Groucho's

A little slice of home recently landed in the college town of Newark, Delaware, in the form of Groucho's Deli, a sandwich shop hailing from my very own hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. But how did a deli that was started in South Carolina in 1941 end up in Delaware? According to a Delaware News Journal article, David Richardson, the owner of the Delaware Groucho's (now a franchise with all but just a few location in South Carolina), grew up in Columbia, but his wife, who is from Delaware, wanted to move back to The First State, and so they brought Groucho's with them.

The history behind Groucho's goes that Harold Miller (nicknamed Groucho because of his resemblance to Groucho Marx with his mustache, cigars, and joking demeanor) dreamed up the recipe for coleslaw, potato salad, and salad dressings while he was still a child in a Philadelphia orphanage. Groucho took those dreams with him to Columbia, and in 1941 opened what was one of only a few Jewish-style delis in the area.
I know Groucho's very well. Their subs were one of maybe only two non-home cooked meals my family would eat at our kitchen table. It was always such a treat when my Mom decided to go down to, at the time, the one and only location of Groucho's on Harden St., Columbia's own college area, to pick up an order of subs to bring back home. As I perused the rack of exotic chocolate bars and tins of hard candies in the gourmet grocery section that was a deli fixture only up until the the 1980's, my Mom was at the counter getting winks and a discount from Groucho who mistakenly believed my Mom to be Jewish.

What we took home was Groucho's signature sandwich, the STP Dipper, a soft, long roll filled with melted cheese and mounds of warm turkey and roast beef topped with crumbled bacon. God, these were good! But that was when I ate meat.
As a vegetarian, Groucho's doesn't have much of interest for me — various salads (actually not bad, but they aren't part of my childhood memory), and a couple of sandwiches filled with cheese and veggies either on a roll, sliced bread, or in a pita. About every couple of years I'll order a veggie sub just to jog the memory of the excitement of taking a trip down to the deli with my Mom and eating this sacred food of my youth.

And, so, I visited the Newark Groucho's to pay homage to my youth and ordered the veggie Italian sub. Slices of four kinds of cheese — Provolone, Swiss, Muenster, and sharp American — are melted on a soft roll, then topped with chopped lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. It's basically a salad on top of a roll with melted cheese, and it's a little hard to eat without using a fork to eat some of the salad first.What is strikingly different at Groucho's from all the hoagie and sub shops in the Delaware Valley is the softness of the bread. The bread is cloud-like and can be easily squished down into virtually nothing, a far cry from the sturdier, crusty breads of a hoagie or sub from around these parts. I know y'all are staunch about the firmness of your hoagie and sub rolls, and even which bakery supplies the bread, so the bread at Groucho's is really going to throw y'all for a loop.

You also won't find any broccoli rabe or chunks of sharp Provolone at Groucho's. These are not traditional Italian hoagies. Nor are Groucho's specialty sandwiches typical Jewish deli fare. What you will find is Formula 45 sauce, which is pretty much Groucho's claim to fame.Formula 45 sauce is a secret blend of Thousand Island and Russian dressings along with dill and spices. It's up to you, dear eater, to either employ the dressing as a dip for the sandwich or as a spread to slather inside the sandwich. Groucho's and their Formula 45 sauce is the reason I am such a huge proponent of special sauce — or any sauce — on sandwiches.

Formula 45 sauce even caused rifts in the deli sandwich eating community of Columbia when a former employee of Groucho's opened Andy's Deli a few blocks away from Groucho's with a strikingly similar menu and special sauce. Groucho's and Andy's is Columbia's own Pat's and Geno's, but the rivalry is more subdued, and no guidos line up on the sidewalk for a sandwich.Groucho's thinks their Formula 45 sauce is so good they put it on almost all of their specialty sandwiches. For 60 cents you can get a small side of Formula 45 to slather on their other sandwiches, and if you find yourself as smitten with Formula 45 as much as I am, you can even pick up a pint for $5 to take home.
Are you, birthrighters of the hoagie, going to love Groucho's sandwiches? I don't know. I invite you to wipe all notions of what you think is a proper sub or hoagie out of your head, go into Groucho's, and, if you eat meat, order the STP with Formula 45 thinking of it as nothing more than a sandwich.

Besides the STP Dipper and veggie Italian sub mentioned here, Groucho's also serves a wide variety of salads, clubs and deli sandwiches, including low-fat options.

P.S. Delaware's own Capriotti's (also now a franchise) still makes my favorite vegetarian sub — they have veggie turkey, for cryin' out loud, and, yeah, I prefer the sturdier bread — but when I order mine I have Capriotti's make it with Russian dressing. Just a little secret I learned from Groucho's.

Groucho's
170 E. Main St., Newark, DE 19711
302-533-6307

Caramel Cake

Ask me for a recipe, and I'll give it to you — duh, I have a food blog. Share the good times and tasty treats, I say! But some people keep recipes secret, and will not give them out to even their best friends and family. Where's the sense in that?

We have a relative in our family who makes the best caramel cake ever. Ever! It's her dish and her duty to bring it to every family and holiday gathering. Everyone looks forward to her caramel cake, and even lines up at the dessert table before hitting the main buffet line to assure that they get a piece. Outstanding cake!

But the recipe is a secret. It will die with her, and that is a shame. History and memories lost.A while back I tried to recreate her caramel cake using a recipe from A Gracious Plenty, a book by John T. Edge of collected recipes from the South, thinking that Mr. Edge probably rounded up a good caramel cake recipe. The cake was great, but the icing was not so great, and caramel cake is all about the icing.

Fast forward a few months, and, hello, September 2010 issue of Food and Wine magazine featuring a recipe for caramel cake!

But wait, the recipe is from The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook, a new, and yet (but soon) to be published collection of Southern recipes that is also edited by John T. Edge. I ran down stairs to check my edition of A Gracious Plenty to make sure the recipes weren't identical, and they weren't (yay!), so it was onward with the recipe for caramel cake in Food and Wine.

Outstanding! Fabulous! Delicious! Perfect! Just as I remembered! Caramel Cake
Adapted from Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook

The icing is fabulous, but I did run into a small problem with it. I waited the recommended 15 minutes before mixing the icing, and mixed the icing for the recommended 15 minutes before pouring it over the cake, but it was still too warm, so spent the next hour scraping puddles of soft caramel off the plate and back up the sides of the cake until the icing had finally cooled enough to stay up. The lesson here is that you might want to wait a bit longer before pouring the icing over the cake.

Cake
1 cup whole milk
4 egg whites, room temperature
2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups sifted cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, softened
3/4 cup heavy cream

Icing
3 cups sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream

• Butter 3 8-inch cake pans (I used 2 10-inch cake pans), line bottoms with parchment paper. Butter the parchment paper and flour the pans, removing excess flour.
• Cake: In a bowl, mix 1/4 cup milk, egg whites, and vanilla.
• In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add butter and the remaining 3/4 cup of milk. Mix until smooth. Add the egg white mixture in 3 batches.
• In another bowl, beat the heavy cream with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Stir 1/3 of the whipped cream into the batter, then fold in the rest.
  
• Divide batter between the pans, smoothing the tops.
• Bake in a 350 degree, pre-heated oven for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  
• Let cakes cool 10 minutes on a baking rack, then remove from pan, remove parchment paper, and let cool completely.
• Icing: In a saucepan, stir 2 1/2 cups of the sugar with the corn syrup and milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Keep warm.
• In a large, deep saucepan (size is important because caramel bubbles up and it extremely hot) sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until an amber caramel forms.
  
• With care, poor the warm milk mixture over the caramel. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring until the caramel dissolves, then stop stirring. Without stirring, let the caramel cook until the caramel reaches 235 degrees on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat.
• Into the caramel mixture, stir in the butter, vanilla, and 1/4 cup of the heavy cream.
  
• Pour caramel into a bowl and let cool for 15 minutes, then beat in the remaining 1/4 cup heavy cream with an electric mixer until creamy, about 15 minutes.
• Cake Assembly: Set one layer on a plate. Pour enough icing over top to cover the top of the layer. Top with a second layer and cover the top with icing. Add the third layer of the cake and pour the remaining icing over the top of the cake, letting it run down the sides. Using a spatula or knife, spread the icing evenly around the cake.
• Let cake stand for 2 hours to set the icing before serving.
  

Loving Hut

There's a new, all-vegan restaurant on South street called Loving Hut, an international vegan fast food chain founded by the animal, planet, and veg-loving, cultish leader Supreme Master Ching Hai.

Like most Loving Huts in the United States and around the world, the South Street Philly outpost of Loving Hut has a television dialed to Supreme Master TV at all times, but don't worry, you'd never notice Supreme Master Ching Hai on the boob tube in the back of the restaurant willing your money into her bank account unless you speak Taiwanese (I believe?), or someone told you about the woman behind Loving Hut.Please don't let this stop you from eating at Loving Hut. Your all-American neighbor two doors down undoubtedly has crazier notions than anyone who follows the Supreme Master, plus the food at Loving Hut is not bad — it's a known fact that cults and religious groups make some of the best vegan and vegetarian food around; if you ever have a chance to eat at a Krishna temple, I highly recommend it — and the Philly Loving Hut owners are super sweet.

Loving Hut serves bubble tea and food with a pan-Asian bent, but also offers up Western items like burgers and chicken nuggets. Each location has a similar, but different menu, letting the owners decide what to sell in their market. Unfortunately, the Philly location is working with a severely limited menu, whereas other US locations have menus two to four times larger. Yes, Philly vegans, you are missing out on vegan corn dogs, vegan pho, vegan teriyaki kabobs, and vegan wonton soup.Summer rolls filled with tofu, vegan ham, rice noodles, jicama, carrot, cucumber and lettuce are just as good as any summer roll you can find at any restaurant, although I'd love to see some aromatic herbs like basil, mint, or cilantro thrown in the mix. The thick, sweet peanut sauce comes pre-made out of a container. The Fluffly Quinoa salad is more of a greens and vegetable salad than a quinoa salad, with only a small portion of quinoa tossed with mixed greens, shredded carrots, cucumber, bell peppers, cilantro, and a light peanut and lime dressing. Thin slices of soy chicken top the salad adding a bit of protein that I so often miss when eating salads out. All ingredients were extremely fresh, and the salad was made to order.Golden Cheesy Bread will certainly fulfill any vegan's cheesy, greasy, salty, carby cravings. Seeded baguette slices are topped with a vegan mayonnaise spread studded with vegan ham, vegan cheese, and scallions, then popped into a toaster oven. A little too yummy, actually. Glad there were only four pieces to the order.Guru Curry Rice is a mild Indian curry studded with potatoes, onions, carrots, tofu, and soy protein serves with an attractive, purplish 5-grain rice and side of broccoli. Since this is a fast food chain in theory (many Loving Huts are in mall food courts), the curry is pre-made and gets a go in the microwave, and the side of broccoli comes from the refrigerator. Rice comes out of a steamer like at any restaurant, sit-down or fast food. Even with the microwaving, this dish still tasted fresh. You'd only be so lucky to find such a dish in a mall food court.
The vegan carrot cake was the only disappointing item I tried. Tasting like lemon cake rather than a spicy carrot cake, the cake was moist, but not in a good way — like it could have been baked longer. The sprinkled sugar topping also tasted a little off. A sugar substitute, perhaps?

Dining in at Loving Hut can be uncomfortable since it's often empty and the owners keep the back room in the dark, and the front room only lit by a few of the available lights. There is no music, just the sound of Supreme Master TV coming from the back room. The only customers I saw on multiple visits were South Street slackers taking advantage of the two computers at the front of the restaurant.

With a limited menu, a dining room that feels dead, and a South Street location that sees mostly tourists and Hot Topic teenagers, I'm just not sure about the longevity of Loving Hut. I'm most definitely pro cult vegan dining, but wish Loving Hut had opened in Center City were there are thousands of office workers who would certainly fill the seats at lunch for healthy, affordable, vegan eats.

Loving Hut
742 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-454-2898
Sun-Thurs: 11am-9pm
Fri-Sat: 11am-10pm

Tomato Pie 2.0

It's a shame about the blogging format, how posts roll off the screen to never be seen again without digging around the archives. The 80 seconds the average person spends on my blog isn't going to turn up one of the best savory pies I've ever eaten — tomato pie — so I'm posting it again . . . with some changes.

Not the cheese-less pizza pie known so well around these parts, but a Southern pie filled with summer's ripest tomatoes, basil, and onion, then topped with a Cheddar and mayonnaise spread, the tomato pie I made last year was so darn delicious, I ate the entire thing by myself in one day!

Oh, how I've been looking forward to summer's bounty of tomatoes (because winter tomatoes just won't do) to re-make the pie using my own suggestions: cut the tomatoes into smaller chunks instead of slices to avoid a forkful of tomato that won't fit in my mouth; caramelize the onions for sweetness; and use a different cheese just to change things up.Tomatoes were chopped in big chunks, salted and left in a strainer to drain for 30 minutes or more. A press of the hand does wonders to get the juices out, and you're gonna wanna get a lot of juice out of the tomatoes, or else tomato pie becomes tomato soup pie.
Onions were caramelized to coax out the sugars. If you're not a fan of raw onion, go ahead and caramelize them, because in the original recipe the baking doesn't quite take out all of the onion's strong flavors. I like the pie either way, but prefer it slightly more with caramelized onions.
Different herbs can be used, but I stuck with basil because tomatoes and basil are besties.I had not been dreaming of a tomato pie with corn, but we just so happened to have grilled way too much corn the day before, so that's the short of it as to how corn ended up in the pie. Throw in whatever you fancy.
Parmesan along with white Cheddar went into the mayo and cheese topping because that's what we had. Funny how recipes evolve like that.Mixed all together, the pie innards look like so before the mayo and cheese topping goes on. I forgot to take a picture of the mayo and cheese, but you can see it in all it's melted glory in the picture at the very tippy-top of the post.

What do I think of tomato pie 2.0? Gosh, it's awfully good! Just as good, if not better, than the original tomato pie, but I'd take either in a heart beat . . . then eat the whole thing lickety-split.

Tomato Pie 2.0
serves 4-6

1 9-inch pie shell
4-5 large fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 medium sweet onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoon butter
12 or so large fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
2 ears of corn, cooked and kernels cut off
salt
pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

• De-seed tomatoes by squeezing or pushing out the seeds with your fingers. It doesn't have to be thoroughly de-seeded (that's where the flavor is), but you'll want the majority of the liquid out to avoid a soupy pie. Salt the chopped tomato, and let sit in a colander for at least 30 minutes to draw out extra moisture (push down gently on tomatoes to help it along).
• Melt butter in a skillet over low heat, add onions and cook on low for 30-60 minutes, or until caramelized to your level of doneness.
  
• Blind-bake pie shell for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Remove from oven and let cool a few minutes.
• Mix tomatoes, caramelized onions, basil, and corn together in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer tomato mixture into the pie shell.
  
• Combine mayonnaise, Cheddar, and Parmesan in a bowl, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper. Spread over the top of the pie (hands work best).
• Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the top of the pie is browned. Cool slightly and serve.

Sampan

Sampan's mostly veggie-unfriendly menu has kept me away from the chic, Asian-fusion restaurant on Philly's 13th St. restaurant row, despite having a celebrity chef (sorry, but I don't know Michael Schulson, his TV appearances, and his Atlantic City restaurant, Izakaya, from Adam), and the fact that at the bottom of the menu a statement is printed saying vegetarian accommodations can be made. What finally got us in the door — and out the back door — was Sampan's graffiti bar and happy hour. An outdoor, sheltered-from-the-elements space with a long communal table and bar, both made of steel, lies just out back from the restaurant. The back wall and table tops are all graffiti-ed up by artists giving the space a gritty, but hip, urban feel. I like!Happy hour runs Monday-Friday from 5-7pm with $2 snacks and a daily-changing $4 cocktail. You know what would be nice? If the Graffiti Bar had an actual bartender during happy hour. When we went — on a Friday, no less — there was no bartender until 7pm, so servers from indoors periodically came out to check on us and take orders to give to the indoor bar.The $4 cocktail of the day was coconut rum with cherry soda — like a cherry Coke with subtle hints of coconut — and, mmm, I could drink these all day long.
The happy hour menu only has one vegetarian item — satay corn — so that's what I went with. Nothing more than grilled corn on a skewer siting on a dab of mayonnaise, topped with cilantro micro-greens, and accompanied by a wedge of salted lime and a little pile of togarashi (Japanese chili powder) to bring a little Asian to the fusion. The $2 price tag was about right.

Since we had such a nice server, and corn is not enough for dinner, we decided to ask about the vegetarian accommodations. Basically, four or so dishes that can easily have the meat removed (the pad Thai, mapo tofu, Korean rice cake, and fried rice), along with a couple of salads and starters that are already vegetarian are Sampan's accommodations.I went for the pad Thai sans shrimp, and what arrived was the blandest pad Thai I have ever had. Ever! It tasted like I was eating buttered spaghetti. I mentioned this to our server, and then was explained that the chef leaves off the fish sauce-inclusive pad Thai sauce when anyone orders the dish without shrimp, in assumption that the person is vegetarian. That explains the blandness!

Leaving off the pad Thai sauce is simultaneously considerate to vegetarians and extremely lame. Not hardly what I'd expect from a celebrity chef that claims vegetarian accommodations can be made on their menu. How about a pad Thai sauce without fish sauce? We also paid full price for this dish, which, unfortunately for vegetarians, is the norm at most restaurants when meat is omitted, but, dang, full price for meat-less and sauce-less noodles!The Korean rice cakes sans sausage has Asian greens and a sauce with a pleasant mix of spiciness and vinegar, and is actually the better of the two dishes. I'm just not a fan of rice cakes which are heavy, chewy pieces of steamed glutinous rice flour that resemble dense pasta. It's the heft that gets me. I am a fan of the celery micro-greens that garnished the dish. Sampan apparently has an arsenal of piquant, not-your-average micro-greens back in the kitchen.

A bartender-less bar during happy hour and lame vegetarian accommodations. If it weren't for the exceptional server we had, I would have left in a sour mood instead of smiling ear to ear, making a point to thank the server for such a wonderful evening.

Sampan
124 S. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-732-3501
Lunch: Mon-Fri 11:30am-4pm
Dinner: Mon-Thurs 5-11pm, Fri-Sat 5pm-midnight, Sun 5-10pm

Fresh Thymes

Be careful what you wish for, it just might come true.

When Fresh Thymes, the mother and daughter-run corner sandwich shop focusing on local, seasonal ingredients took over the spot vacated by Wild Chives and Rosemary (too many herbs on this corner; it confuses me), the drab white walls I wished had color got a new coat of vibrant orange, purple, and green.
The lamented, hung-too-high pictures were replaced with walls filled high and low and every which where with local paintings (not bad), John Denver albums, random framed inspirational sayings, and various tchotchkes (all bad).

I forgot to wish for a professional designer, and instead got crazy-fun, old-lady design. Oh, well. It's still better.I probably should have wished for an upgrade from the sandwiches and salads of the previous tenant, but Fresh Thymes is keeping the corner neighborhood joint in the same vein.

What is different is Fresh Thymes' gluten-free awareness with menu accommodations and baked goods from Kennett Square's gluten-free bakery, Sweet Christine's. The soup special of the day, a golden gazpacho studded with tomatoes, purple bell peppers, peaches and cilantro, was light and refreshing. The chunks of sweet peaches went surprisingly well with the tomato broth.
Another special of the day, a grilled sandwich featuring Mozzarella, pesto and peaches, suffered from too much grease — from the pesto slathered on the inside of the bread, and the butter for grilling on the outside of the bread. Here, peaches did not go so well. While interesting, I don't think a grilled cheese sandwich with peaches and pesto needs to be explored again.Menu items come with cute names like Meredith's Power House Sandwich, Theresa's Veggie Burger (sadly, not housemade), and Sunny's Sunflower Salad. When we ordered the Janeydilla, a sandwich described as Lancaster Cheddar, onion, bell pepper, tomato, olives, and fresh herbs melted in a wrap, we assumed the "dilla" part of the name was dill, not quesadilla, so were a little surprised when a veggie filled quesadilla arrived instead of a wrap.

Sandwiches come with either a side of chips or tabbouleh. Besides being a bland, disappointing, three-forkful portion, the tabbouleh salad is a misnomer. Instead of bulgur wheat, Fresh Thymes uses quinoa to make the traditional Middle Eastern salad gluten-free. There is also very little parsley, the key ingredient in tabbouleh. That's very thoughtful of Fresh Thymes to make a salad that's gluten-free, but they should just rename it quinoa salad, so as not to mislead customers. Also, up the seasoning and portion size.

Open at 8am Tuesday-Saturday, Fresh Thymes also serves breakfast staples like granola and yogurt, breakfast burritos, French toast, eggs, and bagels, but also sneaks in a trendy and healthy newcomer to the breakfast scene, millet and quinoa porridge.

Fresh Thymes is only open for breakfast and lunch, but if you watch their Facebook Events page you can be the first to know about their occasional RSVP dinners, and, of course, make a reservation for nighttime eats.

Fresh Thymes is a quirky, friendly neighborhood shop dishing up smiles and simple breakfast and lunch-time fare you could easily whip up in your own kitchen, but sometimes it's just nice to get out of the house and see your neighbors.

Fresh Thymes
1836 N. Lovering Ave., Wilmington, DE 19806
302-656-2026
Tues-Fri: 8am-3pm
Sat: 8am-2pm
Sun: closed
Cash only

Peach Upside Down Cake

It's peach season, the most yummiest of seasons! Besides being the sweetest, juiciest, most satisfying of summer fruits, peaches rank number one for me in fond childhood summer food memories. It just sort of comes with the territory when you grow up in South Carolina, the first second largest grower of peaches (we all know monstro-agro California doesn't really count, right?).

One of those memories is of peach upside down cake my Mom used to make after visiting the State Farmer's Market, a huge market with 500 stalls (makes Philly's city markets look laughable) about a mile from our house where sun-wrinkled, old farmers from all over the state would convene to sell the season's bounty out of the back of their filled-to-the-brim pick-up trucks.Sweet peach slices are placed in melted butter and brown sugar at the bottom of a pan, then a basic, homey cake batter is poured over top, and the whole thing is popped in the oven. Out comes what looks like any ordinary cake, but upon a flip of the pan onto a platter, the caramelized peaches and magic of peach upside down cake is revealed. Oh, how I loved that flip of the pan!

My mom's recipe for peach upside down cake must have appeared in a magazine or popular cookbook in the 70's, because I can find identical recipes (almost word for word) out there, so there's a good chance you've eaten this cake, too. I did a little updating to bring the cake into the 21st century: butter replaces vegetable shortening; and the brown sugar and butter that the peaches sit in has been slightly reduced.Peach Upside Down Cake

1/4 cup butter, plus 1/3 cup butter for batter
3/4 cup light brown sugar
3-4 large peaches, peeled and sliced
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 eggs
1 2/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

• Place 1/4 cup butter and brown sugar in an oven-proof skillet and heat slowly on stove-top, stirring constantly until well browned.
  
• Remove skillet from stove, and place peaches in melted brown sugar and butter mixture. (If you don't have an oven-proof skillet, just transfer melted butter and brown sugar mixture to a medium-sized oven-proof dish before adding peaches.)
• In a large bowl, cream together 1/3 cup butter and sugar. Add milk, vanilla extract, almond extract, and eggs and mix thoroughly.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.
• Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until incorporated.
  
• Pour batter over top of peaches in skillet, smoothing batter out to the edges.
  
• Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the middle is firm and the top is golden.
  
• Cool cake for 10 minutes, then place a platter on top of the cake dish. Carefully invert the cake dish while holding the platter on top so that the cake slides out onto the platter . . . upside down!
  
• Serve warm or room temperature.
  

Kraftwork

With the help of some friends, I worked my way around most of the vegetarian offerings of Fishtown's industrial beer den, Kraftwork, the new sister bar to Graduate Hospital's much-loved The Sidecar Bar and Grille. It's not hard to work your way around the menu, since it's on the small side, and even briefer if you cut out the meat.A huge bowl of thin-cut garlic and herb fries with mustard aioli were just the sort of thing to pair with a drink — try one of their 25 rotating beers on tap or one of their 6 specialty cocktails.

Ricotta dumplings covered with roasted red pepper harissa sauce were light with the first bite, then became a chore.

Squishy falafel balls brought down the lone veggie main. A side of sweet and wet apple and cabbage slaw was so large we suffered fatigue.

For brunch, there are no veggie meat substitutes, so you'll be paying full price for that egg and cheese biscuit minus the meat.

All of the dishes above were just fine, but nothing to write home about — or include a picture of. There is one item on the menu that I would like to write home about, though — the vegetable board.Kudos to Kraftwork for creatively and beautifully revamping the boring veggie humus plate into something wholly unrecognizable as such, and creating something simply delicious. If it weren't for this dish, I'd say skip Kraftwork if you're hungry, but I enjoyed the vegetable board so much I made a return visit.

Down the center of the board is a colorful line of seasonal vegetables (and perhaps not so seasonal, but who doesn't love a Brussels sprout or asparagus spear year round?) cooked until just tender, but still snappy, with nothing more than a little salt to bring out nature's flavors. Brussels sprouts, asparagus, beets, roasted red peppers, baby carrots, radishes, and green beans are represented. On a previous visit sweet corn payed a visit.

In the top right corner is a square of roasted eggplant and squash terrine topped with tomato sauce and tofu ricotta tasting like the healthiest cold lasagna you've ever eaten.
The nutty, white sesame puree is a tad salty, but is just right paired with the large wedges of olive oil and rosemary-brushed crispy flat bread.The piece de resistance is the slab of seared faux gras siting in the lower left corner. Faux gras! Did you catch that? Cute, huh?

Chickpeas, butter, garlic, and truffle oil go into the faux gras, and it is just about the tastiest chickpea puree I've ever had. My guess is that it's the butter that's so delicious, which brings us to a little problem . . .

If it weren't for the butter in the faux gras, vegans could go to town on the vegetable board, which, really, like a traditional hummus plate should have their name all over it. Maybe Kraftwork can whip up a tiny batch of vegan faux gras so as not to deny any diners, because this vegetable board is at the top of my list of best veggie humus plates ever.

Yes, I said ever.

Kraftwork
541 E. Girard Ave, Philadelphia. PA 19125
215-739-1700
Mon-Fri: noon-2am
Sat-Sun: 10:30am-2am, brunch 10:30-3pm

Mr. Joe's Café

Look at my listing of restaurant reviews categorized by cuisine, and you'll see that Italian restaurants are not as well represented as the love that America holds for the pasta, olive olive oil, and tomato-heavy fare. Every one loooves Italian food. Except me. I just merely like it.

Yet, here I am in South Philadelphia, a melting pot bubbling over with Italian immigrants and their children, and their children's children. Italian restaurants are on every other corner, and a historic Italian Market is just a few blocks away from where I lay my head.

In an attempt to search out good Italian in the city (because I really do want to love Italian food with gusto), I've made a point to ask everyone I meet what their favorite Italian restaurant is. Consensus? There is none. With the exception of the high-end Italian restaurants Vetri and Osteria by Philly's Italian maestro Marc Vetri, I rarely hear any restaurant mentioned twice.

So, with no definitive leads, I've put off my quest for Italian for far too many years. That had to end.

Where did I start? Mr. Joe's Café, and one of the best deals in town!

Across the street from the South Philly Termini Bros. Bakery, a landmark in Philly Italian food history, sit's Mr. Joe's Café at the corner of 8th and Greenwich streets in what was the original 1921 location of Termini Bros. Bakery. Mr. Joe's Café is run by the Termini clan and the name pays tribute to Gaetano Termini, the brother of Guiseppe Termini, together the two founding Termini Bros.
Inside the unassuming corner rowhouse, is a cute and sleek café and lunch bistro with 9 or so 2-top granite tables and a counter bar that seats 6. Most of the patrons are locals from the neighborhood catching up with each other and cutely kvetching (can Italians kvetch?). Employees from Termini's drop by for a drink. First timers like myself drop in and are mesmerized by the framed immigration papers and family portraits on the wall. Kitchen implements and memorabilia from Termini's early days are encased in glass behind the counter. These aren't goods bought in Europe or at overpriced salvage firms and placed by a designer to lend authenticity to a restaurant's genre — like so many new restaurants are doing — this is a museum of the Termini family's history.

And like a museum, it is best to visit Mr. Joe's Café during the day when you have lots of time to sit and stay a while. Mr. Joe's doesn't do dinner, so you really have no choice but to visit in the day.

At Mr. Joe's you'll find monstrous pannini's, huge plates of pasta, large fritatas, as well as ginormous specials of the day like eggplant Parmesan printed on the chalkboard propped up on the sidewalk, all priced from $10-$14.

But when you place your entree order you get so, so much more! Salad, bread, complimentary wine, and complimentary dessert. You're going to need a while to eat your way out of Mr. Joe's Café.
Annamaria is your newly appointed doting Italian mother who wants you to eat, eat, and drink, drink. Linger long enough — as you will with the mounds of food to get through coupled with the unhurried service — and the complimentary glass of chilled Chianti jug wine will be refilled. Pinch me if this ain't heaven!The generous side salad of mixed baby greens is simply dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette and garnished with cucumbers and tomatoes.

Slices of hearty, crusty Italian bread arrive with the salad, but save it to swipe up the tomato sauce from your pasta. You did order pasta, right?A simple tomato sauce covers ravioli filled with fluffy ricotta sprinkled sparsely with spinach.The penne arrabiata with salty and assertive capers and olives is liberally doused with red pepper, giving a nice warm heat that made my lips tingle and nose run. There's easily enough pasta on this plate for two meals.
Compliments of the iconic Termini Bros. Bakery across the street is a dessert of the day — today, slices of angel-light carrot cake. Such a nice way to end the meal, even if there wasn't room to eat any more. Seriously, slap me hard this time if this ain't heaven!

Mr. Joe's also does coffee and espressos along with pastries, if you need a small pick-me up.

So, how was that for a start to my South Philly Italian restaurant conquests? Not bad at all! Solid, classic Italian dishes are cooked up homestyle with love and history, and all for an amazing bargain. Who can not love a smiling Italian woman offering free jug wine and free dessert?

Please tell me your favorite Italian restaurant in the comments, so they can go on my list.

Mr. Joe's Café
1514 S. 8th St., Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-334-1414
Mon-Thurs: 11am-5pm
Fri-Sat: 11am-6pm
Sun: closed