Hello all! Welcome to my new blog! After some prodding, I decided to create this blog to serve a few purposes. The first being, a documentation of my adventures on the Philly food scene. Philadelphia is a city that has, until recently, been overshadowed by it's BO-WAS brethren (Boston, NYC, DC for those not familiar with the lingo) in one way, shape, or form. While those cities are great in their own right, they haven't been able to develop a food culture quite like Philadelphia has. Having been to all of those cities many times, I feel that it comes down to two things that has turned Philly in to a foodie's paradise and they, my friends, are "pretension" and "trendiness". In our case, it's a lack there of, and it's evident in the accolades that we've racked up in the last few years...."Worst Dressed City in America", "Fattest City in America", "Most Obnoxious Sports Fans", etc. Why is this? We really don't give a flying F**K! In a sense, the pioneering spirit of the Founding Fathers still runs very deep in this city. Their rejection of the pretentious and oppressive British Monarchy is much like our current rejection of a pretentious and trendy dining experience(so if you can't tell already, I think places such as Le Bec Fin and POD are ridiculous).
The first thing: pretentious and overbearing service (a la Le Bec Fin). Often times the patrons have sticks just as far up their asses as the maitre d'. There is a reason that only a few restaurants with service levels such as this remain and every day a few more of them die.
The second thing: trendiness. While Philadelphia has done a great deal to avoid this concept, it is this very concept that has built the Starr restaurant empire. Stephen Starr has become a chef that creates concoctions to feed our A.D.D. more so than our stomachs. Some of his restaurants have the culinary cajones to match the visual panache (The Dandelion and Talula's Garden), but more often than not, this is not the case.
Enough on that tangent, for now, though. The other purposes of my blog will be to share awesome new recipies/products I come across as well as letting you know about all of the great food-related happenings in Philly. I hope you enjoy this as much as I'm going to. I look forward to everyone's comments!
First restaurant review: Barbuzzo! Coming very soon!
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