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If Houston is such an international Mecca for food too, can you point me in the direction to a neighborhood full of central and Eastern European food? Like some good piergoi places or where to sit down and eat with the Russians? I can tell you that Port Richmond for Polish food and Bustleton Ave. for Russian. You can find ethnic grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, etc. I assume there is similar things in Houston?
I think after this, it's probably better to say that on diversity of cuisines, it's a wash between the two cities. The differences probably lie in the number of establishments one finds serving a given cuisine. There is a sizable Russian immigrant presence in far Northeast Philadelphia, enough to support at least two Russian supermarkets (one of which I stop by whenever I'm up that way) and a dozen or so Russian restaurants, if not more. The tone of the deck for that Houstonia article comes off to me as, "Look! We have Eastern European restaurants too!"
What we have in Philadelphia is Eastern European neighborhoods. And I do think that the presence of a population that shares the culture does make a difference.
I can use barbecue as a counterexample.
I come from one of the country's barbecue capitals, the only one that's not in the South. There are restaurants here that serve barbecue. Some of them are good, and a couple of them are great. But the people who run them are transplants, and save for a pocket of South Jersey near the region's one historic African-American municipality (Lawnside, a station on the Underground Railroad) that used to have a slew of small pit joints, there's really no place in the Philadelphia region where people truly understand barbecue culture or the finer points of the craft. (I actually had ribs once at a place, now blessedly closed, in an upper North Philly neighborhood that had a slew of "best of" awards from suburban newspaper chains on its wall - and this place parboiled its ribs.) Thus I tell people that we live in a barbecue desert in Philly. It's not that you can't get it; it's that for the most part, they don't get it.
I tend to hold WalletHub studies at arm's length, because I did find a study of theirs on a subject I know well (mass transit) used apples-and-oranges comparisons to come up with its rankings, but not all of that site's studies are therefore useless. Here's one that isn't, and it's relevant to this topic:
No. 28 Houston crushes No. 104 Philadelphia, which isn't even the most ethnically diverse city in its metro; that honor goes to No. 95 Camden. No. 74 Trenton also outranks it; though it's now part of the New York CSA, it's still within the Philadelphia media market.
Other cities in the near hinterlands that outrank it are No. 54 Allentown, No. 65 Lancaster and No. 98 Reading.
I think after this, it's probably better to say that on diversity of cuisines, it's a wash between the two cities. The differences probably lie in the number of establishments one finds serving a given cuisine. There is a sizable Russian immigrant presence in far Northeast Philadelphia, enough to support at least two Russian supermarkets (one of which I stop by whenever I'm up that way) and a dozen or so Russian restaurants, if not more. The tone of the deck for that Houstonia article comes off to me as, "Look! We have Eastern European restaurants too!"
What we have in Philadelphia is Eastern European neighborhoods. And I do think that the presence of a population that shares the culture does make a difference.
I can use barbecue as a counterexample.
I come from one of the country's barbecue capitals, the only one that's not in the South. There are restaurants here that serve barbecue. Some of them are good, and a couple of them are great. But the people who run them are transplants, and save for a pocket of South Jersey near the region's one historic African-American municipality (Lawnside, a station on the Underground Railroad) that used to have a slew of small pit joints, there's really no place in the Philadelphia region where people truly understand barbecue culture or the finer points of the craft. (I actually had ribs once at a place, now blessedly closed, in an upper North Philly neighborhood that had a slew of "best of" awards from suburban newspaper chains on its wall - and this place parboiled its ribs.) Thus I tell people that we live in a barbecue desert in Philly. It's not that you can't get it; it's that for the most part, they don't get it.
The folks at the James Beard Foundation have, and they seem to be quite impressed with what they've eaten. Restaurants in this city walked away with four James Beard Awards last year, and the foundation announced two days ago that its 2018 award nominees would be announced here in Philadelphia next month.
I can think of a time when none of this would have been the case here.
The folks at the James Beard Foundation have, and they seem to be quite impressed with what they've eaten. Restaurants in this city walked away with four James Beard Awards last year, and the foundation announced two days ago that its 2018 award nominees would be announced here in Philadelphia next month.
I can think of a time when none of this would have been the case here.
Sure but....
Oddly you seem to be forgetting when the modern food scene started in Philadelphia. Maybe that's because you were not in Philadelphia when it began. The reason we are getting these awards now is absolutely as a result of the groundwork done by giants like Perrier and Lacroix. Today everyone who got those awards is standing on their shoulders.
Oddly you seem to be forgetting when the modern food scene started in Philadelphia. Maybe that's because you were not in Philadelphia when it began. The reason we are getting these awards now is absolutely as a result of the groundwork done by giants like Perrier and Lacroix. Today everyone who got those awards is standing on their shoulders.
I've eaten in three of the four restaurants that were regarded as the places that launched the "Restaurant Renaissance": the original Friday Saturday Sunday, the Knave of Hearts and the Astral Plane. Wait - I'd also eaten at Frog. (I never ate at its sister restaurant, the Commissary.)
I do know about the role Perrier played in elevating the standard for luxe-level dining in this city, and I did manage to make it into Le Bar Lyonnais once. I even ate at The Restaurant School, another pillar of that Restaurant Renaissance, before it moved into its current Walnut Hill home.
This is my 35th year living here. The anniversary itself falls on Sept. 1.
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