Regional specialties can be so cruel. How can New York have at least 3 reasonable bagel options per block, yet Philly is such a bagel wasteland?
Here are the places I know of that sell bagels in Center City: South Street Philly Bagels (which I always thought was just called Hot Bagels), Manhattan Bagels and Breugger’s Bagels. There’s also the Bagel Factory on Walnut Steet, but they aren’t open on weekends, which makes them nothing but a cruel tease. Hot Bagels is my go-to Center City option, but they only have 3 seats, and it’s far enough from my home that, at best, they’re Lukewarm Bagels by the time I get to eat them.
And so, though it is vaguely embarrassing to admit it, my actual bagel place of choice is in the suburbs, land of plenty. Delancey Street Bagels has it all in spades — plenty of seating, plenty of parking, and plenty of everything on my everything bagel. And they virtually never run out of my chosen flavors, even when I get there an hour before closing.
And it’s more than just bagels and cream cheese, folks. Want a sandwich? Just look for the words “melted marinated string cheese” on their menu. I prefer the white pizza bagel (shown above), but Meng would trek out there multiple times a week for the tuna melt. The bacon, egg, and cheese on a croissant is so tasty, you won’t even notice it’s turkey bacon. They even have a nice selection of muffins and cookies, in case you walk in half-starved, and you cannot wait another 3 minutes for your bagel (not that I would know anything about that.) I also hear that they have very good coffee (which I really would not know anything about, but I trust that Jenn is not trying to trick you or me.)
If Delancey Street opened a Center City location, it would change my whole weekend structure. Do you have a favorite bagel place in Philly? You can tell me. I promise I won’t buy the last everything bagel out from under you.
We’re coming up on a full year together! After registering phillyfoodie.com almost 5 years ago, I finally dusted it off and did something with it in 2009. In commemoration of my first 12 months, here are your favorite posts of the year.
Got some favorites of your own? Tell me in the comments! (especially pics… I’d love to know which ones strike your fancy.)
Thanks to all of you for reading over the last year. I’ve enjoyed meeting you, emailing you, seeing your comments and interacting with you on Twitter, and I look forward to more of all it in the coming year. Thanks to Jenn, my co-blogger when baby allows, and my blogtator, editor and sounding board all the rest of the time. And thank you especially to Art at Foobooz, who is certainly the reason at least half of you even know I exist, and the rest of the Philly food blogging community, who have uniformly been delightful, supportive, interesting and totally inspiring to me. I can’t wait for 2010!
Phillyfoodie has been more like Phillygermie for a while now, but after weeks of illness, we’ve all pulled through unscathed. bda brought me and Bon Bon some bon bons for taking such good care of him.
Miel Patisserie has produced some of my favorite chocolates in the city for years now. They are just the right size for two to three nibbles, with silky smoth ganaches, and a nice selection of flavors.
One of my usual favorites is the cinnamon, which has the spice both nicely infused in the ganache, and sprinkled on top. This selection had a peanut butter praline, which was a rich man’s Snickers Cruncher (in a good way.) And, if you’re a milk chocolate fan (i.e. you have yet to see the light), they typically have as many choices in milk as they have in dark.
Like all fine chocolates, they are meant to be savored, not saved. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I polish the box off in a couple of days. Thanks, sweetie!
Miel Patisserie 204 S 17th St Philadelphia, PA 19103-6303 (215) 731-9191
I have had Barack’s favorites from Fran’s… heck, I’ll grab basically any caramel that says sea salt (that is the secret, after all) and give it a shot. Across the board, they cannot compare to the ones from Little Flower. If you are a fan of sweets with a savory edge, or if you just love salt (me!), these caramels will knock your socks off.
For many a dark month, Capogiro did not have them in stock. The woman who makes them (yes, one woman makes them) had just had a baby. When the caramels reappeared on the Capogiro counter, I wrote her a letter telling her how happy I was that she had not given up candymaking for babymaking.
Take advantage now. You never know when she could decide that little one needs a sibling.
Available at Capogiro Gelateria 119 S 13th St. Philadelphia, PA (215) 351-0900
I am a cheap date when it comes to brownies. I’ve had some absolutely lovely homemade brownies, from someone who has devoted far more time than I ever would to getting that nice crust on top, and still, I’d probably go for box brownies every time. That is, until I had the Whole Foods two-bite brownies.
They have to be putting crack in these things. They are definitely including coffee in some format (I can tell, now that I know espresso goes into the world’s best chocolate cake.) The size induces rapid-fire eating, because you will never be satisfied with just two bites.
Friends recommended the Flying Monkey brownies. I was not impressed. Is there a brownie for sale in Philadelphia that you think can take down Whole Foods?
I don’t know how they do it, but if something is Amish (actually, Pennsylvania Dutch; no one at the market is actually Amish), it’s twice as delicious as any other variant of the same product. Electricity must be leeching the goodness out of our foodstuffs. If you don’t believe me, try their lemonade. Or their produce. Or their apple butter. Or their peanut butter. The list just goes on from there. And then, but twice a year, they grace us with their all-time most delicious item: fresh fried doughnuts.
You can get doughnuts all year round at Reading Terminal Market. But for 4 brief days a year (3 days during the annual Pennsylvania Dutch Festival, plus the 1 day Harvest Festival in the fall), you can experience doughnuts as they are truly meant to be eaten — straight out of the fryer.
They’re 85 cents each, and the ones to go for are the glazed doughnuts. For just a few cents more than your Wawa or Dunkin’ Donuts doughnut, you could be eating a warm, fresh doughnut right now. So hurry over to Reading Terminal Market right away!
2009 Pennsylvania Dutch Festival @ Reading Terminal Market August 6-9, 2009, 8 AM to 5 PM 12th and Arch St. Philadelphia, PA 19107
When I see people walking out of Reading Terminal Market with a big bag of Famous 4th Street Cookies, I shed a tear for them. Not because there’s anything wrong with 4th Street, but because they came so close to the best cookie in America, and walked away with something else.
That cookie is Hope’s Cookies. If you haven’t yet experienced the joy that is a Hope’s cookie, run to the Pennsylvania General Store at Reading Terminal Market today (it’s across from Metropolitan Bakery.) You can’t go wrong with a flavor. Their basics (chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, sugar, peanut butter) are superb versions of each. Their special creations (heath bar, Hope’s Royale — chocolate chip, coconut, macadamia nut, the Harvest cookie, and more) are must-trys for cookie fans. When I visit my sister in Boston for the weekend, I always bring her 18, because fewer than that would get finished before I left.
They sell them throughout the suburbs, and random places like the Denver Airport, and some mall in Florida with a skating rink, but the Reading Terminal location consistently turns out the best of the best. I almost think they mix a little extra butter in with the batter. They also make dark chocolate dipped versions of many of their cookies. My particular favorite there is the chocolate-dipped peanut butter — so good!
Pennsylvania General Store Reading Terminal Market 12th and Arch Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107 Phone: 215.508.1881
After the Cupcake Truck’s visit, I decided to highlight some of my other favorite baked goods in and around the city. Today, muffins!
I love muffins. More than one professor in college referred to me as “the muffin girl”. The demise of My Favorite Muffin, which truly had my favorite muffins (cinnamon cheese), was a crushing blow for me.
Enter the Bakery House in Bryn Mawr, with their tasty, tasty treats. They have many exceptional offerings (chicken pot pies, jammy cookies that they refer to as rugelah but are not, granny spice cookies), but their standouts are their muffins. The secret? Crystallized sugar on top! Also, they make both of my favorite muffin varieties (cranberry-walnut and chocolate chip) in loaf form. As someone who only eats plain yogurt because I don’t like being forced into the manufacturer’s pre-divvied universe, I enjoy the freedom the loaf provides to select your own serving size. The loaf may not look like much, but it is a week-long breakfast delight.
Have a muffin that I just must try? Suggest it in the comments!
The Bakery House 604 W Lancaster Ave Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-3806 (610) 525-4139
Pobox.com and Listbox.com were lucky enough to be selected for Philadelphia’s newest cupcake purveyor Buttercream’s Bring A Cupcake To (our) Work Day, and the results were sweet!
Cupcake captain Kate brought 2 varieties of her cupcakes for us to try, a yellow cake with chocolate ganache, and a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.
I have two pet peeves when it comes to cupcakes: dry cake, and bad frosting-to-cake ratios. (Ok, “bad frosting-to-cake ratio” is code for “not enough frosting”.)
Buttercream is ready to jump to the top of Philly’s cupcake selections with moist, moist, moist cakes, and a healthy dollop of frosting. I was initially loath to name a preference between these two, but an hour or so later, I had a craving for another peanut butter cupcake. Also, I like that her frosting is centered in the cake, not slathered to the edges — I am always sad when I leave frosting on the wrapper, but I look kind of foolish if I try to lick it off.
Due to permitting issues, Buttercream cupcakes are only available for special orders at this point. To find out when the cupcake truck will be hitting the streets near you, follow @ButtercreamPhl on Twitter!
