Midtown Lunch

I finally caved and tried the cute little pastries at Garces Trading Co. They are sold as $6 for a 1/2 dozen, you can’t fool me, Garces- I know that means $1 for each tiny 2 bite pastry. But I had to have them, they were staring at me with there littleness and colorfulness and begging for me to try them all.  Fresh ones were retrieved from the back and then packed up neatly in a brown  box for me, which got me thinking that this would be a nice thing to bring to a dinner party. Or I could just eat them all myself.

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As is customary at Philly Lunch, every Tuesday we turn over the site to a different lunch’er for his or her recommendations for the best lunch in Philadelphia. This week it’s Mike, aka helpful commenter MWinston, a student who seems to know the good eating spots of University City like the back of his hand.

Name: Mike

Age: 22

Occupation: Student (About to graduate!)

Where in Philly do you Work?: Fine Arts Major for Graphic Design at The University of Pennsylvania

Favorite Kind of Food:I eat around 85% of my meals in sandwich form (generally on a longroll). This is a something I learned the hard way this year over Passover while I struggled to find meals that weren’t served on bread. My lunches are heavily dominated by meatball subs, chicken cheesesteaks, bacon egg and cheese sandwiches, etc. I also really love ethnic food of all types. Fortunately for me, West Philly is a pretty decent place to find a variety of ethnic food. I love pickles too. I go through about a jar of pickles per week. Through all of my pickle eating I’ve learned that my favorite kind is the Kosher Dill Spears from Claussen. Finally, when I cook, I put caramelized onions and garlic on nearly everything. There’s not much food in this world that won’t be improved by the addition of caramelized onions and garlic. I almost forgot… Sriracha! Well it’s not a food, but a sauce. Oh well, it’s delicious on everything. Eggs. Fried Rice. Meat. Hot dogs. Everything.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: There’s not much out there I won’t eat (or at least try), but I can’t stand gefilte fish. I gave it the benefit of the doubt a few weeks ago and gave it another taste, but no. It didn’t want to go down.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch in Philly:I eat a majority of my meals from food carts so I’ll just do some shoutouts to my favorite carts around campus. At Lyn’s cart (36th and Spruce) I often order their Meatball Sandwich, but don’t overlook their Eggplant Spinach Parm Sub which is equally as good. When she asks if you want hot sauce on it, say yes! It’s Sriracha. From Steak Queen (38th and Locust) I usually order a “Chicken Cheesesteak with Onions and Honey Mustard”. It is the best foodcart chicken on campus in my opinion. From Don Memo’s (38th and Sansom) I usually order an Al Pastor Burrito though recently I’ve been ordering the Pork Torta. Another favorite is Bui’s (38th and Spruce) where I usually order a Pepperoni, Egg, and Cheese (Double Egg) with Onions and Bui’s sauce (which is basically a Sriracha mayo). I know this dish sounds kind of strange, but trust me on this. It is great hangover food.

I mentioned ethnic food before and these places I’m about to talk about tend to be more dinners than lunches for me but I’ll mention them anyways since most of them are in ML price range. On campus, we have a number of Thai options; my favorite is Thai Singha House (40th and Chestnut). They have a really great lunch and early bird deal. West Philly also has a good number of Indian restaurants whose buffets make for a really good filling meal. New Delhi (40th and Chestnut) does a pretty good job with keeping a variety of tasty food in their buffet. My favorite cheap and filling place to eat is Pho Cafe Saigon (43rd and Spruce) where you can get a gigantic, delicious bowl of Pho jam packed with Beef Brisket, Flank, Tripe, Tendon, cilantro (sorry cilantro haters), onions, and more for around $7. Every now and then I have enough time to venture out to 45th Street for some African food. I love the Ethiopian food at Abyssinia (45th and Locust). I think the spongy Ethiopian bread that the dishes are served over is really interesting.

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Today we are getting a report on two funky food  trucks on the Philly streets from Profiled Luncher Matt.

For the past year, I’d heard lots about Honest Tom’s Taco Truck, but never found myself near Drexel around lunch time.  A couple of months ago, they started parking in Center City on Fridays with Fish Tacos (they’ve since added Chicken and Sweet Potato tacos on Wednesdays) at their 18^th and Vine location.

The menu at Honest Tom’s is small – one or two types of tacos per day (although they say they will soon add breakfast tacos), plus Stumptown iced coffee and lemonade.  Tacos go 2 for $5, with drinks at $1.50.

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Photo Courtesy of Renaissance Sausage on Facebook via Meal Ticket

• A run down of several negative reviews of Bobby Flay’s new burger joint [Phoodie]
• A new sausage truck has arrived, but is still figuring out it weekday location [Meal Ticket]
• What food trucks are twittering (or is it tweeting?) in Philly [CBS via Foobooz]
• What an honor… Applebee’s came out with  Philly burger [Grubstreet]

This week I decided to check out 2 places that are popular spots for late night non-sober snacking. How would they fare during the light of day? In this corner of the ring we have Mama Angelina’s, a late night favorite due to its proximity to the subway and the fact that it is open until 2 on the weekends. In the other corner, 13th St Pizza, also offering late night hours, affectionately known in the area as Gay pizza, being across the street from the gay bar Woody’s.

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