La Porta Via

1192 N Middletown Road
Media, PA 19063
(610) 358-8970
Website

If you like Paesano's, you will love La Porta Via. Located across from La Porta the mother restaurant, this sandwich shop has most of the favorites from the famous Philly stop.

The Italian fry bread makes for an incredible sauce sopping vessel. Covered in parm and herbs, one piece is a meal in and of itself.

Doughy, crispy, and comforting. This is a gluten free dieters nightmare. And while we are on the subject of fad diets, there is nothing vegan here either. Probably.

The daily meat slice of Sicilian style pizza is another quick belly buster. While I am partial to thin crust, this was a damn good hunk of goodness.

The always popular Torrezeaux is a spicy chicken cheesesteak, Italian style. With roasted chicken, mushrooms, sriracha cream, smoked mozzarella, spinach.

As you can see there is no lack of sauce to this sandwich. Creamy, salty, and umami rich, it is a chicken cheesesteak done right.

The Italian Rueben was another stunner. House brisket with sweet and sour kraut, caper mayo, and Swiss on rye. Not for the faint of heart.

Look at those lovely layers. This is sandwich poetry in motion. At this point I have eaten my way around the menu, and you will not go wrong.

The Honey Paw

78 Middle Street
Portland, ME 04101
(207) 774-8538
Website

On a recent trip to Maine, I had some of the most innovative and delicious Asian style food I can remember. It made me long for a Honey Paw in Philly. Alas, I will have to head back up north to get my fix.

A small but bright and airy corner space. with loads of windows, it was inviting and though parked next door to the famous Eventide Oyster Company, the food here made it a destination on its own.

The scallion pancakes were first, deep fried to a perfectly airy, crunchy, light, salty miracle. These were hands down the best I have had, and I have eaten quite a few.

Look at the texture on these. I am drooling thinking about them.

In keeping with my carb-tastic snack course, I had some fry bread with Thai butter. My god. I don't remember having a better fry bread either. Again, the texture and airy pockets of dough were perfection. Sliced hot peppers and chives, with the rich butter just made this one for the books.

The kimchi. I mean, it's kimchi. It's always pretty good. Like pizza. But this kimchi was again, everything it should be. Spicy. Tart. Crunchy. I would have bought this in a five gallon jar if offered, and likely eaten it before getting back to the car. Can you die from eating 18.9271 liters of kimchi? I am certainly willing to try.

Next? Oh just an AGED BEEF CORN DOG. Did I mention I like sauces? Meat? Food on a stick? Fried meat on a stick covered in sauce? Be still my (slowing) heart.

The slight funk of the aged beef let you know it was there, unlike most corndogs where you taste breading and only breading.

If you are familiar with Dan Dan Noodles, do I have a dish for you. Look at the balance on this.

ALMOST too good to eat.

Bok choy, with ground pork, noodles, nuts, and scallions. Spicy, rich and satisfying.

Starting to slow down, but no where near the finish line, I moved on to the fried chicken sandwich. Can we also take a moment to admire the house made chips? They are sprinkled with some sort of heavenly dust (peanut dust?). Stuffed in this roll was napa kimchi, iceberg, mayonnaise, AND american cheese. I love the play on po'boys.

Perfectly fried, on a great slightly crusty roll, with more kimchi. Yes please.

I obviously had to sample the banh mi, right? Sporting chicken liver mousse, fish sauce caramel, cucumber, jalapeño, pickles, cilantro and served on another of these perfect rolls. Maine sure does know bread.

Last but hardly least. I had to sample the house made noodles. Here is the mushroom udon, with miso, bok choy, togarashi oil, and tempura crunch. The ability to control your crunch with the side of tempura was key. Otherwise you would be eating soggy tempura.

The smooth warming miso broth was packed with umami, and filled with earthy mushrooms. Soul soothing indeed.

The bar was also no slouch, and a couple of fancy cocktails never hurts to punctuate the meal.

Shiprock Pop-up

Navajo Frybread Tacos
At Garage on Passyunk
March 17th 2014

After the success of last year's frybread pop-up at 12 Steps Down, the proprietors of Shiprock and famous Philadelphian & food illustrator Hawk Krall (see hoagie drawing at right) brought it all back to Garage for a second run.

Shiprock is made up of two masterminds (seen below): Marcos Espinoza and Lucio Palazzo. Marcos is a blogger over at Fidel Gastro and Lucio is the chef at Taqueria Feliz in Manayunk (formerly of La Calaca Feliz on Fairmount). And that's pretty much all I know.

Well, that and that Hawk is pretty much the coolest illustrator I know.

Garage has a little cart inside that can be used by food industry folks, by request, to sell their munchables to nearby drunks, like myself. This is the first time I'd seen it in use.

This night they were offering a twist on the traditional fry bread taco by throwing some chili dog action in the mix. No doubt this was influenced by Mr. Krall. The other recommendation came from all three of the purveyors and it was to try the goat birra. This was a no brainer, so I put the order in.

Hot and fresh from the fryer. (the bread is all Marcos)

The tacos are made with love, each one assembled carefully at the hand of Lucio.

The goat meat looked mouthwateringly delicious and I couldn't wait to dig in.

They hooked me up with a little extra jus, so there was no way to pick this one up with my hands. This slopfest called for a knife and fork. The goat meat was tender and juicy, with a mild spice and more of a beefy flavor. It didn't really taste like goat or lamb. It could have been some beef short rib for all I knew. Whatever it was, it was the most delicious component I had that evening.

There was a lot going on with the toppings, a bit too much at once and it was hard to discern one ingredient from another. The fry bread got soggy from all that delicious jus, which was fine with me. It just didn't have much flavor of its own.

Next up was the hot dog. This was more easily handled as a taco, I could pick it up without fear of it falling apart.

Here again, lots of ingredients, but little in the flavor department. A pretty big meh on the hot dog all around.

All in all, I love the idea of the Navajo fry bread taco, but I also love the idea of a more flavorful vessel. Think funnel cake without the sweet and with little salt to steer it the other direction. Here's to hoping the next Shiprock pop-up packs a flavor punch to match their colorful and attention-grabbing illustrations.