiled cheese skin. Tasty enough and certainly a generous portion, the pretzel and fondue could use a little refinement to suit the casual fine dining atmosphere.
A veggie version of scrapple is offered on Midatlantic's menu along with pig, crab, and chicken versions of scrapple. All scrapple types come as a sandwich with a side of fries or salad.

Midatlantic's veggie scrapple is a mixture of vegetables, kasha, buckwheat, and oatmeal formed into a patty. Even with a crispy fried outside, the thick patty was mostly mush with a texture, thanks to the substitution of other grains for scrapple's traditional cornmeal, no where close to scrapple. Flavor was also far away from the traditional sage-heavy scrapple. Midatlantic's veggie scrapple is nothing but a grain and veggie burger with zero resemblance to srapple.

So...it turns out Midatlantic does have a veggie burger!

Now, before you comment, I know what you're thinking: I have no room to comment on scrapple since I'm vegetarian. I will counter that I have eaten livermush (the South's equivalent of scrapple), and I have eaten Vrapple, the outstanding vegan scrapple that out-competed all but one pork scrapple in 2009's Scrapplefest.

To end on a bright note, the accompanying Farmhouse salad (minus the summer sausage) was excellent. A wedge of butterhead lettuce with an inspired mix of fresh and pickled carrots, green beans, wax beans, and pearl onion dressed in a light buttermilk dressing was a much better choice that the overly fried, dark brown potato cubes that accompanied the burgers of my fellow diners.

With mostly salads, pickles, and sides left for this vegetarian to sample, if in the rare event I find myself on the other side of the river and at Midatlantic it will probably be for drinks and a nibble, not dinner.

Midatlantic
3711 Market St., Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-386-3711
Lunch: Mon-Fri, 11:30am-2pm
Dinner: Mon-Sat, 5-11pm
Snacks: until midnight

Fu-Wah's Tofu Hoagie

Every vegetarian and non-vegetarian alike will tell you that Fu-Wah makes the best tofu hoagie in town. I know this because anytime I mention or write about a banh mi, a Vietnamese sandwich that is clearly the inspiration for Fu-Wah's hoagie, someone will chime in with, "Aw, man, you gotta try the tofu hoagie at Fu-Wah!"

After sitting in my to-do list for over two years, I finally made it over to Fu-Wah, a West Philly neighborhood grocer, to try the infamous tofu hoagie. I've got good news, bad news, and good news.Good news - Fu-Wah's 6-inch tofu hoagie for $3.75 is a tasty little sandwich loaded with fried tofu pulled straight from a warm vat of soy saucy sweet juices; a nice big pile of thin, pickled strips of daikon and carrots; a couple sprigs of cilantro; shake of black pepper; and a healthy squirt of sriracha sauce. I've heard talk of jalapenos, but there were no jalapenos on mine, even though I asked for everything.

Bad news - The bread is all wrong. The soft, 6-inch hoagie roll is not a thin, long, crispy crusted baguette that is usually used for a banh mi, and perhaps that's why Fu-Wah doesn't dare call this sandwich a banh mi, but instead calls it a tofu hoagie. In the ten minutes it took to get the sandwich to my dining destination, the juices from the tofu made a soggy mess of the soft roll. If you're really jonesin' for a traditional banh mi on a baguette, Fu-Wah's not going to do it for you.
Good news - OMG, this is the best little neighborhood grocer I've ever seen! Besides serving up sandwiches and hot eats, Fu-Wah has a mix of Asian foods, vegan and vegetarian foods, European foods, American grocery store standards, and fresh produce. You can pick up toilet paper, mochi, trail mix, Kinder Chocolate, Newman's Own cookies, bean sprouts, spaghetti sauce, and inari all at one place! And, get this, you can even pick up a package of active dry yeast! Swoon.

OK, now I know the Fu-Wah tofu hoagie is a beloved institution in Philly, so before you lambaste me with nasty comments, let's be sure you're picking up what I'm putting down. The sandwich is tasty and cheap, and I would gladly gobble one up any time you want to put one in front of me, but a person walking in there looking for a banh mi is not going to be happy with the bread. Fu-Wah's tofu hoagie is a hybrid of a banh mi and a hoagie. Philly is a hoagie town, so I guess it's only fitting.

Fu-Wah Mini Market
810 S. 47th St., Philadelphia, PA 19143
215-729-2993
open 7 days a week, 9am-9pm

Local 44

How did a non-beer-drinker who rarely visits West Philly find themselves at Local 44, a West Philly neighborhood craft beer bar with eighteen beers on draft and two beers on cask? Chance. And I was in the mood for bar food.

Local 44 opened at the beginning of 2009 by the owner's of Memphis Taproom - another pub-grub establishment I've heard glowing things about (specifically their veggie menu options) but have yet to visit because it's not in my 'hood.

We visited on a weekend around lunchtime, and found the corner bar nearly empty and lonely feeling, but I've heard the joint is a mad house in the evenings. Since I wasn't there to drink beer - although their beer offerings did not go unsampled by my partner - I found the empty bar to be just what I was looking for.

Local 44's menu is small, but they have enough veggie options to make one's choosing difficult on the first visit: spinach croquettes with vegan garlic dill cream sauce; vegan frito pie; tofu tacos; oyster (mushroom) po' boy; veggie burger; and, of course, salads and fries.

Veggie burgers are usually what I order as a last resort at bars that have no other veggie options, but this day I was feelin' a veggie burger. Good thing we asked if the veggie burgers are housemade or frozen before ordering, because they're frozen at Local 44. Movin' on.Instead, I made the wiser choice by ordering the trio of tacos with breaded and fried tofu, cabbage and jicama slaw, and avocado pico on housemade corn tortillas topped with a spicy, smokey (chipotle?) sauce. The tofu had a nice thick, crispy breading that contrasted well with the soft tofu, and the avocado pico and smokey sauce lent the tacos a good punch of flavor. The slaw could have punched up the already great flavors if made with a heavier hand on the acid, but this is just nit-picking. I thought Local 44's tofu tacos were great, small bites of bold flavor, but they were just that - small bites. The trio of tacos alone is not going to fill you up if you're starving.What will fill you up is the mushroom po' boy with a side of hand cut fries. The mushroom po' boy consists of a roll filled with breaded and fried sliced mushrooms, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and vegan remoulade, and is a great greasy sandwich to soak up beer. The filling to bread ratio was spot on, but there could have been more remoulade to lend more flavor. Be sure to ask for an extra side of sauce if you order this sandwich. I might even ask for the peppier sauce that comes with the tacos.

And the fries? Fries can be hit or miss on the same night at the same establishment, and this plate was a hit - not grease-logged!

Local 44 nixed dessert after hardly anyone ordered dessert when they first opened. But that's OK; I'd rather not have dessert than be served dessert that has languished for a week in the cooler. Local 44 is about the beer, after all. And some simple pub-grub.

So far so good on the veggie food front!

Local 44
4333 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-222-2337
11:30am-2am, everyday

Distrito

There has been a lot of hype surrounding Jose Garces' Philly tapas empire, which includes the Spanish tapas restaurant, Amada; the Basque tapas restaurant, Tinto; and most recently the Mexican tapas restaurant, Distrito. Hype and good press is great (for the restaurant), but too much hype turns me off and sets my expectations so high that a place could never live up to the hype.

Take, for example, Capogiro, the extremely hyped and loved Center City gelateria serving artisinal gelato. When I first heard of Capogiro, I was excited. But then I heard more. All the time. People visit twice daily, devote blogs to the place. I've never been. I'm sure it's good, and I'll get there one day, so don't yell at me, but the bar has been set so high that I can't help but be disappointed. And, so, Capogiro is not on the top of my to-do list.

I feel similarly about Garces' restaurants. After not being able to get a reservation at Amada when it first opened, and then hearing all the hype with Garces' successive restaurants, his restaurants were no longer at the top of my to-do list.

But that's not to say that I didn't squeal with joy when my boyfriend informed me that he had made a reservation for dinner at Distrito this past weekend for ourselves and his parents, H. and E., who were in town for the weekend.

I'll skip the description of the large bi-level interior with pink walls, luchador mask wall, and VW booth, because I'm sure you've already read about how some feel the interior is either loud and gaudy, or fun and lighthearted. It's all of those things. Pick your mood.

I'm also going to skip in-depth analysis of the food, because, honestly, everything that we ate was wonderful. I don't think any of us four could really complain about a single of the thirteen menu items we ordered. Anything negative I write is just minor nit-picking and/or personal preferences.

I'm going to break down our dishes by favorites and least favorites (for the most part), because, like I said, it was all good, and I think ordering such large numbers of dishes lends itself well to picking favorites. It also shows that food truly is subjective. Just because one person does not care for a dish, doesn't mean that the next person will not love it.

Forgive the pictures. I worked my hardest to remove the rosy hue from these photos, which were taken in a dimly lit, pink room. Just know that everything is beautiful and plated well. So, let's begin!
These complimentary roasted nuts consisting of peanuts, cashews, pecans and walnuts flavored with chili oil and lime started us off. Very similar in heat and flavor to Trader Joe's Thai Chili cashews (dangerously additive), except Distrito's nuts are warm and homemade, so even better.

Everyone agreed that the traditional guacamole was excellent. Topped with finely shredded queso fresco, the guacamole was very lightly seasoned, letting the avocado do it's job of being simply delicious.

E.'s Favorites

E. loved the carne kobe tacos with flat iron steak, truffle potato, tomato/horseradish escabeche, and Yukon fries. This was H.'s least favorite dish, because the meat was tough. E. appreciated the authentic cut of meat since she's accustomed to tough meat tacos in Mexico (mucha familia en Mexico).

While E. wasn't in love with the cochinta pebil that accompanied the masa of the tamales, she absolutely loved the slightly spicy masa. So much so that this dish still made her top two.

H.'s Favorites

The los hongos huaraches (a sort of flat bread-ish dish) with forest mushrooms, huitlacoche sauce, queso mixto, black truffle, and corn shoots was earthy without being over powering. I actually ordered this dish, and H. did not eat nearly his share, since he feared I'd not get enough to eat with the handful of meat dishes that were off limits to me. I was stuffed by the end, so he really should have had more.

H. liked the chicken tacos with chicken ropa vieja, queso fresca, crema, and radish.

My Favorites (and my partner's!)

It seems that my boyfriend and I are in sync when it comes to food. We both picked the same two favorites.

You all should order the los hongos huaraches! With three out of four votes for favorite, it's clearly a winner amongst most palates.

We also love the esquites: sweet corn, queso fresco, chipotle, and lime served in a tall glass with a spoon. This was the spiciest dish of the evening (that I tried, at least). Think comfort of creamed corn, but with heat and tang. I'm still thinking about it!

Our Favorite (Again)

Somehow the sopes with poblano, sweet onion, quail egg, and chili piquin was completely forgotten when we were discussing favorites and least favorites (there were a lot of dishes to remember), but when we did remember the dish, my partner and I both made room for these sopes in our top two (we bent the rules). We both hate fried or poached eggs, so the quail egg did nothing for us, but the thinly sliced peppers and onions swimming in a creamy sauce atop the sope was just wonderful.

An odd number of food photos, so here's the luchador mask wall!

Also Very Good

All four of us mentioned the heirloom tomato and avocado salad and the black beans and rice when deciding on favorites. These dishes are in the last menu section titled acomanamientos, almost as an afterthought, but don't dismiss these offerings.

The lime tang of the dressing on the tomato and avocado reminded me of how good lime juice is on just about everything -- a light bulb that also turned on when I was in Mexico earlier this year.

The black beans and rice are just simple and good. Who doesn't like beans and rice? The pickled onions on top just elevated a dish that needs no perfection.

The Dishes That Paled In Comparison

The quesadillas with zuchinni squash blossom, poblano-avocado puree, and radish were the size of empanadas, and reminded of us empanadas, not quesadillas. While just fine, this dish is not a must have.

The Huachinango with red snapper, pipian verde, and poblano crema was described to me as nothing special. I'm not sure this dish was even finished.

No Category For These

The jicama salad with finely cubed jicama and watermelon, orange, pepita, chili pequin, and orange vinaigrette could also be placed in the paled in comparison category, except I was the only one at the table who really liked this tart, juicy, fruity salad. I ate most of it. Again, maybe because others knew I wouldn't be eating the meat dishes.

Everyone was stuffed, but I ordered churros any way. The thin sticks of fried, cinnamon spiced dough were amazing. The chocolate sauce was chocolaty-yum, but was very thin. Even with a couple of shakes after dipping the churros into the sauce, I could not get the dessert to my mouth without drippage. I realize that the glass of chocolate is meant to be hot chocolate, but what's a churro without dipping it into chocolate? Normally the churros are served with mocha ice cream, but, at the late hour that we were there, they were out of all ice cream flavors except corn. H. and E. did not like the corn ice cream, saying it tasted like popcorn. I like it just fine. Goes to show you!

The tapas plates at Distrito are small, and I think it's easier to share some plates with a smaller number of people. Cutting some items in half allows for only one bite, which is just not enough. The upside of sharing with more people is the array of dishes that can be sampled. Work it out to best suit you.

With roughly three dishes and one drink per person, our bill averaged $35 per person before tip -- about on par with an evening at most mid to high-end restaurants in Philly.

So, am I glad I tried a Garces restaurant? Yes! And I'm more inclined to try one of his other restaurants now that I've seen just how great ALL of his dishes are. So, yep, I'm hypin' his hype. Maybe next, I'll hype Capogiro.

Distrito
3945 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104
215-222-1657