Midtown Lunch

This Saturday at the Piazza at Schmidts was the 1st Vendy Awards in Philadelphia, a “street food showcase and intense cook-off between the best sidewalks chefs in Philly.” Tickets were completely sold out and the vibe was sweaty but happy. I was privileged enough to  be one of the judges who sampled the  offerings of all 8 trucks and voted to pick the winner of the Vendy Cup.  While I admit that coverage of events after the fact can be lame and not helpful at all, the venders here all provided food you could normally expect at their trucks, so reading ahead will not only let you recap the event if you attended or let you live vicariously through the pictures if you missed out, it can also give you a preview of what you could get at any of these trucks on a given day.

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Photo Courtesy of UltrayClay

• The sausage at Frankford Hall, looks almost as good as the ones at New Wave [UltraClay]
• The cafeteria at the United Plaza building at 17th and Ludlow has some secretly good salads that are not dumbly priced [Foobooz]
• A new Thai place, Sawatdee, opens today. Meal Ticket has pictures [Meal Ticket]
• There is a dish that tastes like “eggplant marshmallows” at Sushi Planet [Mac & Cheese]
• Phila Weekly has love for Cafe Soho’s KFC [Phila Weekly]

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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