Midtown Lunch

If you haven’t bought your tickets to the 1st Annual Philly Vendy Awards, what are you waiting for? Hundreds have already been sold. There will be beer, wine, and food from the top local food trucks. Each ticket allows you to vote in the People’s Choice Awards, so make your vote count.  I will be helping with the judging to pick the winner of the Vendy Cup, so don’t forget to say hi and perhaps I will chug a beer with you.

I was looking over some old posts and I was reminded of my lunch at Argan, a Center City Moroccan sandwich spot,  and how much I enjoyed my meal. This was all the way back in January 2010, so it was about time for a re-visit. Plus there were some things I missed out on with the first go-round, like the merguez sandwich.

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As I mentioned last week, I am in exploration mode, focusing on Northeast Philly with a different post ever Wednesday for the next few weeks. This week, it is a crazy little Latin American food shack where I may have had the best roast pork in Philly.

Finding “El Fogon, El Rey de los Pinchos” was a matter of driving around maybe not the nicest of neighborhoods (across the street was a functional elliptical machine facing the street next to a trailer home) and yelling “STOP! That place looks like it could be awesome.” I wanted those pinchos.

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A new Indian food delivery service popped up on Twitter today. Place your order in the morning, and get it delivered in time for lunch. Right now they are serving UCity, with Center City service to follow. Rice, a samosa, and 2 sides  come with your order of 2 entrees from a selection that changes each day, for example tomorrow you could get Chicken Tikka Masala and Veggie Korma with mango chutney and raita for $9.

At Xiao Guan Garden, things are efficient: boom- you are seated, boom- your menus, tea, and peanuts are on your table, boom- they give you unnecessary forks. No nonsense is enjoyable every so often. When I realized other tables were getting a different menu I wondered what I was missing out on. But I will never know since the menu was all in Chinese characters. When the “white people” menu has frog on it, you can’t feel too bad about ordering from it. And  I managed to have a nice little meal regardless.

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• Grub Street has a slide show of their favorite local hot dogs just in time for the holiday weekend [Grub Street]
• The hot dog topped with guava mustard and pineapple salsa is the favorite of Hot Diggity’s owner [Philly.com]
• The short rib and bone marrow burger at Ladder 15 is “unmatched” [A Hamburger Today]
• There is a new Vietnamese Place on Washington Ave and they serve… crawfish? [Meal Ticket]