Filling stomachs, hearts, and minds in a Philadelphia community kitchen.
38 5 Lessons from the People's Kitchen
The Sandwich that Never Spoils
Don't yuck four generations' worth of yum.
20 1 6
Rahim the (American) Dream
One man's halal, Penn culture, and how the "taste of home" resonates with all walks of life.
The ABCs of Cooking
Edible alphabet at Parkway Central Library serves up English lessons with a side of home–cooked lunch.
24 From Pop–Ups to Permanence, Amy's Pastellilos has Touched Ground in Fishtown
A new location that's defnitively pink, punchy, and Puerto Rican.
44
48 Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, & Ink
Tattoo culture is the secret ingredient to Philadelphia's vibrant culinary scene.
Compete, Adapt, Survive: The Decline of Food Network
With the advent of short–form sensationalist food content, are traditional channels cooked?
where ethiopia and eritRea meet west philly W
How the Eri-Ethiopian community is cooking towards home
ON THE COVER
Food is a universal language, where favors, textures, and aromas weave stories of culture, tradition, and emotion. Each dish becomes a canvas, painting memories and unspoken connections between people.
By Jean Park
Home is where the heart(h) is
I’m a born food lover. My most cherished memories revolve around the kitchen: sweating over sauce pots in my grandparents’ kitchen and watching my father crack oysters over a sink. Flakey, briny fish and raisins at Christmas, savory yi mein at birthdays. But for all my ardor for food, I’m a tragic cook.
I’ve bungled chocolate chip cookies and stir fry, and, on one occasion, I was told my instant ramen was inedible. Cooking requires patience, passion, and a bit of natural luck that seems to have missed me in the gene pool. But it also requires time. And what do we Penn students have less of than the free time and space needed to make a good meal?
Cramped kitchens, tightly packed Google Calendars, constant racing from one commitment to the next: Getting all of my friends in one room for a meal can be a tough—if not impossible—task. But whether we’re taking the time to sit down at a restaurant or messing around in the kitchen ourselves, cooking and eating together produce incredible transformations in the people around us.
Jokes get funnier, eyes get warmer, laughs get longer. That special, perfect ability of good food to produce good times and good memories requires deliberate time to be set aside. Our lives are busy, intensely scheduled, and not built around meals. I’d bet that most people on this campus eat more for fuel than for pleasure.
So, in defiance of these campus norms, Street’s issue this month is dedicated to celebrating all the pleasures of a meal and the time needed for them: the time to sit down and eat, the time to cook for yourself or for loved ones, and the time to think and write about food. Writing about food is also writing about a place—and this issue is a love letter to Philadelphia’s increasingly exciting culinary landscape.
Each fall, when this dining guide comes together, it’s a time to reflect on the sustenance we derive from food—yes, the physical sustenance it provides— but also the life it gives to culture and community by providing us a reason to gather. In honor of the communities we cultivate around food cultures, this year’s dining guide is titled “Home Is Where the Hearth Is.” Whether we are remembering family recipes passed down through
generations or highlighting the enclave of Ethiopian restaurants in West Philly, this theme aims to capture the indescribable feeling of belonging and comfort that can be derived from the warmth of the hearth.
From profiles on rising restauranteur stars to fresh takes on old classics, our writers searched for the best spots for the Penn student—and then turned around to write about Penn’s own talented student chefs.
And while we’ve been putting together this issue, something the late, great Anthony Bourdain said about cooking for others has been turning over and over in my mind. “It is only right and appropriate,” he muses, “that before one sleeps with someone, one should be able—if called upon to do so—to make them a proper omelet in the morning. Surely, that kind of civility and selflessness would be both good manners and good for the world.”
Reader, if this issue does one thing, I hope it inspires you to take the time and learn to make breakfast—an omelet or not—for the person in your life who’s still around in the morning.
Diemmy Dang, Eva Lititskaia, Jack Lamey, Jasminda Madrid, Kate Hiewon Ahn, Kayley Kang, Lila DuBois, Logan Yuhas, Priyanka Agarwal, Sadie Daniel, Sameera Singh, Will Kelly, Maddy Brunson, Caitlyn Iaccino
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Land on which the office of The Daily Pennsylvanian stands is a part of the homeland and territory of the Lenni-Lenape people. We affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold the DP and the University of Pennsylvania more accountable to the needs of Indigenous people.
The Land on which the office of The Daily Pennsylvanian stands is a part of the homeland and territory of the Lenni-Lenape people. We affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold the DP and the University of Pennsylvania more accountable to the needs of Indigenous people.
CONTACTING 34 th STREET MAGAZINE
CONTACTING 34 th STREET MAGAZINE
If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Walden Green, Editor–in–Chief, at green@34st.com You can also call us at (215) 422–4640.
If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Natalia Castillo, Editor–in–Chief, at castillo@34st.com You can also call us at (215) 422–4640.
When your hair is in messy pigtails and your dad tells you that you can’t have the candy at checkout, you think it’s because he hates you. While you pout, he tells the cashier to put the deli meat back. “Not this week,” he says. The cashier nods his head and takes the ham away. “Cпасибо,” your dad mumbles. “Пожалуйста,” the cashier replies. The cashier gives you a sticker on the way out. “Pink for Maddy,” he says.
You hold your dad’s hand on the way back to his pickup. The paint is chipping and the air conditioning is broken—not the best ailments for a truck during the peak of Texas summer. His truck is a two seater, so you have no choice but to sit in the front seat.
Your dad says you’re mature for your age and can pass for ten years old. Your head is out the window, and your eyes are watching the passing cows in the pastures. They munch on the dead grass and flick their tails to ward off the flies. He asks you what you want for lunch. You say “PB&J.” He says “PML,” because the peanut butter is easier to spread with mayonnaise and the lettuce is going bad in the fridge. You think he must double hate you today.
You sit on the couch, holding your stuffed animals close and your blankie closer. Your dad is busy putting groceries away, throwing them all in the cabinets. You wait and watch cartoons—the same ones he watched. Sometimes, he watches them with you. You glance over at the kitchen counter to see the bags are gone and him standing over the cutting board. “I’m getting your sandwich now, Doodly.” You say thank you and watch him walk to the pantry. He takes his peanut butter off the shelf.
The peanut butter he makes is better than anything the grocery store has. He buys the
peanuts by the pound and scoops them into little plastic bags; he keeps them wrapped up at the top of the pantry. Above the stove, he stores his peanut oil and honey. Once a week, he gathers his ingredients and adds them to the blender. The blender shakes, grinding the bits together. He blends it just enough so some peanut chunks are left. He likes it smooth, but your mom likes it chunky. He has a secret ingredient, which he jokes is boogers. You giggle and wonder what it really is.
He is insistent on the fact white bread doesn’t belong in your household. Wheat bread is the one thing that is guaranteed to stay in the grocery cart. He takes the bread bag out of the fridge. The butt of the loaf and one regular slice remains … oh well. He toasts the bread. He remembered that’s how you like the bread this time. He bobs his head to the sound of “How Soon Is Now?” by The Smiths coming from the speakers he got from his uncle. They’re rickety and old, but you can hear the sound of Morrissey’s voice bouncing from wall to wall. The toaster pops and the bread is crisp. He tells you the toaster has survived ten years of marriage, and that they don’t make them like they used to.
He grabs lettuce and mayonnaise from the fridge. The mayo is never name brand. It’s all the same stuff anyways. He puts the bread on the chopping block. He spreads the mayo on the butt, then his peanut butter. The combination smooths over the bread, rolling in a wave of brown with crests of white. He plucks a piece of lettuce off the head and smashes it into the peanut butter and mayo. The toast becomes a sandwich, and lunch is ready.
You slump off the couch to walk to the kitchen table. The head of the table is your spot. He puts the sandwich on a Barbie plate
stained with sandwiches and baked potatoes past. You’ve never owned Barbies, but you own this plate. He cuts the sandwich vertically in front of you and then reveals an apple from his pocket. He cuts the apple into jagged slices. The slices fall onto your plate. He gives you six slices, and he keeps the rest for himself.
You eat your sandwich slowly. One bite in between each episode of Tom and Jerry … there’s no rush. It just tastes like sour peanut butter with a satisfying crunch. The lettuce is there for texture only. The sticky peanut butter mortars the soft lettuce to the roof of your mouth. It makes you clunk and clack your tongue as you chew. You’re full by the time you finish, but you have plenty of room for the apple–slice treats still left on your plate. You crunch on the slices. Fruit is like candy if you really think about it, so maybe you didn’t need the candy at checkout anyway.
As you age, you ask your dad where he came up with this sandwich. He tells you it was your mother’s childhood sandwich, but it was originally her mother’s. Your grandma grew up in Wisconsin with a single mother. Food on the table was a privilege when there were hungry tummies and empty pockets. So, her mother looked to creative combinations to put food on the table. On occasion, Wisconsin–sharp–cheddar cheese would find its way in front of your grandmother, sprin-
kled into her PML—a big splurge from her mother, a special treat for her daughter, a small piece of your family you still indulge in. Your mother bounced from Air Force base to Air Force base as a child. Your mother tells you her parents never told her when their checkbook wasn’t balanced. But she did notice the months where all that was in her lunchbox was a PML and pretzels. You’ve watched her pack them now in her Yeti lunch box for work with a Thermos of chicken noodle soup. Your grandma brings the chicken noodle soup specifically from the local commissary just for her daughter as a treat. She likes to dip her PML in her soup, and she doesn’t like to put cheddar cheese in it.
The PML is an established member of your family. Everyone talks fondly of the PML, never disgracing its arguably funny smell or mushy components. It’s been to your tournaments, camps, and orchestra concerts. Every time, you defended it from onlookers’ vicious attacks in between bites. It sounds so wrong to others, but it tastes so right to you. Tonight, it’s what you have for dinner in your dorm. The oil seeps into the paper towel below it. Your mom shipped your dad’s peanut butter from home since you’ve had a rough week, a surprise treat for your troubles. You eat the first bite. You smile as you remember your dad telling you that you had a very hungry tummy growing up. You’re full. k
Hometown
Allen, Texas
Major
Operations, Information, and Decisions
Activities
every now & then, Bell Senior Society, Sigma Eta Pi, Penn Spark
For Ethan Zhao (W ‘25), the value of cooking is in bringing people together and creating dishes that everyone can enjoy. After experiencing the high–pressure environment of the restaurant industry during his gap year, Ethan wondered how he could experiment with new culinary ideas and gather Penn students around a table—without the stress of running a full–time restaurant. Along with a group of talented chef friends, Ethan founded ‘every now & then,’ a pop–up dinner party concept aimed at delivering a top–tier yet accessible dining experience to college students. As the name suggests, Ethan and his team host their themed dinner parties every now and then, curating seven–course menus inspired by personal experiences and culinary backgrounds. After weeks of preparation, each event culminates in an intimate 12–person dinner, uniting complete strangers for a truly memorable and delicious dining experience.
Can you tell me a little bit about your cooking origin story?
In Texas, I grew up eating from this Taiwanese beef noodle restaurant called Bull Daddy Noodle Bistro and always noticed they had these “We're Hiring” signs. While I didn’t have the time in high school, I took a gap year before coming to Penn and ended up working at the restaurant. I did mostly front–of–house and expo side, which includes interacting with customers and putting the final touches on plating dishes and serving drinks. A lot of
EOTM
Ethan Zhao
This senior is elevating college dining and connecting students across campus through his gourmet pop-up dinner party concept ‘every now & then.’
BY SOPHIE BARKAN
Photos by Jean Park
it wasn't super kitchen–oriented, but I had a lot of fun. Next, I worked at Chick–fil–A, which was a very different experience. Everything is counted down to the second, and instead of a team of three people taking care of everything, there's 30 people in the back working together like a machine. Finally, after Chick–fil–A I worked at a farmer's market.
I actually didn’t cook a lot growing up at home. I love to eat and would usually eat whatever my parents served me. I would always ask questions and watch them cook, but I was mostly doing dishes and other side tasks for them. After my gap year, however, I was cooking quite a bit. For me, the value of cooking is really about bringing people together and building all kinds of menus. I don't cook as much for myself, but during junior year, I started cooking for a lot of dinner parties. I was finally living off campus, so I'd invite friends over and build menus consisting of recipes and ingredients that I’d worked with before.
What inspired you to create your dinner party concept every now & then? How did you form the team?
I wanted to create a pop–up in college because, during my gap year working at different restaurants, I saw how much pressure and stress the restaurant industry is under. As a restaurant owner, you're worried about so many different things; food becomes a small fraction of your concern. I wanted to be able to build different kinds of menus and really experiment with dishes without constantly worrying, “are we going to be profitable today? Can we stay open?” There are also a lot of different pop–ups happening at different universities now. I talked to some people at MIT and the University of Michigan who were very helpful in explaining how to approach starting a pop–up restaurant.
In my junior year, I reached out to some friends that I knew had worked at various restaurants and asked them if they’d be interested in this concept, and that’s how I assembled the team. Melody was a friend from freshman year, and I heard that she had done the Gourmand fellowship, worked at Fork, and had a lot of experience with cooking. She brought along her friend Sienna who is also a
very talented cook and baker. She also did the Gourmand fellowship and worked at Vernick Food & Drink and Republique in L.A. I also reached out to my friends Grace and Luna from Spark, a tech and design club, who are now killing it on the design, decor, and marketing side of every now & then. The whole team is so talented, and this would be impossible without them.
How did you come up with the name every now & then?
We were deciding between two names: "fat baby" and "every now & then." We thought "fat baby" was a more contemporary, abstract name, but I think for obvious reasons, we ended up not going with it. Every now & then is essentially a pop–up—we're up every now and then. So it made a lot of sense for us to go with that name.
Can you describe the process of planning and executing a pop–up dinner party? Where do you cook the food? How do you spread the word?
Our usual pop–up event is a dinner that we plan over a three–week cycle. Typically, we’re coming off another event—our last event was a modern take on Asian cuisine—so we have one week to kind of relax and take a break. But during that week, we're meeting to debrief the previous event and think about how we can change. We also begin planning for the next dinner party. We have a rotating head chef system between Sienna, Melody, and [me]. The head chef is in charge of coming up with the theme ahead of time and possible dish ideas. During that first week, whoever is the head chef will present their idea, and then we all get onto a whiteboard and start putting down ideas for different courses or ingredients we
want to incorporate. We usually create a six–to seven–course menu.
During the second week and the first half of the third week, the three of us get together to R&D all of our dishes and see how they turn out. We're all seniors, so we have our own kitchens to experiment with the dishes. Once we're happy with the dishes, or once we've decided to kind of revamp the menu, we do a lot of grocery runs and also purchase any special plating, tableware, or decor. That's when it all comes together. The day or two days before is when we'll start prepping, which is done in a lot of different places. We try to prepare as much as possible, that way, through dinner service, we can be very quick between our dishes and have no downtime.
We usually host our dinner parties at Sienna's home. She has a very big table where we can seat 12 people pretty comfortably. Through the morning, up until the evening, we're finishing up prep, cooking, and setting up. At the end, our final product is a 12–person dinner, where the decor is matched to the overall theme of the dinner. We're bringing together the 12 people through a lottery system, so most of the time, they're complete strangers to each other. During the dinner, we serve our dishes and focus on delivering this top dining experience that's still accessible for college students. We spread the word about our events by word of mouth and through Instagram (follow us @everynowthenn)!
What is your favorite memory from every now & then?
My favorite memory has to be the first dinner that we pulled off because I had spent an entire semester planning and thinking through every little detail. Seeing it all come together at the first dinner was amazing. We also have this little guest book where people write notes for us. At the end of the night, reading through that guest book and seeing everybody's comments, I realized why serving other people is one of the highest callings in life—it’s just really, really satisfying.
What does it mean to you to cook for others?
The thing I love about food is everybody
has their own experiences with food, and most of them are very positive. What food means to me is sitting down with my family at the dinner table and just having time to talk to everyone. In that sense, it's kind of a medium and excuse to interact with other people, sit down at the end of the day, and have good food. Food is something that everybody appreciates, and because we always eat it, everybody has an opinion and individual tastes. When you're able to serve people, you're able to bring them together and create something everyone enjoys. That is one of my favorite things.
What’s next for you after Penn? Do you see yourself pursuing a career or future in culinary arts?
Next year, I'm going to be working in New York at a climate tech startup doing software. I don’t see myself working formally in the restaurant business, but after I graduate, when most people do a senior trip, I think I want to stage at a fancy restaurant and just learn a lot more. Depending on what friends show up in New York, or who I meet, I want to keep at least something that resembles ev-
ery now & then, and continue hosting dinner parties and creating these menus.
Aside from cooking, what are some of your favorite things to do in your free time?
I started running pretty recently, and I'm training for the half marathon in November. I'm also really into physical fabrication. I took product design and started making a lot of physical trinkets through laser cutting and 3D printing. Most of all, spending time with friends is my favorite thing to do.
What’s next for you after Penn? Do you see yourself pursuing a career or future in culinary arts?
Next year, I'm going to be working in New York at a climate tech startup doing software. I don’t see myself working formally in the restaurant business, but after I graduate, when most people do a senior trip, I think I want to stage at a fancy restaurant and just learn a lot more. Depending on what friends show up in New York, or who I meet, I want to keep at least something that resembles every now & then, and continue hosting dinner parties and creating these menus. ❋
No–skip song? "Phone Numbers" by Dominic Fike
Favorite spot for food in Philly?
Hardena. It's Indonesian food and a family–run business.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? Singapore.
Dream chef collaboration?
Lucas Sin; he ran restaurant pop-ups at Yale and now he’s a food influencer.
There are two types of people at Penn… The people that have won Quizzos at Smokes and the people that have not.
And you are?
I have not yet won.
Where Ethiopia and Eritrea Meet West Philly
How
the Eri-Ethiopean community is cooking towards home.
BY KATE RATNER
Photo by Isa Merriam
If you live west of the Schuylkill River, you’ve (hopefully) heard of Abyssinia, the Ethiopian restaurant on 45th and Walnut streets. In 1983, Red Sea, named after the Indian Ocean inlet separating Eritrea from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, became the first Eri–Ethiopian restaurant to exist in Philadelphia. Twenty years later, Ethiopian immigrant Tedla Abraham took over the restaurant with his former business partner. Since renaming the restaurant and replacing the windows and floors in 1995, Abraham has been serving up farm–to–table Ethiopian dishes, paying homage to the country, people, and food that raised him.
Abraham’s decision to move to Philly and eventually own Abyssinia did not happen by chance. In the late 1970s and '80s, West Philly witnessed a diaspora of Ethiopian and modern–day Eritrean immigrants following the 1974 Ethiopian coup d’état. On Sept. 12, 1974, Ethiopian military junta overthrew the Ethiopian Empire and Emperor Haile Selassie, establishing Ethiopia as a Marxist–Leninist state. This moment of political strife, famine, and war led to a mass immigration of Eri–Ethiopian people to the United States—thousands of miles away from home, finding comfort in each other, elaborate holiday celebrations, and plates of injera dipped in their favorite stews.
In 2024, the Eri–Ethiopian community in West Philly is stronger than ever, lining Baltimore Avenue with bars and restaurants for
Philadelphian creatives, activists, and lovers of delicious food alike to enjoy.
I begin my journey of West Philly Ethiopian food history at Doro Bet, one of the more recent additions to the Eri–Ethiopian enclave. Doro Bet, Amharic for “chicken house,” is one of three Ethiopian restaurants, including Alif Brew & Mini Mart and Salam Cafe, owned by sisters Hayat Ali and Mebruka Kane. With my favorite Alif iced chai in tow, I open the door of Doro Bet to the inviting aroma of awaze chicken. Kane comes to greet me, dressed in all–black pants and apron. “I just have to finish baking something,” she says, retreating back to the kitchen. I have no problem waiting. I flip through a few issues of StarChefs magazine, stacked on a table beside me. Four songs play while I wait: “Migibima Moltual” and “Embuwa Bey Lamitu” by Hailu Mergia and Dahlak Band, “Tezeta” by Mulatu Astatke, and “Song Of Abayi” by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru. They give me a moment to rhythmically tap my feet and admire the map of Ethiopian capital city Addis Ababa plastered on the wall. Later, Kane tells me she shuffles a 1970s Ethiopian jazz playlist on Spotify to remind her of home.
When Kane returns, we sit across from each other in the empty dining room. Customers tend to take out from Doro Bet, and it’s a Sunday morning. She immediately begins to share about her childhood in Addis Ababa. Her mother taught her and her sib-
lings how to cook at an early age. “I remember being as young as ten or 11 and learning how to disassemble chicken because we slaughtered it in the house,” she says. “Even the boys knew how to cook.”
While she has been spending time in the kitchen for as long as she can remember, Kane didn’t grow up with dreams of being a chef or owning a restaurant. After she graduated from high school in Ethiopia, Kane moved around Europe and West Africa working as a travel agent. It wasn’t until her sister started a family in the U.S. that Kane considered moving here too. “I came here to visit [Hayat Ali] when she had her first child 19 years ago,” she says. “I went back,
and I was like, ‘Ah, this can be fine. I don’t need to be that close.’ And then she had another baby.”
When Kane moved to the U.S., being a travel agent was no longer an option. A friend she met in France knew the owners of Brasserie Perrier, an upscale French restaurant in Rittenhouse Square. They offered Kane a job working front–of–house. Originally, the position was merely meant to try out the restaurant industry while she searched for stability in Philly. But when Brasserie Perrier closed in 2009, Kane found another restaurant job, this time at Davio’s, where she met her now–husband Brian. All the while, Kane hosted frequent parties
for her friends in Philly. Most notably, she used her annual Ethiopian Friendsgiving to boast the traditional dishes she had spent years perfecting.
In 2020, Kane was given an opportunity she could not pass up. “When [Ali] wants to do something, she just does it. It was the pandemic, and we were all bored. She saw a sign [on 45th and Baltimore] for a lease. She took it, and was like ‘Well, I did it. It’s now or never.’” That empty storefront on the corner became Alif, the first Ethiopian restaurant of the Ali family. Ali and Kane opened Salam Cafe in Germantown in 2021 and Doro Bet on Baltimore Avenue in 2022. This past February, just two years after opening, Doro Bet
was voted one of USA Today's Restaurants of the Year.
When I refer to Doro Bet fried chicken as “Ethiopian fried chicken,” Kane reminds me that “Fried chicken is not an Ethiopian thing.” When Kane’s young children, born and raised in the U.S., asked for Chick–fil–A at home, she got to work on her own Ethiopian version. Using gluten–free teff flour and buttermilk batter seasoned with Ethiopian spices, Doro Bet fried chicken was born. At Doro Bet, chicken lovers can choose to order a chicken sandwich, half order, or whole order with alicha (mild) or awaze (spicy) seasoning. Non–meat eaters can opt for teff flour fried mushrooms and a side of
mac–n–cheese, collard greens, or fries. Kane always suggests awaze chicken with fries. “I just like potatoes,” she laughs. “You can give them to me in any form, and I’ll eat them.”
Before Alif, the Eri–Ethiopian restaurants in West Philly were very “old–school.” Alif and Doro Bet serve as fast and accessible spots to eat delicious Ethiopian food. “I’m not gonna lie, we were like ‘I don’t know how the Ethiopian community will feel about this,’” Kane says. “But, I think the whole thing for any immigrant is seeing that you’re represented and you know [that you’re] going somewhere that feels like home.”
The Eri–Ethiopian restaurant community agrees with Kane. Just down the street, I visit Dahlak on 47th Street and Baltimore Avenue to meet the general manager, Ephream Amare Seyoum, who also happens to be Kane’s nephew. Unlike Ali and Kane, however, Seyoum’s family has always stuck to
the basics. But, their common dedication to sharing bites of home with their community remains the priority.
Seyoum’s parents Neghisti Ghebrehiwot and Amare Solomon both grew up in Eritrea, immigrated to Pennsylvania, and reconnected, by chance, in West Philly in their 20s. Ghebrehiwot dropped out of college to open Dahlak—named after the Eritrean island group—with her sister in 1984. Meanwhile, Solomon worked odd jobs to establish himself in the city and bring family members from Eritrea to the U.S. amid Eri–Ethiopian border war conflicts.
At Dahlak, Seyoum’s parents made the perfect pair. Ghebrehiwot handled the cooking and Solomon handled the marketing. After working in catering at Penn, Solomon was intent on welcoming students into their Eritrean paradise. “He got excited, and he created a relationship with a lot of Penn
students and people from the neighborhood,” Seyoum says. “He made people feel comfortable to come around this way back when people were afraid to come around this way.”
Stepping into Dahlak is like entering a different dimension. I’m warmly embraced by Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, photographs of a young Ghebrehiwot, and vibrant artwork celebrating Eritrean coffee ceremonies.
Since the ‘80s, Dahlak has served as a safe space for the West Philly community. At the host’s table, I meet Meenakshi Thirumurti, a part–time student at Bryn Mawr College who despite having only worked at the restaurant for four months, has found solace in Dahlak’s inviting atmosphere. “When I’m opening, I genuinely don’t feel any resentment about cleaning. I don’t even care if others are cleaning less,” she says, showing me to the bar. “All of those feelings that in-
toxicate people in the restaurant industry don’t exist for me here.”
Dahlak is not your average bar and restaurant, offering evening plans for most days of the week. From open mic nights and jazz quartet performances, to Latin club nights and “protest parties,” the Dahlak calendar is always booked with opportunities for people to gather.
“Dahlak is one of those places that’s just this community hub,” says Thirumurti. “You can go outside [on the outdoor patio], you can smoke hookah, you can be shaking ass at the bar, you can watch someone else dancing beautifully and unashamedly and unabashedly.”
In 2005, everything changed for Seyoum, his family, and their beloved restaurant. During his last year of high school, his father Solomon passed away. As the eldest of three, he felt an obligation to take over the
family business. With the help of his mother and his uncle Berekep Solomon, Seyoum expanded the space and invested in the future of Dahlak. As the first college graduate in his family, Seyoum applied the organizational and managerial skills from the classroom to his restaurant.
Today, Seyoum’s mother is still very involved at Dahlak and in “making sure that people get an idea of what an authentic version of [Ethiopian] food is like.” In addition to Ghebrehiwot’s classic dishes, Dahlak serves up Eri–Ethiopian spins on American dishes like their family down the street. After 9 p.m., bar–goers can order berbere–spiced cheesesteaks and vegan chopped cheese sandwiches prepared like kitfo, an Ethiopian dish of minced raw beef marinated in mimita and niter kibbeh.
Despite their differences in language and politics, Eritrean and Ethiopian culture are virtually the same. Though Eritrean people were considered to be Ethiopian 30 years ago, Seyoum shares his experience as an Eritrean who manages an Ethiopian restaurant. “It’s nice for us to try to show the distinction,” he says. “We want to make people aware of the fact that Eritrea is an independent country. People have fought for our freedom to be Eritrean, and there’s a lot of pride in that.”
Eritrea achieved its independence in 1991, but Seyoum promises that there’s “no beef” between Eritreans and Ethiopians, especially on Baltimore Avenue. “We still have family that are considered Ethiopian,” he says. “Those are our roots.”
In between Alif and Dahlak lies Queen of Sheba, named after the mysterious biblical monarch. Unlike Doro Bet and Dahlak, Queen of Sheba lacks natural light. It is much more reminiscent of your average American sports bar. Even at 1 a.m., Queen of Sheba is alive, with a few full tables in the dining room and regulars sipping Miller Lites over Sunday football.
Queen of Sheba has lived in West Philly for decades. According to their website, Queen of Sheba is a “family owned and operated business in the heart of University City.” While I can’t track down owners Manny and Genet, I find the next best thing.
Andy Kissinger is out front smoking a cigarette, hunched over in a plastic foldable chair. Despite having been standing at the bar for less than ten minutes, I feel like I’m leaving a movie theater when I step outside to meet him.
Like my conversation with Kane, I pull over a chair to sit across from Kissinger. When I ask him how long he’s worked at Queen of Sheba, he responds, “I don’t work here. I would never work here.” He pauses. “This is my church,” he says.
When I ask him to elaborate, he says, “This is a place where people come together. People from all stripes, people from all colors, people from all creeds. This is a gathering point.”
Queen of Sheba has been Kissinger’s place of worship since 2008, a chaotic time for the international economy … and Berks County–bred food service workers. Kissinger shares that he grew up Pennsylvania Dutch and is the “first man in [his] family in over 250 years who speaks English as the first language.” While he’s worked at bars and restaurants around Greater Philadelphia, Queen of Sheba remains a constant. His go–to order is a Citywide vodka soda and gored gored, another raw cubed beef dish.
Our conversation comes to an abrupt close when Kissinger steps away to pick up a cardboard McDonald’s french fry container. He throws it in the dumpster next to Queen of Sheba, ensuring he protects his church. It is Sunday, after all.
My Baltimore stroll only scratched the surface of the Eri–Ethiopian enclave in West Philly. I spent hours in restaurants that are much more than places to have a meal; they hold community, power, pride, and, most importantly, a culture that accepts everybody with open arms. When I had to move on to my next destination, I wasn’t quite ready for my conversations to be over. I promised Jennifer, the bartender at Queen of Sheba, that I would come back soon for a drink.
On my way back to campus, I stopped by Clark Park to visit the bench donning Amare Solomon’s name, a testament to his legacy and the life he brought to West Philadelphia. I take a moment to quietly thank him. k
Wonder Foods is a Symbol of Ukrainian Resistance
Wonder Foods shines a light on one of Philadelphia's most vulnerable communities.
BY FIONA HERZOG
Photo Courtesy of Wonder Foods
The first words Oksana Lyakh says to me, pride glimmering in her eyes, are, “Wonder Foods is the best Ukrainian grocery store in the United States.”
Nestled in the outskirts of Philadelphia, Wonder Foods has become a cherished sanctuary for those who have traveled nearly 6,000 miles from home. In the shadow of the ongoing war in Ukraine, this specialty Ukrainian grocery store has transformed far beyond just a store—it’s become a beacon of hope and a haven for those displaced by the conflict. For Lyakh and countless other refugees like her, Wonder Foods offers not just a taste of home, but a pre-
cious sense of comfort, understanding, and community amidst uncertainty and upheaval in their new lives.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, millions of Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes, escaping a war that has torn apart families, homes, and upheaved entire cities. For those lucky enough to find refuge abroad, the trauma of displacement is profound. Families who once led peaceful, stable lives have been uprooted, separated, and thrust into new worlds—often with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. In these circumstances, the need for a community and a sense of belonging becomes even more crucial, especially in an unfamiliar land. This is the context in which Wonder Foods has become a beacon for the Ukrainian diaspora in Philadelphia.
For Lyakh, a mother of three who fled Ukraine to protect her children from the horrors of war, Wonder Foods became an anchor in a time of upheaval. "When we arrived, everything was new—language, customs, food. It was overwhelming," Lyakh recalls, voice wavering with emotion. "But coming here, to this store, it was like finding a piece of our homeland. The food, the people—it helped us feel less lost."
Lyakh’s journey to Wonder Foods began through word of mouth, as many others had discovered the store before her. It wasn't just the familiar flavors of home that drew her in; it was the warmth and solidarity of the owners and customers. "It was always about more than just groceries," she says. "It was about finding people who understand, who share the same experiences. We were all in the same boat, trying to figure out how to start over."
The store serves as a crucial connection to the broader community for many refugees. "When new people come in, they're often confused, not sure where to start," Lyakh says. "But here, they find a friendly face, someone who understands what they're going through. We’re a bridge between their old life and their new one."
The aisles of Wonder Foods are lined with familiar Ukrainian grocery staples. The freshly made kovbasa, varenyky, and pies are irresistibly inviting, their rich aromas enhanced by fragrant dill, smoky paprika, and a hint of garlic, promising a delicious reminder of comfort. But more than just food, the store represents
resilience and unity. "We help each other with everything," Lyakh explains. "Paperwork, finding schools for the children, jobs—it's like we're all part of one big family, helping each other through this new life."
Thanks to the support at Wonder Foods, Lyakh quickly found her place in Philadelphia. She secured employment at the store and worked diligently to become a ServSafe–certified manager. "Here, I am not just surviving. I am rebuilding my life," she says with a sense of pride. "I am stronger now because I have to be. My children are safe, and that is what matters."
Wonder Foods also extends its support to the Ukrainian community beyond Philadelphia, donating to charities that aid those still in Ukraine. Despite the store's limited resources, the staff’s commitment is unwavering. "We’re not a big store," Lyakh admits. "But this is what we can do now. We all didn’t have much and know what it is like to rebuild our lives. We understand all this, and we want to help other refugees.”
Wonder Foods stands as a testament to the power of community, showing that even in the face of immense loss and displacement, people can find strength in one another and find sources of power within themselves. "In Ukraine, I was a housewife, raising my chil-
dren,” Lyakh says, reflecting on her journey. “Here, I am stronger, more determined. The war has changed everything, but it has also shown us how much we can endure. We will rebuild our lives here, and we will never forget where we came from.”
With safety in America, Lyakh is confident in her goals and aspirations. Her sense of gratitude for the support her family has received is matched by a deep sense of responsibility to give back, not just to the Ukrainian community, but to the broader American society. "We have much gratitude for the people of the United
States who shelter and help us."
Lyakh works hard “to become an important part of society, not only for Ukrainians, not only for refugees” but for her found home in Pennsylvania and in the United States. “We understand that if they help us, we must help them."
The scars of war and determination to keep acting out of bravery fuels her. Lyakh softens and her lip quivers, before she inhales sharply and she remembers the loved ones lost to the conflict, including her uncle, a man whose bravery and resilience she holds close to her heart. "I lost my uncle in the war. He was one of the bravest men in this world. He always said, 'I am not so afraid as you are here at home. Be brave, because you are our walls. If you fall, we will fall. Please be brave.'"
As she journeys from housewife to manager, Lyakh exemplifies the resilience of the displaced Ukrainian diaspora. "We will rebuild our lives here, and we will never forget where we came from," she repeats. Her story, like so many others, is one of loss and survival, but also of hope and the power of community to heal and rebuild even after the darkest of times.
It is through the relentless efforts of those at Wonder Foods that the store has become the sanctuary it is today. “We don’t start our day with coffee like most people do. We start by reading the news, checking updates about the war," Lyakh shares, her voice breaking with emotion. "Then we move on with our day, but our hearts are always tied to Ukraine.”
Before saying goodbye, Lyakh wipes a tear and steels her breath.
“We are the spirit of our Motherland, the spirit of Ukraine."
The ABCs of Cooking
Edible Alphabet at Parkway Central Library serves up English lessons, with side of home–cooked lunch.
BY JULES LINGENFELTER
Photo Courtesy of the Parkway Central Library
At Iffy, Steve explores the beauty of hackinFour floors up in the Philadelphia Parkway Central Library and accessible via a golden elevator ride is a large, industrial–looking kitchen. Lengthy metal tables line the room, rows of ovens and a plethora of sinks dot any open space, and a white board decorated with the various names of ingredients and scraps of recipes nearly covers an entire wall. The kitchen is perhaps an unexpected feature if you’re used to the typical no–eating–or–drinking rules of a library. But the Parkway Central Library’s Culinary Literacy Center is the place to get messy with your food—it’s built for the mistakes that come with learning.
Celebrating its ten–year anniversary, the Culinary Literacy Center opened in 2014 with the hope of teaching culinary skills and building community. With a variety of programming, the center is welcoming anyone of any age, with any skill level. All is offered for free, as is the tradition of a library.
Edible Alphabet, one of the programs of the center, invites all English learners to cook a meal while practicing the language. The program was born out of partnership between the Culinary Literary Center and the Nationality Service Center, an organization aiding immigrants and refugees.
“It was a one–off class,” program manager Lindsay Southworth explains. “They brought in a group of women who were survivors of torture to do a cooking English program.” That one–off class, however, quickly proved to have great potential. “They found that the sort of peace and joy that people get in the kitchen—cooking stuff together and connecting together—was really helpful for the participants in learning English and also just feeling comfortable.”
Southworth came to the program six years ago, which has since grown from a single class to into its current iteration of an extensive program. Edible Alphabet is offered as a six–week course, with weekly three–hour classes held at the kitchen, as well as an 18–part, online series for those who can’t make it in person.
Every Thursday at 10:30 a.m., Philly residents across cultures with varying levels of cooking skills and experience with English step into the Culinary Literacy Center’s kitchen. They leave with bellies full of home–cooked lunch, a new foray into the English language, and the beginning connections of a new community.
On the morning of Sept. 5, I took the SEPTA to Parkway Center Library, rode the golden elevators to the fourth floor, and un-
successfully attempted to get into the kitchen—another student had to show me how to get in. Draped across each chair was a red or blue apron, and in front of each seat sat a thick white binder. We took our seats, filled out our name tags, and flipped through the pages of the binder. As 10:30 a.m. approached, more and more people trickled in. Some were greeted with excitement or knowingly glided to a clearly preferred spot. Others, like me, nervously stumbled to an open seat and stared wide–eyed at the open kitchen before us.
By the time class started, the room was nearly full with about 25 participants. This is the second class of this current
six–week series. Of those in the kitchen with me, Southworth tells me that “probably two–thirds are returning, and one–third are new.” There are others still that have been taking this class for more than the general six weeks, with one person even coming for the last four years.
The class is inherently built around meeting people and making connections, as both the English and cooking lessons involve group work: Communication is key. “The conversation is often the biggest hurdle, but also the most important one,” Southworth says.
In one exercise, I turn to my partner to discuss our favorite bread. We have a bit of
trouble understanding each other, as we’re both new to the class. I show her a photo of sourdough bread—my own favorite—and she nods, explaining that she always dislikes the thick crust. She talks of baking with her grandma and of bread with bruschetta. She, too, shows me a photo of her favorite bread— crostini, a crusty, thin breadstick.
Southworth leads the English instruction portion of class but works in tandem with a culinary chef to aid in cooking the meal. Today, we are making hummus and flatbread. Southworth describes the bread as thin and crispy. My partner nudges me. “Like Crostini,” she laughs. We learn various vocabulary about the ingredients, techniques, and tools
used in the recipe, and we are then grouped and set free to cook.
I separate one egg white from the yolk for our dough, and one of my group members hands me the other egg. She tells me I did it so well, and that we need another for the egg wash. She also grabs a bowl to store the separated egg white until the right moment. Another member asks about kneading. I attempt to show it with our sticky dough. “Ah,” he says as he understands, and he then demonstrates how to properly knead dough. I accidentally add too much water and the one person who notices playfully tsks at me but wordlessly adds extra flour, as if it’s our little secret.
“When they’re laughing and making mistakes and putting too much salt in the dough,” Southworth says, “it just helps to relax their mind and help them to be more receptive to language learning and take more risks with communication.”
We eat lunch together, trying our own creations but also sharing with others. One girl warns me that our flat bread is just okay: not good, not bad. The guy who helped me knead makes a so–so motion, as I take a bite. I tell him I think it turned out pretty good, all things considered, and we laugh. The food is far from perfect, but by the time lunch is over, there are no leftovers.
As I gather up my belongings and help clean our station, those I met wave goodbye. One person tells me they hope to see me next week. By now, everyone is aware that I’m here with journalistic intentions, but they don’t shy away from including me. I walked into class expecting to be a passive observer, and I left feeling welcomed into a new community.
“We have a lot of people who have immigrated here recently. Some people may have been here longer, but many people are still rebuilding their social networks,” Southworth explains. “Probably just as important as the language learning is the connection to having people feel welcome and included.” The community here is certainly palpable; it’s warm and homey.
And it extends beyond the reaches of the Parkway Central Library’s kitchen. The Edible Alphabet program works to be accessible to all, not just those in the close vicinity. “The library system of Philadelphia is not just this library today, but 54 libraries across the city. We want to make sure that this class is accessible for people in neighborhoods where [the library doesn’t] have a fancy kitchen, but still have people to do cooking classes,” Southworth says. The program is adaptable so that it can move from library to library across the city, in hopes of breaking down any barriers for immigrants.
The class ends with a quick overview of the many services the library provides, a walk through of the easy process of obtaining a library card, and a brief tour of the library. Edible Alphabet—and the Culinary Literacy
Center as a whole—is only one small facet of how the Free Library works to aid everyone in Philadelphia.
“We want people to leave this class feeling like they own the Library of Philadelphia. It is theirs to use and to share in the community.”the English and cooking lessons involve group work: Communication is key. “The conversation is often the biggest hurdle, but also the most important one,” Southworth says.
In one exercise, I turn to my partner to discuss our favorite bread. We have a bit of trouble understanding each other, as we’re both new to the class. I show her a photo of sourdough bread—my own favorite—and she nods, explaining that she always dislikes the thick crust. She talks of baking with her grandma and of bread with bruschetta. She, too, shows me a photo of her favorite bread— crostini, a crusty, thin breadstick.
Southworth leads the English instruction portion of class but works in tandem with a culinary chef to aid in cooking the meal. Today, we are making hummus and flatbread. Southworth describes the bread as thin and crispy. My partner nudges me. “Like Crostini,” she laughs. We learn various vocabulary about the ingredients, techniques, and tools used in the recipe, and we are then grouped and set free to cook.
I separate one egg white from the yolk for our dough, and one of my group members hands me the other egg. She tells me I did it so well, and that we need another for the egg wash. She also grabs a bowl to store the separated egg white until the right moment. Another member asks about kneading. I attempt to show it with our sticky dough. “Ah,” he says as he understands, and he then demonstrates how to properly knead dough. I accidentally add too much water and the one person who notices playfully tsks at me but wordlessly adds extra flour, as if it’s our little secret.
“When they’re laughing and making mistakes and putting too much salt in the dough,” Southworth says, “it just helps to relax their mind and help them to be more receptive to language learning and take more risks with communication.”
We eat lunch together, trying our own
creations but also sharing with others. One girl warns me that our flat bread is just okay: not good, not bad. The guy who helped me knead makes a so–so motion, as I take a bite. I tell him I think it turned out pretty good, all things considered, and we laugh. The food is far from perfect, but by the time lunch is over, there are no leftovers.
As I gather up my belongings and help clean our station, those I met wave goodbye. One person tells me they hope to see me next week. By now, everyone is aware that I’m here with journalistic intentions, but they don’t shy away from including me. I walked into class expecting to be a passive observer, and I left feeling welcomed into a new community.
“We have a lot of people who have immigrated here recently. Some people may have been here longer, but many people are still rebuilding their social networks,” Southworth explains. “Probably just as important as the language learning is the connection to having people feel welcome and included.” The community here is certainly palpable; it’s warm and homey.
And it extends beyond the reaches of the Parkway Central Library’s kitchen. The Edible Alphabet program works to be accessible to all, not just those in the close vicinity. “The library system of Philadelphia is not just this library today, but 54 libraries across the city. We want to make sure that this class is accessible for people in neighborhoods where [the library doesn’t] have a fancy kitchen, but still have people to do cooking classes,” Southworth says. The program is adaptable so that it can move from library to library across the city, in hopes of breaking down any barriers for immigrants.
The class ends with a quick overview of the many services the library provides, a walk through of the easy process of obtaining a library card, and a brief tour of the library. Edible Alphabet—and the Culinary Literacy Center as a whole—is only one small facet of how the Free Library works to aid everyone in Philadelphia.
“We want people to leave this class feeling like they own the Library of Philadelphia. It is theirs to use and to share in the community.” k
HOME IS WHERE THE HEARTH IS
DINING THE GUIDE X 2024
Rahim the (American) Dream I
One man’s halal, Penn culture, and the how the "taste of home" resonates with all walks of life
BY SOPHIA MIRABAL
Photo by Caleb Crain
The street hums with life—traffic flows by, the murmur of conversation floats in the air—a cacophony of sight and sound fusing together to form a language understood only by the urban populace. Beside you, the sidewalk is peppered with people lining up before little wheeled carts. Before you, the stainless steel counter of one cart in particular—the savory aroma of spiced meat and grilled veggies draws you in.
Of the integrated University community, there are few unacquainted with the halal experience, the essentially reverent devotion to a midday rice platter. Plates heaped with fragrant rice, tender meat, crispy greens, and the signature duo of white and red sauces slathered generously overtop. At first glance, the little red cart on the corner of 38th and Spruce streets seems just a vibrant dot amongst a sea of similarly situated vendors. A restless segment of campus, this strip is brimming with hungry students, Penn Medicine staff, and passersby fluttering to these silver stations with eager anticipation. But this cart in particular has you leaving with more than just a full stomach.
When Rahim Khan thinks of his relationship with the University community, one word comes to mind: love. It’s that devotion—evident in his warm smiles and genuine interactions—that sets him apart from the dozens of other halal carts on campus. “The food is everywhere, right?” he explains, "but if you give [them] some respect, some smiles ….” Rahim claims his friendly disposition is a quality he’s always possessed. That, and an excellent memory. If you’ve frequented his cart more than once, he’ll likely know your face and order by heart. He also regularly updates an Instagram account (@rahimredtruck) for a front–row seat to his ongoing culinary adventures.
But it’s no easy job, Rahim says. Every morning begins in his garage, where fresh rice is steamed, and meats—chicken, lamb, fish—are marinated in fragrant
spices and grilled to perfection. Falafel is ground, shaped, and fried to a crisp golden brown. All of it is prepped in bulk to satisfy the lunchtime rush.
The most popular dish is chicken over rice, Rahim says. It might seem like a tired task to describe such a ubiquitous dish, but it’s worth remembering. A glistening bed of turmeric-yellow grains beneath spiced chicken shawarma, slathered in the signature white sauce—a creamy mix of yogurt, garlic, and tahini. And if you don’t mind a little heat, he’ll offer you the red—a fiery blend of hot chili peppers and various herbs. Every bite is tender, juicy, and delicious. Maybe you opt for the lamb gyro, stuffed with tender slices of meat, tomatoes, lettuce, and the same iconic sauce combo, all wrapped tightly in soft pita bread. Or, as a meatless alternative, the falafel plate— crispy balls of chickpea, seasoned and served with fresh veggies and tahini.
When Rahim reflects on his first six months in the United States, he remembers the difficulty of adjusting to a new life. His arrival in 2019 coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. His largest struggle—the overwhelming difference in culture—was only underscored by isolation. “It [was] very hard,” he admits, “but right now, you know … America make[s] me strong, and I’m super happy.”
Rahim boasts of his cricket–playing abilities back in Peshawar, a Pakistani city bordering the mountains of Afghanistan. In his youth, his dream was to play for Pakistan, but he declares the halal cart follows closely. “This is my second dream, and America [gave] me this dream.”
What’s Rahim’s next big thing? After going home this December and spending time with the family he hasn’t seen in so long, it’s brick and mortar. “Rahim’s restaurant” is the vendor’s ambitious vision for the future—a place where he can offer his Spruce Street crowd an expanded menu, with dishes far beyond the scope of his little red cart. Ask him about
it, and he’ll paint a picture of kabuli pulao, an Afghan staple of rice, carrots, and raisins; or the bold, ginger–and–tomato–based curry chicken karahi, native to South Asia—both are favorites of his. But Rahim’s food is not merely a means of subsistence—it’s a microcosm of the immigrant experience. Like the dozen other halal vendors on Spruce Street (and the hundreds throughout Philadelphia), Rahim stands at a unique intersection of heritage and adaptation, a fusion that thrives in the country’s most diverse, urban spaces. The exchange that occurs before that little red cart, while fleeting, transcends the transactional. It is a bridge between his story and those who partake in it, a space where traditional flavors meet foreign demands, offering comfort to some and discovery to others.
Rahim’s emotional connection to the University community has motivated him to lay down deeper roots in the city. Though homesickness lingers, the challenges of cultural adjustment have largely faded. Philly, he says, feels like his second birthplace. “I’m just like, I’ve not come like, only a couple of years … I’m born here.” k
TL;DR
Rahim's Food Truck brings the Penn community together over his home flavors, and his new dreams.
LOCATION: Rahim can be found on the corner of 38th and Spruce streets.
HOURS: every day except Sunday PRICE: $
Chika is Your New S Favorite Underground SPOT
This ramen and sushi bar is offering up some otherworldly delights.
BY DYLAN GROSSMANN
Photo by Jean Park
Who hasn't walked by Chika a million times? Maybe leaving Pulse Nightclub after a date night, or turning the corner after SoulCycle, or walking out of a glutinous Harp and Crown brunch, you—and I— have probably glazed right over Chika many times. I certainly never paid much attention to its bright lights on Sansom Street, the neon spilling out onto street level from the underground bar. But Chika is a lot more interesting than it appears on the surface—or rather, below the surface.
I’m emphasizing Chika’s underground setting because it’s an important part of the restaurant's story. In Japanese cities, many restaurants and bars set up shop under the street. Space is highly limited in most urban areas, especially in Japanese cities, so owners often get creative with basement spaces. The name "Chika" is a nod to this tradition, meaning "cellar" in Japanese. Descending the stairs to Chika is meant to replicate that authentic experience, even oceans away in Philadelphia. These basement bars and restaurants can be transformed into beacons of hospitality and warmth—and offer hours late into the night.
Walking into Chika instantly transports you to another world. Beams of warm neon streak across the colorful bar and high–energy music blasts from every corner. The lighting is dim and blue, the countertops glow, the both are cozy. Chika is a concept from the minds of Glu Hospitality, who are responsible for many Philly food scene favorites like Figo and Royal Izakaya & Sushi. The restaurant's futuristic look was modeled after the noodle bar from the 1982 neo-noir film Blade Runner, and the drink menu is also filled with references to the classic film (An Electric Sheep, anybody?). But while the space might be out of this world, the food quickly transports you back to a lovely reality. Executive chef Dean Leevongce trExecutive chef Dean Leevongce trained in Japan to learn authentic ramen and sushi techniques, and
Chika aims to bring those traditional practices to their Philadelphia customers. Their most famous ramen dish is the “Tonkotsu Chashumen," a hakata–style “tonkotsu” where the pork bone broth is boiled over 24 hours. It came with three pieces of marinated chashu pork, shiitake, menma, red pickled ginger, sesame, scallions, and finished with a drizzle of roasted garlic and sesame oil. Simply put, it was delicious. The pork was tender and flavorful and the pickled ginger added a welcomed tangy flavor into the mix to cut the richness of the pork. The soup was hot and comforting, while also providing a peppery flavor to the bowl.
The tonkotsu was great, but the entire menu impresses. The yakitori with chicken was a massive hit. It was hot and juicy with a sweet yet rich and lush glaze. However, the sushi and the fish were a bit more ordinary. I had high expectations for the spicy tuna rice crisps, and
while they tasted delicious with jalapeño and tobiko, the rice was less crispy and the fish didn’t take my breath away. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the "SET A" three–hand–roll set, which came with a tuna, salmon, and yellowtail hand roll. It was very reasonably priced, especially for the amount of fish on each roll. The yellowtail roll was definitely a stand out here; it was paired with cucumber, which balanced the flavor and added a crunch.
While an unfortunate reality of the American food landscape is that Japanese quality fish is harder to emulate here, especially at a reasonable price, Chika does an excellent job at providing authentic and delicious meals. If you find yourself in Center City looking for a late night bite, definitely head to Chika for their late night food offer of half–off appetizers and hand rolls. I will certainly be returning with friends for the atmosphere and the particular quality of their ramen. The restaurant's decor might take you to an otherworldly bar in the distant future, but the ramen takes you right to Japan. When you walk out of a meal at Chika, it’s hard to believe you’d been in Center City Philadelphia all that time. k
Chika Ramen Bar serves up good food and good vibes for the perfect late night indulgence.
From Pop-Ups to Permament, Amy’s Pastellilos has touched ground D in Fishtown
A new location that’s definitively pink, punchy, and Puerto Rican
BY ANDREW LU
Photo by Jean Park
Walking into Amy’s Pastelillos feels like walking into the entryway of owner Amaryllis—or, Amy—Rivera Nassar’s life. Potted plants sit by the door, bright pink tropical wallpaper lines the room. The windowsill is full of Puerto Rican and Latin American cookbooks. The space is small, but speaks to volumes of character—it’s littered with Drake stickers, punny mugs, and custom enamel pins proudly shouting “Pastelillo Lady.” The small entryway leads to the hearth, to Amy’s kitchen, where Amy stands to greet me next to a waving Puerto Rican flag.
Amy describes her new restaurant as “her third baby child,” and it truly feels like a family enterprise. The dusty rose tile countertop was chosen by her daughter, the shawarma
special for today was inspired by her husband, and a child’s drawing of Amy is attached to the blast fridge. The inspiration for the restaurant comes from her experience as a mother, and the experimentation that comes with cooking. “You could put anything in, right?” she jokes about her pastelillos. “Playing with different recipes and different ideas,” she laughs, “it can be fun.” Even the staff is family. Amy’s nephew runs the register, and while we chat he runs forward to cross out one of the specials today—a pumpkin pie fritter—which has been so popular it’s run out.
But as far as children go, Amy’s Pastelillos is a baby, only six months old. “It’s been months, but it also has felt like six years,” she jokes. In a way, it has been six years. Amy tells
us that she’s “been doing pop–ups for at least five years … and then that kind of evolved. I was just looking for a little space to put my own little kitchen, to have a home base,” she says. It took a while to scout the space, but when she finally decided to open a physical location, Fishtown was Amy’s first choice. “I live in the neighborhood, so I want it [to] be a neighborhood spot,” she explains. A pair of customers interrupt us for a moment, commenting on how good her food is as they leave, and Amy smiles back. Business seems to be booming as people gather inside the small storefront, drawn in to escape the rainy Philly skies. The weather cuts our interview short, but once inside we finally get to taste the food.
Amy walks me through the menu, explaining “the pastelillos are the star of the show,” but there are also “recipes which are super traditional to us.” Side note: , a pastelillo is a traditional Puerto Rican dish—a fried meat pastry similar to an empanada but made with a much flakier skin. Other traditional recipes include the pollito bowl, half rice and stewed chicken, topped with pink pickled onion and tostones (fried plantains). Unlike most restaurant meals, this food is modest and homey, a meal your parents would make you. The arroz con gandules is similar and reminds me of the rice with lentils my mom used to make. The next dish is the queso frito, fried morsels of cheese glimmering against a pink checkerboard pa-
per. Paired with a pink guava dip, each bite of this dish is a journey through sweet sauce, crispy skin, and creamy cheese. Finally, the pastelillos arrive at the counter. They take a while to prepare because each one is made fresh—and arrives as a perfectly crimped half moon in shades of yellow, orange, and golden brown. We try the meats first: shredded chicken stew, guava BBQ pork, and ground beef picadillo. The chicken is simmered to a perfect texture, with soft chunks of potato that contrast well with the meat. The BBQ pork is absolutely dripping with flavor. While unconventional, the sweet tang of the guava pairs beautifully with the savory pork. The ground beef is the most traditional, and it’s perfectly spiced, bringing a welcome heat to the palate. The chili doesn’t overpower the rest of the seasoning, and the symphony of flavorings echoes in the filling and into the flaky skin. Four sauces pair with the pastelillos: cilantro garlic, coconut ranch, mayo-ketchup, and Amy’s custom la parchita hot sauce. The first is heavy on the garlic, which I love, and the coconut ranch is a more mellow white sauce. The first three sauces all pair beautifully with the crispy pastelillos, filling in the little craters of exploded dough. The hot sauce, however, is a standout. Built off of passionfruit (parchita), the tartness of the fruit harmonizes well with the spice and sugar expected in a hot sauce and adds an amazing flavor profile that augments
each of the pastelillos, especially the non–spicy options.
The special today is a shawarma pastelillo— heavy on the black pepper, but still an interesting fusion. The mushroom and cheese pastelillo are next. The filling is a little chewy, and the water in the mushrooms slips against the oil in the cheese. This combination is delicious, and perfect in theory but a bit tricky to get right. The two vegetarian options, however, are delicious. The soy chorizo and potato pastelillo in particular has a velvety filling, a distinct texture that doesn’t try to emulate meat. The spice mix in particular thrives in a plant–based setting, not competing against the power of protein.
I may be new to the neighborhood here, but so is Amy’s Pastelillos. Amy ends our visit in gratitude: “I feel like we get a lot of neighborhood support, you know, we’ve gotten a lot of press too.” Amy’s personality is humble, but her love is magnetic, and Philly has clearly embraced her. With fresh, flavorful twists on tradition and an atmosphere that feels like home, Amy’s Pastelillos has quickly become a beloved local fixture. She concludes by saying, “The neighborhood really has been great, and we see a lot of return customers.” I am sure to be one of them—and once you visit, you probably will be too. k
The namesake pastelillos are the star of the show, bringing a tradition of home that welcomes you into a world of experimentation.
Tea at Akwaaba is one dream you won't want to wake up from.
BY CHARISSA HOWARD
by Sonali Chandy
When you step into the triangle–shaped house at 38th and Lancaster streets for 90 well–curated minutes, the world will melt away.
Akwaaba Tea Salon is high tea with a twist, elegance made accessible. “We just wanted a place where people could come and take a breath and push back the world long enough to get in touch with themselves,” Monique Greenwood, Akwaaba’s owner, tells me. Although just a few months old, Akwaaba is already living up to its mission.
Customers are immediately met with warm strands of jazz, which most days is played live at a piano nestled by the kitchen, and led to a table, preset and adorned with a pink peony. The menu placed at each seat holds simply a list of eight teas, depicted with flowery language.
You might order the Afropunk, named for the annual Brooklyn, N.Y. festival. Its peach flavors are reminiscent of summer days, with thick honey and rooibos undertones that seem to mimic the sun’s warmth. Or you could try the Well–kanda tea, which is glowingly spoken of by the person sitting next to me, already on a second visit to Akwaaba. Well–kanda is made with the Instagram–famous butterfly pea flower, whose bright blue turns lilac with a drop
Photo
of lemon juice. Try not to go crazy with the lemon juice chemical reaction like I almost did, or you might miss the sweet and delicate flavors of the tea itself.
Your tea is brought out with a steeper, but Aisha, our waitress, spends a moment carefully describing what to do, in case we’re like the majority of Akwaaba’s guests who have never done afternoon tea before. Every table is given its own tea timer to flip over, with the options for light, medium, or strong.
Once removing your steeper, you can turn your brain off and get lost in the ritual of afternoon tea—Akwaaba’s got it from there. First comes the crispy raisin scone, with a dry texture that lets a powerful lemon curd do all the flavor work. Next is a simple salad, dressed with a tangy apple cider vinegar dressing, along with a perfectly rich, creamy tomato soup.
Despite being the owner, Greenwood moves around the space as actively as our waitress, rearranging bouquets and taking time to converse with each guest. She pops by our table to explain that the soup's fresh basil garnish was grown in the wide window boxes just outside. Jennifer, Akwaaba’s pearl–adorned general manager, comes to take our plates and whispers to us to tell our friends that Akwaaba is hiring.
Finally comes the signature three–tier high tea trays. Laden with sweet and savory goodies, the tea tray highlights Akwaaba’s southern influences. Instead of finger sandwiches, think a deviled egg topped with a crispy piece of fried chicken and a hot honey drizzle—flavors that weave so seamlessly together that it’ll make you wonder why you’ve never had the pairing before. A caramelized onion and blue cheese bite, tiny enough to pop in your mouth, offers a sharp tangy burst that makes it a memorable standout on the tray.
Melt–in–your–mouth–sweet peach cobbler, curry chicken croissants (with a harder–to–detect flavor that fades in with time), and an airy strawberry–topped vanilla cake bite are other tray highlights. Though combinations are unique, no ingredient feels as though I haven’t tried it before—which is
maybe part of the magic.
Akwaaba seats two dozen and is open just Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays for three 90–minute reservation sessions. Both the small space and reservation model make it so that this is an almost intimate journey that you embark on with other guests from start to finish. On my left, a woman sits alone with her journal. She says that she didn’t get a chance to meditate this morning and thought this was the perfect place to do it.
Other guests’ voices are hushed in reverence at the onset of our meal, but by the time soups and salads are whisked away, chatter has filled up the room. On my right, sits a couple that can’t stop gushing over the food. At one point, the man takes his partner’s hand. “I’m glad you brought me here,” he smiles. “Something totally different.”
Akwaaba, which means “welcome” in the West African Twi language, began as a collection of bed–and–breakfasts opened by Greenwood in cities across the East Coast—“all the places I wanted to personally be.” She has always provided a tea experience for her B&B guests, and when a house went for sale down the street from the Philadelphia B&B location, Greenwood jumped at the chance to turn the tea tradition into a standalone experience.
The tea salon’s space used to be a residence, probably for Penn or Drexel University students living off campus, Greenwood speculates. Light streams in from wide Victorian windows to illuminate the black–and–white photographs adorning the walls, depicting smiling Black Americans dressed in their finest fur coats and flower–adorned hats. Some of the pictures, like one of six women that adorns a wall mural–style, come straight from Greenwood’s family photo album.
One can still peer around into the doorway of the kitchen at the controlled flurry going on inside, where staff chat and laugh together. Every member of the staff at Akwaaba is a woman of color and at one point I’m reminded of my aunties and my family reunions. For the rest of the meal, I feel
transported back home.
I’m sighing over a lemon tart when Jennifer asks if I’d like a box. The 90 minutes are almost up, she explains, and Akwaaba has to prepare for the next cycle of guests coming in. Out front, met with the bustle of Powelton Village, some other guests and I take a moment to stand blinking, as though we are emerging from a dream— but it was just Sunday afternoon tea at Akwaaba. k
Push the world away for 90 minutes of loose-leaf teas and non-traditional English finger foods at Akwaaba Tea Salon.
LOCATION: 3811 Lancaster Ave.
HOURS: 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Fri.–Sun.
PRICE: $$
A Dive with Heart:
BY AMY LUO
Photo by Grace Hu
Tucked away on an unassuming corner of Sansom Street, a blinking array of fluorescent lights and a bold red backsplash beckons my friend Grace and I to the entrance of Vic Sushi Bar.
My first impression is that it’s tiny. Quite tiny, blink–and–you’ll–miss–all–the–fun tiny. Seating no more than a dozen patrons, our barside table faces the open kitchen. With a quick welcome, we’re promptly greeted with the hustle of the sushi chefs at work just a few feet away.
It’s a Monday night, and yet every seat in the house is full. The diners all stride in with an ease and air of comfortability, like they’ve frequented this place several times before. We’re sandwiched between a quiet couple on a date night and a sprightly bunch of young professionals, getting a drink and a couple bites after a presumably long workday. I feel as if I’ve
entered a small dinner party. The place feels as intimate as it is unpretentious, a neighborhood dive with a lot of love to give.
As we settle in, we start to look at the menu, which offers up a mix of the familiar and the novel. The usual suspects are there—tempura appetizers, California rolls—but alongside them, there are some curious offerings that seem to hint at Vic's more experimental side. We opt for a little of both.
The sashimi sampler arrives with a colorful array of yellowtail, salmon, and tuna. Immediately, the yellowtail steals the show. It’s buttery and smooth, with a clean, citrusy finish that lingers pleasantly. It’s simple, but in that perfect way that reminds you why sashimi exists in the first place—to let the fish speak for itself. The salmon is similarly rich and soft, but the tuna falls a bit short. Slightly tough and faintly fishy, lacking the delicate texture of good tuna sashimi. Still, for under $15, it’s hard to dwell on one miss when the rest of the plate delivers.
We follow with another appetizer, shrimp shumai, a traditional dim sum staple. Though Vic Sushi Bar is Japanese cuisine, the immersion of Chinese and Japanese dishes is not rare in places like these. I also hear a couple of chefs conversing in Mandarin, which makes me smile. Though typically an umami dish, at Vic’s, these shrimp dumplings blur the lines between tastes. They’re soft—really soft—and sweet, almost like a meaty dessert. Instead of shumai’s typically bouncy texture, the shrimp in these give way to a lovely melt–in–your–mouth sensation instead. The flavor is muted and yet poignant, and I catch myself reaching for more again and again.
Next up is the Sansom roll, a more conventional offering that pairs salmon and tuna with avocado and a tempura filling. It’s creamy and comforting, but I find myself wishing for a bit more crunch to balance out the softness. The tempura seems to have lost some of its crispness, perhaps a casualty of our time spent photographing the dishes. Camera eats first. It’s incredibly solid, though, and a reliable choice for anyone seeking something conventional. Though, given the name, I did want something that embodied Philly in some way. Perhaps an incorporation of
Pennsylvanian farm ingredients—but I’m glad they held on the stereotypical cream cheese. We also dig into the "i" roll, which immediately makes its presence known with a pop and a burst of tropical flavors. Pineapple, coconut jam, and a gentle kick of spice from the eel sauce amalgamate into something I’ve never tasted before at a sushi place. It’s a bold and refreshing departure from the traditional. Wrapped in soy paper rather than seaweed, you may find yourself missing the familiar taste of nori, but the roll is fun and whimsical. I’m immediately transported to warmer weather, salty air on a beach, and spring break. I’d describe it most particularly as quenching.
Ultimately, though, what resonated with me the most about Vic Sushi Bar wasn’t just the food. It was the neighborhood feel, the grounded simplicity of it all—the comforting decor and the unmistakable buzz of conversation that never overwhelms, but hums along like background music.
In a city full of trendy, overpriced sushi joints, Vic is not about being the hottest spot in town; it’s about delivering good food in a space that feels like home. It’s like a well–kept secret. Plus, there’s something undeniably charming about watching the chefs work just a few feet away, knowing you're part of a cozy, tightly packed room of regulars who feel the same way about this little spot as you do. k
TL;DR
Vic Sushi Bar, a cozy, no–frills spot on Sansom Street offering affordable sushi with tropical twists and neighborhood charm.
You know when you wake up and you’re just devastated?” Nano Wheedan, the owner of Taco Heart, asks me. The feeling is all too familiar—from accidentally sleeping in until 1 p.m. on a schoolwork–designated Sunday, to checking the weather app and seeing that it’s going to be yet another 30–degree day in the middle of February—there are too many ways that a morning can start off on the wrong foot. Like all of us, Wheedan has experienced these feelings and offers a piece of advice for morning mourners: “You need a good breakfast to keep you going.”
Good breakfast is easy to come by when taking a stroll through South Philadelphia. All you have to do is keep an eye out for children commuting to George W. Nebinger Elementary School, grasping their moms’ hands as they stare in amazement at the pink and blue hues decorating the Taco Heart storefront—in true Philly muralistic fashion.
Combining the artistic visions of Austin muralist Kevin Muñoz and Philly’s own Emily White, Taco Heart is an eye–
catching explosion of color and design. Like a beacon of light to the psyche (likely made ravenous by a few hours of South Street shopping or a busy week), Taco Heart welcomes people in with its hand–painted hearts and the wafting smell of peppered scrambled eggs seeping out through the open glass door.
Upon entering, you will find that Taco Heart is not only visually appealing. The yellow laminated menu holds a multitude of dishes and ingredients, made more plentiful by the recent addition
of lunch tacos. The question becomes: Where should I even start?
“It starts for me with the Migas Maximum taco, which is crushed tortilla chips in scrambled eggs with tomato, onion, cilantro, cheese, and avocado,” Wheedan says. Taking his advice, this is exactly where I begin.
After years of living in Austin, Texas, Mount Airy native Wheedan strove to bring a Tex–Mex eatery back home to Philly. In 2022, Wheedan opened Taco Heart in Passyunk, bridging the gap between his two favorite places.
Ten minutes later, my long–awaited breakfast taco is ready to eat, blanketed in gold foil. I’m met with the fresh smell of flour tortilla; it’s simple but so perfect. The first bite is a rocket launch for the taste buds—fresh avocado mixed with crunchy tortilla chips sprinkled atop a nostalgic scramble, packing a flavorful punch.
I demolished my first taco, and I’m ready for more. Wheedan advises Taco Heart rookies to order one taco as a snack or morning pick–me–up. But two tacos will do wonders for the beast that is the growling stomach.
My next pick is a chicken fajita lunch taco with generous seasoning seeping into the crunch of the cooked onions. The tanginess of the tomatillo salsa meets the tortilla and peppers in a moment of perfect harmony.
Then, I get an itching for sweet potato and glance at a friend who is about to dig into the vegan "Yanet’s Fave" hoping for
the hopes that she will give you a bite. If she gives in, your palate will be more than satisfied with this vegan take on a lunch taco, filled to the brim with a mix of flavors, ranging from cauliflower and classic black beans to cashew chipotle crema mixed and guacamole.
To wash this all down, a Mexican Coke from the cooler or the Burchata, a delightful mix of cold brew with sweet and spicy Horchata, will do just the trick. Then, convincing yourself you may need a midnight snack to stay awake at the library, you take the BECA breakfast taco for the road.
On the way out, make sure to glance behind the glass counter near the ordering kiosk; this is where you’ll find the heart of Taco Heart or, in Wheedan’s words, “the bread of Texas.” Floured dough puffs upwards like balloons before deflating down to the magical tortilla. This in–house science experiment is all part of the Taco Heart experience: “Everything I’ve done, especially aesthetically, is about trying to awaken that little kid inside of people,” Wheedan says.
When daily breakfasts as a college student are often grab–and–go, consisting of a few two-week-old strawberries leftover from a Trader Joe's trip or an everything bagel grabbed as a souvenir from Commons dinner, the meal becomes far less exciting. I find myself daydreaming about the meals my parents would make me as a kid––pancakes with fresh blueberries topped with sweet maple syrup, salted eggs, and crispy sizzling bacon that crunches when you bite into it. My breakfast at Taco Heart transported me back to my favorite memories of breakfast when it felt slow and whimsical. While Taco Heart is for everybody, Wheedan appreciates when Texans in Philly discover Taco Heart. He hopes that when people visit Taco Heart, they are reminded of home and the meals that live there. “Being able to offer a little bit of home to people who are missing it is so meaningful,” Wheedan says. During my visit, he achieved this goal.
Home is not only found in the food at Taco Heart; the nineteen–person staff functions as a family, too. Wheedan acknowledges the difficulties of living in a country where it can be a struggle to find work. “So many people need stability, and stable work is so hard to come by in this world,” he says. “It means so much to me to do that for the immigrant community and for people who have grown up in Philly.”
With this in mind, Wheedan strives to create a workplace where people feel represented and heard. He likes to think of Taco Heart as a “bilingual restaurant,” where Spanish and English are both used in the workplace to terminate the language divide that Wheedan has experienced in other restaurant environments.
“We all win, we all succeed, or we all fail together. It’s very much like a sports team,” Wheedan says. He then pauses for a second. “Or, actually, I think it’s most like theater. The audience comes in, you put on the show. Something goes wrong, happens every night. But, you aren’t supposed to quit after something goes wrong. In a play, if someone messes up a line, or there is a wardrobe malfunc -
tion, you learn from the mistake. You go home, and then you come back the next day and you do it again.”
On the way out, Nano guides me to a corner with hoodies and baseball caps and hands me a green Taco Heart baseball cap that matches my shirt. And, just like that, I became a part of his production. k
This much-loved taco spot packs in the flavor and soul necessary to keep your stomach and your heart full all day.
PRICE: $
DINING GUIDE 2024
Ca ffeine & Catni p Are + Two Sides of the Same… Cafe?
Get-A-Gato’s owner and staff are on the “daily grind” to convince people to adopt cats in Philadelphia.
BY PARIN KEERTHI
Photo by Weining Ding
Located in the heart of Philadelphia’s Bella Vista neighborhood is a cafe that blends the two greatest joys in this world: petting a cat and sipping a cold brew. There’s something unique about the nonprofit Get–A–Gato Cat Cafe, which hosts a purr–fectly heartwarming experience and offers a whimsical escape for anyone seeking the comforts of caffeine, sweet treats, or friendly felines.
The moment you step through the cafe’s glass doors, the rich smell of coffee and matcha wafts toward you. The space has been meticulously designed to welcome both humans and our favorite four–legged furries. Glass viewing panes
separate the cafe from the “cat lounge” so coffee lovers can enjoy the brews, while still getting a view of what they’re clearly missing out on.
With picket–fence–white tables and chairs that fold out for customer leisure, bookshelves displaying feline products and memorabilia, the cafe has a home–y and intimate aesthetic that makes it easy for a purr–son to unwind and enjoy the menu. Get–A–Gato offers a wide selection of handcrafted drinks and specialty snacks, with a menu made to im–purr–ess (just one more, I promise).
The baristas at Get–A–Gato also know
how to get the classics just right. While many cafes can lose their flavor balance during the afternoon rush, when I visited, Get–A–Gato’s drinks maintained the smooth, robust, and rich flavor expected of them. A staple of any coffee shop’s menu—the cold brew—topped with sweet cold foam, was perfectly bitter and sweet.
Get–A–Gato’s menu also presents a unique twist on some iconic beverages. Combining a fruity muddle with the earthy, milky taste of matcha, the cafe’s strawberry matcha adds a dreamy sweetness to an otherwise bitter drink. The contrast between grassy notes and
fresh, saccharine flavor feels indulgent and satisfying, providing balance to an otherwise savory taste. Another example is their limited–time, house–made apple spice horchata. Mixing a delicate sweet–and–spicy charm with horchata’s cinnamon tang just makes sense on the tongue. Get–A–Gato is innovating on a continuous basis.
Of course, the experience is nowhere near complete without tasting from Get–A–Gato’s deep selection of comfort foods. Their chicken empanadas come with a golden, crispy exterior that opened the gate for its meaty, savory filling. They also come with a choice be -
tween two side sauces: a subtle, sweet green creme sauce and a spicier option for a bit of a kick. Both options complement the savory sensation of the empanada to add depth to an already enjoyable flavor.
For dessert, it’s hard for one to resist Get–A–Gato’s eye–catching churro apple cake. Encapsulating the flavors of autumn, cinnamon spice swirls around apple chunks to make a moist and tender slice. The fresh taste of apple provides a natural burst of sweetness in each bite, making this dessert a standout treat you won’t find anywhere else.
But let’s not forget the true stars of the cafe—the unique, personable cats of the cafe. While there are quite a few furry felines who are up for adoption at the cafe, the most entertaining is Sushi. A complete ball of energy, Sushi is always darting around to scratch at a toy or cannonball on top of a sleeping friend. His sister Sake is no different; after an afternoon of playful chaos, you can always find the two cuddled up and napping at the end of a long day.
Zeus is definitely on the sleepier side of the cat spectrum. Rather than jumping at the rainbow–colored cat wands guests could borrow during their visit, he chooses to sunbathe in the comfort of his own corner. While lazy, Zeus is always happy to sit on the lap of a visitor and play with his sister Hera. Sonny was a cat with some more boundaries—to say the least. As long as you keep your petting above his neck, he’ll be as playful and calm as possible. However, if you venture lower, you may find him wrapped around your arm making a perpetual hissing sound.
The Get–A–Gato family is constantly changing. From cats being adopted, to receiving new members through the cafe’s partnership with Fishtails Animal Rescue, the cats available at the shop could always be different. Despite this, the environment that Get–A–Gato Cat Cafe provides is always warm.
In a city where coffee shops often feel
hurried and impersonal, Get–A–Gato is a breath of fresh air. Whether you’re there to find a furry friend, or simply there to enjoy a latte, the cafe offers a relaxed experience that is unique in Philadelphia. If you’re looking to combine good food with feline fun, Get–A–Gato Cat Cafe is litter–ally the place to be. k
A dream come true for people who identify as cat lovers and coffee connoisseurs.
LOCATION: 638 Christian St
HOURS: 9 a.m. – 7 p.m. all week long
PRICE: $
DINING GUIDE 2024 H
In Line at Angelo's W
One hour outside of Philly's most famous cheesesteak spot.
BY GEMMA LEVY
Photo
by Ariana Arabadjev
It was the kind of Friday in September that begged for a T–shirt and some friendly conversation—the perfect day to spend an hour in line at Angelo’s Pizzeria. Outside the modest South Philly storefront, the line curled around the block. Strangers, each with their own unique stories, stood side by side, united by a singular purpose: the pursuit of what’s said to be Philly's best cheesesteak. Over the course of an hour, this unlikely assembly became something
more—a fleeting community defined by a rare sense of camaraderie that would dissolve as quickly as it had formed.
A six–foot–something handyman with a beer belly straining under his faded T–shirt and sun–weathered skin like leather casually directs a family of out–of–towners—their voices thick with a drawl—toward the right ordering line. A wiry teenager, earbuds in, sits on the curb, patiently waiting for his order. He’s in no rush—his mom is still in her meetings for
the work trip that dragged him all the way here from the West Coast.
A family of four meandered over from the park next door, fresh from soccer practice. Maddie and Josie, the two young daughters, still buzzing with post–practice energy, clacked along in their bright pink cleats. Grabbing pizza from Angelo’s was a family ritual—especially when the line wasn’t too long. Hugh, the dad and a true South Philly local, was quick to share the kind of history only a longtime resident could. He pointed to where Angelo’s now stood, explaining how it once housed Sarcone’s Deli, and just a few doors down, Sarcone’s Bakery still turned out what he called “incredible Italian loaves.” Gesturing across the street to the old Sarcone family home, Hugh noted that the family was connected by marriage to Danny DiGiampietro, Angelo’s founder.
As he spoke, he reflected on how much the neighborhood had evolved since his youth, yet these Italian institutions—like Ralph’s, the classic “red sauce” restaurant next to Sarcone’s—had held fast to their roots. During his retelling, the block seemed to breathe with history, so much more than just a row of storefronts.
Alisha and Sally, a mother and daughter separated by distance, don’t get to
see each other often. For Sally’s birthday weekend, they planned a special reunion, meeting in Philly from their far–flung homes in Houston and San Francisco. Their Uber driver had raved about Angelo’s, insisting it was the best spot in town for a cheesesteak. Now, standing side by side in the line, they relished the rare opportunity to bond—a mother–daughter cheesesteak pilgrimage in a city far from home.
Jason from Phoenix, here for a family wedding, has a simple reason for joining the crowd: "Dave Portnoy told me to." For him, no further explanation is needed.
Christina and Marty, a couple from South Florida, are far from their sun–soaked beaches, here for a concert. Physical media buffs, they wandered South Street, entranced by its vintage charm, and now sit on the curb, giddy over a bag of new vinyl finds. Jaded by life back home, they’ve been toying with the idea of relocating to their new favorite city, Philly. As they wait for their cheesesteaks, a quiet question lingers—could this meal be the final push that makes Philly feel like home?
Jason from Kansas City, Mo. is a frequent Philly visitor—every time he’s here for work, he stops by the Chiefs bar and
makes the rounds for cheesesteaks. A true connoisseur, he weighs in on the classics: Geno’s has the better meat, but Pat’s wins for how they melt the cheese. This time, though, he’s here to see if Angelo’s will dethrone them both. He’s heard about it at least 20 times. Will this be his new go–to spot?
Corrina and Kayla, sisters from Staten Island, stand in line with little Layla, Kayla’s one–year–old daughter whose big black eyes soak in the scene. They’ve come all this way just for this, after watching a TikTok video that convinced them Angelo’s cheesesteak was worth the journey.
Meltem, freshly moved from Russia, has been in Philly just two weeks. Still finding her footing in a new city, she’s here at Angelo’s for a taste of what locals call the best.
The Lovingood family from Virginia is on a mission to find their son an apartment for his new job. Originally from Philly, they’re back for what they declare is “the best cheesesteak, hands down.” Every time they visit, they stop at Angelo’s, a ritual that feels like home.
As the line at Angelo’s crept forward, it felt less like waiting for a cheesesteak and more like a gathering of stories, each as personal as the people telling them.
Locals, tourists, and curious wanderers pack themselves together, all pulled in by different reasons—a dad reliving the history of the block, sisters chasing a TikTok–inspired dream, a jaded couple wondering if this cheesesteak might convince them to start fresh in a new city. And as they inched closer to the front window, step by step, the cheesesteak they came for felt almost secondary to the experience itself. k
Angelo's is more than the best cheesesteak in Philly–it's also the perfect microcosm of the city.
LOCATION: 736 S 9th St.
HOURS: 11 a.m.–7 p.m. Wed.–Sun.
PRICE: $$
Take It to the Streets
What to Do in Philly This Month
This month: film festivals, olympic gymnasts, LOTS of concerts—and more to explore.
Going to college in Philly, we’re so often bombarded—on social media and IRL—with seemingly endless options for how to spend our free time. So I’m delighted to announce that Street has done the hard part for you: we’ve rounded up what we think are the can’t–miss events for the month in one convenient place. If I’ve done my job right, there’ll be something in here for every one of our readers, no matter what you like to do with your weekends.
Catherine Sorrentino, Print Editor
hitting Philly hard and soft this month, and her concert is going to pack a real punch.
Prices start at $215, 7 p.m., 3601 S. Broad St.
Oct. 8: Sabrina Carpenter @ Wells Fargo Center
If this five–foot pop princess has left quite the impression on you, then this concert is a can't miss. Sabrina Carpenter's tour is properly short and sweet, so catch her while you still can in Philly.
Prices start at $260, 7 p.m., 3601 S. Broad St.
Oct. 10: Yèshì Chinatown Market @ Chinatown
Hopefully, this magazine doesn’t have to tell you that Philadelphia’s Chinatown is truly one of a kind, so step out and support the community for the annual Yèshì Chinatown market. Since 2011 it’s been one of Chinatown’s most attended events and most valuable showcases for vendors, arts and crafts, and live performances from the community. Free entry, 6 p.m.–10 p.m., Chinatown.
Oct. 11: Justin Timberlake @ the Wells Fargo Center
This October, Justin Timberlake is bringing Sexy Back to Philadelphia. After the low of his DUI charge, Timberlake is sure to come back strong and hit his high on the Forgot Tomorrow World Tour. Make sure not to miss this show—after all, that would ruin the tour.
Prices start at $89, 7:30 p.m., 3601 S. Broad St.
Oct. 1-6: The Book of Mormon @ the Academy of Music
Hello! The Book of Mormon would like to share the gospel with you. While they won’t show you the golden plates, they will show you a rollicking good time. Conversion not included in price of admission.
Tickets start at $29, 7:30 p.m., 240 S. Broad
Oct. 4: Simone Biles Gold Over America Tour @ the Wells Fargo Center
Simone Biles and the United States gymnastics team have proved once again at the 2024 Paris Olympics that they truly are the goats. It only makes sense they'd bring that breathtaking, groundbreaking talent back home for their Gold Over America Tour (aka GOAT).
Tickets start at $42, 7:30 p.m., 3601 S. Broad St.
Oct. 5: Billie Eilish @ Wells Fargo Center
Guess, guess, guess, who’s coming to Philly this month? This superstar is
Oct. 11-13: OURfest @ 5th and Market streets
OURfest, which stands for “Our Uniting Resilience,” brings the community together for a weekend of celebration and performance. It was created to commemorate National Coming Out Day and LGBTQIA+ History Month.
Free entry, 12 p.m.–7 p.m.; parade begins at 5th and Market streets.
Oct. 17-27: Philadelphia Film Festival @ Philadelphia Film
Center
Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Philly! All are illustrious names on the film festival circuit, obviously. We might not have Lady Gaga, Will Ferrell, or Tim Burton—but we have something even more important—an artistic team that spent months scouring premieres for the best of the best. Film bros, Letterboxd fans, cinema studies majors … this one is for you.
$15 per screening, times vary, 1412 Chestnut St.
Oct. 20 - Jan. 12, 2025: Mickalene Thomas: All About Love @ the Barnes Foundation
This is the first major international tour focused on the work of pioneering artist Mickalene Thomas. Thomas’ work is often playful, referencing popular culture and canonical art while still specifically foregrounding Black femininity in “abundant realms of visual pleasure,
agency, and kinship.” Big, bold, sparkling, and also intimate and warm, the work of Mickalene Thomas makes a major Black feminist statement that shouldn’t be missed.
$5 for students, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday–Thursday, 2025 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.
Oct. 26: Taste of the Philippines Festival @ Cherry Street Pier
Enjoy a slice of Manila and celebrate Filipino American History Month by stopping by Cherry Street Pier during the Taste of the Philippines Festival. As part of PECO’s Multicultural Series on the Delaware Riverfront, the festival will feature Filipino food, music, and entertainment open to the public.
Free entry, 1 p.m.–5 p.m., 121 N. Christopher Columbus Blvd.
Oct. 19-20 and 26-27: Philadelphia Open Studios Tour (POST) @ Various Locations
Occurring in over 26 neighborhoods, POST offers visitors the chance to tour the studios of upcoming artists across Philadelphia. Come by and say hello— we're sure to be POSTed up at a couple of these studios come October.
Free, 12 p.m.–6 p.m., studios west of Broad Street are open October 19–20, and studios east of Broad Street are open October 26–27.
Oct. 26-27: Head of the Schuylkill Regatta @ Kelly Drive and Fountain Green Drive
Penn’s rowing team is probably a familiar presence to everyone on campus, but the city’s long and illustrious rowing history is likely a less familiar fact. It’s the 54th anniversary of the regatta this year, and for both casual fans of the sport and diehard rowing lovers, this is a must–see sporting event.
Free entry, 8 a.m.–6 p.m., 3250 Sedgley Dr.
Lessons From the People’s Kitchen
Filling stomachs, hearts, and minds in a Philadelphia community kitchen.
BY YEEUN YOO
Photo by Nathaniel Babbitts
It’s a hot Wednesday morning as I board the 40 bus to make my way to the People’s Kitchen in South Philly. The bus is unsurprisingly crowded—people fanning themselves and trying not to bump into each other on their way to work. Babies are crying, and some folks are loudly conversing about their ever–growing grocery lists. Despite the noise and bustle, all I could think about was the 30 different ways I might screw up my first day. Dropping the ingredients. Messing up the measurements for a dish. Getting a chili pepper burn (which did happen to me later). My reputation as someone very unskilled in the kitchen left me feeling a bit daunted. When I tell friends and family members about my summer internship placement, many were (rightfully) doubtful about my role—I mean, after all, I’m someone who doesn’t even know how to boil eggs properly.
These thoughts continue to linger even long after reaching my stop and making my way through the busy Italian Market, passing families in line for stalls of fresh fruits and vegetables. But when I finally reach the People’s Kitchen and see April—my boss and the lead chef on Wednesdays—give me a small wave and a warm smile while speaking to a group of tourists outside the kitchen, the doubts that pervaded my morning all dissipate. As I wait for April to finish up her speech, I introduce myself to Rebecca and Sam, the other members of the kitchen. They’re stocking up the community pantry as local residents swarm the area, all excited to get the free dry goods.
When I enter the building, I get acquainted
with the colorful mosaic artwork and posters proudly stating “No Arena in Chinatown” and “Feed the Hood” on the mustard yellow walls. The space itself is small, but each corner, wall, nook, and cranny is maximized to the fullest—a floating shelf of spices, a rack of various types of oils and bottles of vinegar, and random messages on the walls stating basic kitchen rules and reminders like “Wear an apron!” or “Wash your hands frequently.”
This is my Wednesday morning routine for the next two months: Boarding a busy, air–conditioned bus with sweat trickling down my face from waiting outside in the sweltering heat, walking through the bustling market, and greeting Rebecca (who always says hello to me in her impressive Korean), all while excitedly waiting to learn what recipe we’ll make that day.
skills—how to handle a knife properly, what a “shrub” is (a drink that is made up of a combination of vinegar, sugar, and fruit), the basic rules of food preparation—and also the glory of community.
Lesson 1: Never wear a white shirt when picking sour cherries
Even with an apron on, those cherry stains will still find their way onto my shirt and face.
It’s another busy day in the kitchen working on sour cherries with my new friends, Caitlin and Fran. Caitlin is a community lawyer who works with immigrants and farm workers, and Fran is a retired woman and member of the local Jewish Voice for Peace chapter. There is something acutely precious about conversing with fellow kitchen comrades about the power of protests, encampments, and the liberation of Palestine within our lifetimes, all while cherry juice is squirting in our faces.
The People’s Kitchen, housed in what was once a for–profit restaurant, is now a community space where up to 100 free meals are distributed at 3 p.m. every day on weekdays. In proper mutual aid form, the People’s Kitchen is autonomous and led by the Philly community for the Philly community. Like many other mutual aid groups, it was born out of the onset of the COVID–19 pandemic in March 2020 in response to the community’s visible needs. Four years later, they continue to feed and fight for the community, collectively.
A kitchen is one of the last places I thought I’d learn any delicate life lessons. But the People’s Kitchen has taught me practical
Like the cherries that stained my shirt, the people I have met in the kitchen have uniquely and unapologetically left stains on my life. The diversity of the kitchen is what allows the space to feel like ours. The volunteers are artists, retirees, high schoolers, college graduates, college students, new Philly residents, and longtime locals. We know very little about each other; in many ways, we do not even know each other at all. But in our limited time, we build community together with mundane tasks like chopping onions or picking cherries. We let ourselves be marked by one another’s presence.
I have a conversation with Una, a high school volunteer, and Victoria, someone who just moved to Philly, as we peel potatoes and chop ginger together. I ask them both about how they define “community.” Victoria beautifully articulates that to her, the community is “sharing space and resources and knowledge with people.” Una tells me that to her, “community can mean a couple of different things.” In this sense, it’s the “physical space you’re in, but also the life you share.”
In those ordinary moments of preparing vegetables together, I gained extraordinary lessons from Victoria and Una. Yes, we created community through that physical
proximity. But, as Una expressed, perhaps community is also fostered by the vulnerable act of sharing life with one another and sharing food with one another. We were entering each other’s lives and living with the intention to be disrupted and stained by the people who enter it.
Although my white shirt with the once bright cherry stains has now faded, the outline of the blots continues to mark it. The same is true for the volunteers I met this summer. Although time has passed and I don’t see the same people in the kitchen every Wednesday, their stories and our conversations continue to linger.
Lesson 2: If all comes to worst, we can always make stir–fry
One Wednesday morning, I walk in with the news from Sam that I, along with my co–intern, Luke, will be leading the kitchen. Having no experience in such leadership roles, I’m very nervous. Sam shares with us that, due to scheduling conflicts, there’s no head chef here. As I nervously giggle, Sam tries to reassure me that a large group of volunteers is coming that day. She recommends that we make stir–fry with the excess vegetables that have been desperately waiting to be used. The next thing I know, Luke and I are leading a group of five people to wash spinach, chop bell peppers, and cook the rice.
My initial intimidation turned into great pride in our work. Sometimes, the idea of “collectiveness” feels very abstract. In the kitchen, however, collective labor is not only tangibly real but also vital to making any of the work possible. Showing up for each other, reassuring each other, and, therefore, helping each other with the task of making meals for the community makes the process less daunting.
Knowing that individualistic greed has the potential to taint our relationships and burden our shoulders left me scared when tasked with leading a kitchen. I’d been trained to believe that anything and everything must be dealt with and solved on my own. Knowing that we are all responsible for each other, that we will take care of each other, and that we can rely on each other makes life so much more beautiful. Thank goodness for the people who made that day in the kitchen
possible. Thank goodness for teamwork. And thank goodness for stir–fry.
Lesson 3:
Food is political
Philly is no stranger to food insecurity. According to a 2022 report by Philabundance, about 15.2% of the population in Philadelphia County is food insecure, which is about 242,500 people in total. A Feeding America study finds that our county has an annual food budget shortfall—the total additional cost required by food insecure folks to purchase sufficient food—of about $206,922,000. The People’s Kitchen operates with a deep understanding of Philly’s painful past and present–day realities regarding accessing food. The mutual aid group recognizes that the work and practice of operating a community kitchen cannot be done in a vacuum. “We’re not neutral on political issues,” April says. “So we actively work in a variety of different ways to collectively fight for land justice, raising the minimum wage, economic justice, workers’ rights, immigrant rights, and all these sorts of things. We see all of those issues as part of a larger system of capitalism and greed that is the state of the country today.”
The People’s Kitchen refuses to be apolitical or morally apathetic. Other food justice groups, such as Food Not Bombs West Philly and South Philly’s Punks with Lunch, all operate and work to prepare meals out of the space of the People’s Kitchen. These relationships speak truth to the operation of the organization. April states that the work at the People’s Kitchen is “really different from the traditional idea of a food kitchen” because there is no sense of “clearly identified sides, where it’s ‘the people who get aid’ and ‘the people who provide aid’.” Instead, it’s “less hierarchical and reflects more of an egalitarian system.” This egalitarian system ensures that everyone shares a collective responsibility for the food being made. Moreover, it’s a sustainable approach, where those who receive food can be the same folks who produce those meals in the kitchen.
Food is political and profoundly indicative of systemic inequity. It’s no mistake that those who find themselves facing substance abuse may also be food insecure. It’s not a coincidence that undocumented immigrants and workers are more likely to be food in-
secure. It’s no accident that elderly populations find themselves in more precarious situations with food insecurity. The People’s Kitchen showcases that food justice and food sovereignty is direct harm reduction. Food justice revolutionizes community resources. Food sovereignty gives communities the agency to reimagine the system of food and food production.
By being unapologetically political, the People’s Kitchen also reinforces the idea that our actions and lives are also political. The way we eat and attain food is political, and how we engage with others will persist in being political. We exist to influence each other and create an impact in some way—whether positively or not. The work at the People’s Kitchen intertwines with the more prominent language, lessons, and labor of liberation. And that perhaps this struggle for liberation can be both fulfilling and delicious.
Lesson 4: Jazz is the secret ingredient to good cooking
Almost every week in the kitchen, April connects her phone to the speaker and plays jazz. The choice of music doesn’t feel like a coincidence. Just like a jazz band, everyone in the kitchen plays a distinct but equally important role.
The People’s Kitchen taught me that there’s no such thing as a “trivial” position. Even if it’s as easy as peeling potatoes or as arduous as washing the dishes, the meals that come out of the kitchen are not possible without each volunteer contributing to their unique role.
Valerie Erwin, one of the founding board members of the People’s Kitchen, shares with me in a phone interview the joy of bringing people together to create something. “Bringing together a team of people who did not know each other before or did not even know how to cook and then produce the meals is very satisfying all around,” she says. “It is very gratifying to see the people feel very proud of themselves that they’re able to do that, to contribute.”
This gratification comes from the place of knowing that we belong. April tells me that with the kitchen, “people can feel like they have a place in the world, that they are worth-
while, and contribute to something positive.”
The kitchen becomes a space where we can contribute something positive together; every person has a special purpose, and a sense of belonging can be fostered. In the larger sphere of the world, we can feel unimportant or irrelevant. In the People’s Kitchen, we celebrate our small successes. We share our appreciation for the smaller roles because we recognize that the larger product is a culmination of those small decisions and actions. And together, we create something beautiful.
Lesson 5: Food nourishes the soul. And we will remain!
We will remain. The People’s Kitchen will remain. And the community will remain.
The idea of forever used to scare me— but “forever” can be part of our fight for change. The People’s Kitchen has shown me that “forever” is not stagnation but rather a permanence to work: We are making forever changes.
The People’s Kitchen will remain because we know food has the power to break barri-
ers, forge alliances, and share stories. Victoria reminds us, “we are all deserving of good quality, nutritious food—not just the shit that people throw away.”
Food is not just fundamental to our being, survival, and sustenance but also essential to preservation and existence in a cruel world. Una tells me, “you need something to nourish you, sustain you, and keep you going. The act of feeding yourself and keeping yourself full is so important because it can give you the energy and the strength to not give up persistence. For whatever it is you’re doing.”
Food is also joyful. As April says, “food is not just fuel. It’s also the basis of community. It’s the basis of the general well–being of having, you know, and bringing joy and pleasure to people’s lives.” Food permits us to be in community with each other. “We’re allowed to share this together. We’re making the food together; we’re eating the food together.”
In the field of justice work and organizing, there can be times when the work feels disconnected and elusive. But at the People’s
Kitchen, all those involved are able to see that each step leads to the satisfactory result of delicious meals that are enjoyed by the community. We get to witness the fruits of our labor and celebrate each other. Valerie reflects on this similar sentiment. “I think there is this habit for us to be really disconnected between the idea of mutual aid,” she says. By remaining grounded in the values and priorities of a mutual aid organization, the community allows us to take space. We are invited to create something together and share that work together freely.
The People’s Kitchen and mutual aid are forever. This concept of “forever” has been the long basis of justice. “Forever” is not just a promise for tomorrow or the following day. These lessons shared from the People’s Kitchen all reflect on “forever” because the work and the people involved in the work intend to last. We intend to be more than a one–time service or a temporary fix. “Forever” means love. And it is love that can break the walls that separate us, and it is love that continues to keep us fed and full. k
Why Does That Cheeseburger Look So Good?
AI is quietly transforming the way we experience visuals in our lives—in some ways we don’t even notice.
BY SAMANTHA HSIUNG
Atthe boba shop where I worked this summer, I would often spend my time idly staring at the art on the walls. Among the canvases of blue lakes and rugged mountains, my favorite was an illustration of a pink cat perched atop a milk–tea bottle. With each piece of art marked with a price tag of $100, I found myself hoping that prospective owners would cherish these pieces made with hard work and clear, careful precision.
“You know those paintings are AI–generated, right?” my coworker said to me one day after she caught me, yet again, mesmerized by the smiling cat on the wall.
I had no idea. Despite having read piles of articles about the effects of AI on academic learning, interacted with AI through Amazon chatbots, and driven to work that day in an AI–automated car, the revelation of AI’s unseen influence at the boba shop left me feeling deeply unsettled.
We know that AI has permeated many aspects of our lives—but what about the less obvious, everyday things that are also impacted
by AI?
Next to the art pieces on the wall were posters of the most popular drinks of the store—a seeming juxtaposition of contemporary art and the “ancient” era of traditional photography. Yet at a closer glance, the drinks on the posters seemed unnaturally perfect. The milk caps looked too creamy, the ice cubes too symmetrical. Brown sugar was artfully drizzled along the perimeters of the cup, and for coffee drinks, steam rose from each cup like breath in cold air.
Here’s the brutal truth: It wasn’t just the paintings, but also the drink posters that were products of AI.
AI is employed not only in producing traditional art but also, more subtly, in generating food photography. Ever seen a photo of a $10 cheeseburger on DoorDash and wondered why it looked like a Gordon Ramsey original? The answer: AI.
In fact, several ghost kitchens—restaurants specifically optimized for food delivery apps—frequently use AI–generated photos in
lieu of real photos of their dishes. Professional photographers can cost upwards of hundreds of dollars, and many businesses don’t make enough revenue to dish out big bucks on seemingly trivial business endeavors. Furthermore, when third–party food delivery services such as DoorDash and GrubHub assign photographers to take photos at restaurants, it can be a logistical nightmare for the restaurant owner and photographer to coordinate set times for the photoshoot. The end result of a photoshoot is often food waste, subpar photos, and financial loss for the restaurant, as well as the misspent time of the photographer—troubles which would be fully eradicated by the use of AI photography.
This shift toward AI–generated photos is also driven by consumer response. Research has suggested that consumers find AI–generated images of food more appetizing than genuine photos of food. AI machines, such as DALL–E 3, accentuate key features such as lighting, glossiness, positioning, and color to manufacture food attractiveness—and the more pristine the
food looks, the higher the chance that consumers will desire to purchase it. Especially in environments like delivery platforms, visual representations of food can make or break a consumer’s choice.
But along with its success, AI photography has also introduced significant pitfalls. Businesses such as Instacart have faced public scrutiny because of their inaccurate representations of food created with AI. The pictures have weird textures, strange shadows, and often stir up some pretty grotesque reactions. Seeing a photo of a hot dog with the interior anatomy of a tomato isn’t exactly number one on anyone’s bucket list.
Moreover, to add to the controversy of AI, generative AI models are often trained using images that aren’t licensed for use in AI–training data sets, and there have been several instances of companies filing lawsuits against AI companies for copyright infringement. Though unlikely, this could cause restaurants who promote their products using AI–generated photos to also be held liable for copyright infringement.
On the consumer side, AI–generated images can encourage unrealistic expectations about food for consumers, stimulating something called “visual hunger”—where looking at images of food can trigger hunger. With constant exposure to these idealized versions of food, consumers can be driven to make impulsive choices in pursuit of the perfect meal that they see in AI–generated images. The consequences of this are intense: Consumers fall into patterns of unhealthy eating habits.
But how much of this is really new? Marketing has long made use of tactics to enhance product appeal. Think that the milk in a Cheerios ad is real milk? Well, think again. It’s actually glue, which helps cereal retain its white appearance and prevents the cereal itself from sinking. Have you ever wondered why your Big Mac looks like a dilapidated pile of junk in real life compared to how it looks on TV? Pieces of the Big Mac are separated by string and toothpicks, ensuring each juicy layer is on full display to the world.
In our current food advertising marketplace, AI is just another method used to sell goods, another tool in the marketer’s arsenal, and a new way of food–styling. So the next time you find yourself drooling over the impossibly scrumptious–looking Subway sandwich on the ad board at the nearby SEPTA station, you’ll know exactly what’s cooking behind the scenes. k
SHINE ON
MISS CANTALOUPE
Pink Floyd Tribute Band
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, & Ink
Tattoo culture is the secret ingredient to Philadelphia’s vibrant culinary scene
BY NATALIA CASTILLO
Photos by Chenyao Liu and Jean Park of skin and ink, they are, in a way, the physical badges collected by chefs throughout their time in the culinary industry.
Philadelphia chefs aren’t just serving up some of the city’s most delectable dishes, they’re doing it in style— tattooed style, that is. The Bear, a recent hit dramedy about the inner workings of a Chicago kitchen, reinforced the brooding “tattooed chef” archetype that populates kitchens. Traditional flash designs of chef’s knives, the deconstructed anatomy of a pig, and sensual prints of pin–up girls smatter the bodies of chefs in The Bear. Beyond the silver screen, however, tattoo culture permeates kitchens of all cuisines and in all cities. While tattoos aren’t always associated with an elaborate backstory and meaning for those who choose to commit to the long–term holy matrimony
This month, Street sat down with local chefs to document the artistry of tattoo culture in some of Philadelphia’s most beloved restaurants. These are their stories.
cook more extensively. Like his venture into cooking, he dipped his toe into inking himself before he took the full plunge.
Chef Aidan Williams of Middle Child Clubhouse found his start in the culinary industry as a dishwasher while studying at Temple University. But then he lost his job when the restaurant he worked for closed. He recounts, “I had to take a leave of absence and lost my scholarship as a result.” After he left school, he dove into the culinary industry and learned to
Describing his first tattoo, he says, “It was summer 2020, and there was nothing better to do [than] have my friends stick and poke my arms.” Since then, his collection of ink has developed as he’s grown in the industry. “The initial project was to do this arm with all herbs and spices. I try to remember I made the incredibly stupid decision to start with a hand, and then kind of went to one guy once a month for about three and a half years and filled out the rest of the arm.”
When I ask about his process of selecting the designs for his patchwork sleeve of herbs and spices, he confesses, “I would [just] look up, ‘Herb name, botanical drawing.’ So if I’m
Aidan Williams, chef at Middle Child Clubhouse
being totally honest, some of these might not actually be what I think they are, because [they’re] just Google Image search results.”
If you’re wondering whether he finds any of his tattoos to be particularly notable, you’ll learn that no, in fact, he does not. “I don't know if I really have notable ones. You get to a certain point where getting tattoos is just a thing that you do when none of them really stand out at a certain point.”
When he divulges that he hopes to get out of the culinary industry in the near future, I wonder aloud if he holds emotional sentiment with his food–related tattoos. He tells me that he doesn’t think of his tattoos often, saying, “Honestly, it’s just kind of stuff someone else’s art all over my arms.”
If you’re wondering whether Philly chefs all secretly know each other, they practically do, because chef Cody Williams of Suraya in Fishtown works just a few doors down from Aidan Williams of Middle Child Clubhouse. While they are unrelated, they’ve joked that they are “father and son”—whether because of the shared surname or a secret third reason, I will never know.
When Cody enters Street’s cozy photo studio on a Wednesday evening, he warms the space with his jovial grin. He got his start in the culinary industry young. “I got started when I was 15. It was just a way to make money during high school, you know, gas money. And then when I went to college and spent my summers cooking at a lobster restaurant in Connecticut, where I’m from, just the whole time I really enjoyed it.”
Like Aidan, Cody didn’t necessarily intend to pursue a career in the culinary arts. “After I got out of college, it was tough to get a job, and so I was making pizza for a living and never intended for [cooking] to be a career.” But then, like most postgraduates, he got a desk job and found himself hating the drudge of a corporate 9–to–5 job. “I absolutely hated it,” he confesses. So he went back to what he knew and loved— food.
Home, for Cody, is the kitchen, but it’s also the island off the coast of Connecticut where
Cody Williams, chef at Suraya
he grew up—the home he memorialized on his upper arm in ink with his sister.
The sporadic art on Cody’s body maps the places and things he loves, and he’s been successful thus far in avoiding any cliché chef tattoos. In fact, instead of a chef’s knife, he got an oyster shucker instead to pair with the tattoo of an unshucked oyster right below. The meaning behind the pairing? “I love shellfish. I just love seafood,” he gushes. “I was just like, ‘Fuck it: I’m gonna get an oyster.’”
Now, years out of his desk job, his days are filled with kitchen routines, cleaning, prep, cooking—rinse and repeat. But the repetition of restaurant life is interspersed with the brilliant joy of cooking for people, Cody tells me. When he was in his postgraduate desk job, he laments, “I was just not fulfilled, like I didn't really just feel like I was an actual person.”
At Suraya, he confesses that he romanticizes the highs of the service industry while acknowledging the challenges of grueling hours in the kitchen. “I really love that my entire career is built around making people happy. I’m making a ton of food for a ton of people everyday. People are coming in and eating for birthdays, anniversaries, reuniting with long lost friends—[and] they choose our establishment to have one of their best days.”
For others like Lauren Hooks, her tattoos align with her culinary intents as a chef. The full–leg sleeve of fruits and vegetables sprouted from her love for everything of the earth. Unlike the other chefs who are still enmeshed in the day–to–day tedium of the culinary industry, Lauren is currently the kitchen manager at Penn’s Food Innovation Lab.
Lauren found her love for school in her early 20s while working as a home–health aide during nursing school. She recalls, “I had a big passion for helping people, taking care of people. I realized the effect that nutrition had on people’s late life because I saw it every day with people I really cared about.” Her experience working as a health aide sparked her interest in nutrition and veganism. After realizing that one of the biggest gaps in health and nutrition was a lack of education around home cooking, she says she “just started feverishly learning how to cook.”
Her career in the culinary industry, since learning to cook, has been diverse, from working in kitchens, as head chef at HipCityVeg, and in culinary management consulting. Lauren’s tattoos, like her career path, follow a similarly diverse patchwork of her passions.
The first tattoo she got was a section of a Candyland board, and her most recent is a detailed heart on the palm of her hand. Between
the first and her most recent tattoo, she’s gotten at least a dozen more. In fact, any inhibitions she had about getting inked quickly faded.
She recalls, “It was funny, because in the beginning, [tattoos are a] ‘job stopper.’ But everybody in kitchens has them. Then when I started running kitchens, I’ve had bosses tell me, ‘get more tattoos, so you look the part.’ So it's just nice in that way; kitchens are very em-
Lauren Hooks, kitchen manager at Penn‘s Food Innovation Lab
bracing.”
Nowadays, Lauren hopes to bring the same sense of acceptance and accessibility to cooking that she has fostered throughout her career as she works with Penn undergraduate and graduate students interested in culinary innovation.
quest. He recalls telling his friend, “My favorite foods are sushi, rice, and chocolate milk,” and telling him that he could draw whatever he wanted and he would get it tattooed to memorialize his reverence for his ultimate comfort foods.
When Ben first started to get tattoos he was endeared to the experience itself, but he says he is making “a point to wait an extra year or two [now] to have the right person” to do any future ink because he wants to be more intentional
Reflecting on the community he has found in the Philadelphia restaurant scene, he says, “I think that the food scene here is really great because there’s so much connective tissue between a lot of the great restaurants and, especially having cooked in a lot of them over the past seven or eight years, everyone’s really supportive of each other. It’s like a tight knit community.”
Chef Ben Inocencio of Illata, has a home–grown love for cooking. From the start, he says, “I’ve been working in kitchens professionally for probably eight years now, but I’ve been cooking since I could hold a spoon.”
While some chefs try to subvert the stereotypical tattoos of animal anatomy charts (like pig parts) or chef’s knives, it’s nearly impossible for them to avoid all food–related ink. But Ben’s dedicated tattoos still manage to take on a tender sense of individuality. One of his favorites was drawn by his friend upon re -
about his design choices now.
His same thoughtful approach to the act of inking his body is telling of his general approach to life decisions. When he considered entering the culinary industry, he weighed the pros and cons of trying to turn his hobby into a career. “I was nervous about [cooking] as a profession, because there’s lots of people that have hobbies that they love, and then they try to turn into a career and say, ‘Oh, like, I don’t like this.’”
As for the kitchen, according to Ben, it is often “like the ‘Island of Misfit Toys’ of people.” Regarding chef tattoo culture, Ben says, it “makes a lot of sense, [because] we're, generally speaking, people that are okay with some discomfort and pain, whether it be long hours or just the discomfort of getting a tattoo.” Perhaps the perception of tattoo culture is less about a particular design or archetype but more so about the act of tattooing itself: collecting badges to document years gone by and memories commemorated in the indefinite matrimony of skin and ink. k
Ben Inocencio, chef at Illata
Compete, Adapt, Survive: The Decline of Food Network
With the advent of short–form, sensationalist food content, are traditional channels cooked?
BY BEA HAMMAM
Design by Emmi Wu
Historically, my family has bonded over Food Network. The Barefoot Contessa, Rachael Ray, Giada—my whole family would spend the weekends watching together and trying out recipes. Nowadays, we’ve shifted away from the big screen and towards the small, sending each other Instagram Reels from “Justine Snacks” or asking each other our thoughts on the latest Claire Saffitz croissant recipe. It seems that my experience is common amongst the American public. In general, there has been a decline in cable television, also known as “cord cutting.” As viewers shift to streaming or social media, they are canceling their cable subscriptions. In 2014, more than 102 million households paid for cable television. Now, that number is 55 million– almost half as many as a decade ago. Advertisers are directing more of their ad campaigns to the internet, where their money is used more effi -
ciently than television. If cable channels hope to stay alive, they will be forced to seriously consider their content strategy.
Food Network itself has seen this same decline. Food Network is the 22nd most popular channel on live television right now, with their audience at 447,000 daily. In 2014, it was 15th most popular channel. Their most popular show, Chopped, had 1,456,000 viewers on average. The drop from those numbers to today’s numbers marks a significant decrease in the channel’s popularity.
Food Network is shifting the programming they offer: they will no longer host instructional content, once referred to as “stand and stir” shows like Ina Garten’s; instead, they are now exclusively showing their competition–based content. The cooking show format (pioneered, for what it’s worth, by Julia Child) has essentially gone extinct. And much of this content has drifted towards
the internet.
Whereas TV ads must be marketed to a more general public, cookies and targeted ads make it possible for companies to have a more curated audience. With fewer people watching cable TV, it simply makes more sense for advertisers to direct their funds online. At the end of the day, money is necessary for these channels to run. And cable TV runs on advertising dollars. Food Network is forced to only create the most profitable content in order to stay in the game, and that content is no longer the instructional cooking television of yore. Instead, it’s Beat Bobby Flay.
The internet plays a role both in housing the rejects and necessitating their housing. We have more platforms for entertainment than at any other point in history. Our attention span is shortening, and with so much content to consume available, creators have to work even harder to grab our attention. As
TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram make it increasingly easy to learn how to cook, there has been a shift in how individuals consume food content. You used to have to watch an entire episode of Barefoot Contessa to get your one–pot chicken pasta recipe, frantically writing it down to hope you can remember—or hoping they air it as a rerun. Now, you can head to TikTok for “marry me chicken pasta” with a link leading to the written out recipe. Audiences can now click that link and read hundreds of comments endorsing the recipe, instead of having to take Alton Brown’s word for it. In this context, it makes sense that a one minute viral hack to create rice paper croissants is more likely to retain our attention than a one hour program that delves into the history of French cuisine.
The upside to all this is accessibility; the downside is severe quality degradation. With this shift to offer exclusively competition-based food shows, we lose the instructional element. Instead, we only have entertainment.
Food Network is competing with free and convenient content that provides a dopamine rush. The internet is full of overblown content—whether it be faked prank videos, mukbangs, or ASMR videos. In order to stay relevant, TV must be able to keep up with the hyper–engagement of the internet. Beyond food content, cable TV more generally is becoming more sensationalized. They are competing for more limited ad revenue than 10 years ago, but also for our time. In order to compete in the current media landscape, these networks must adapt and survive, following what draws in our attention and ad revenue.
The competition format does not provide anything valuable to our lives; we are not learning anything. If even Food Network, whose founding goal was to teach people to cook, no longer does it because of the changing media landscape, what does that say about the rest of our content? All TV might be doomed to become glorified reality TV, an extension of the exaggerated internet. k
Viraj Thomas is Philly’s Pizza Wunderkind
At 21, Viraj Thomas is opening Char, Fishtown’s newest Pizza joint.
BY NORAH RAMI
Photo Courtesy of Jean Park
Iprobably worked a little over 100 hours last week … not including driving time and all that nonsense. And it was just tiring—a lot that I wouldn’t want to do that again. But I’m happy it happened, and I’m happy how it went,” Viraj Thomas says—a 21–year–old pizza maker who just opened his first brick–and–mortar restaurant, Char, this September. It’s Labor Day, his first day of rest after the soft opening of Char. Thomas came in early to clean the kitchen and take notes on the past five days of service after hosting about 200 patrons.
The airy and modern space formerly belonged to Eeva, giving Thomas the benefit of working with a fully outfitted kitchen—including an inconveniently small oven that, according to Thomas, “doesn’t make any sense.” Part of the seating area is shared with ReAnimator Coffee, though the two operate on divergent schedules to avoid overlap.
Thomas signed on the space on May 30, 2024, but it wasn’t until Aug. 28 that Char hosted its first full night of sit–down service. The soft opening primarily served friends and family. After having spent years hosting pizza pop–ups around Philadelphia, Char had collected a cult following—bringing in somewhere in the range of 150–200 patrons over five days of soft opening.
Despite having far more experience hosting pizza pop–ups than probably any other 21–year–old could claim, Thomas admits that hosting full service was unlike anything he had ever done. Still, he sees running a brick–and–mortar as easier than running pop–ups because of the structure it provides.
Running a sit–down restaurant is about the service—calculating the amount of time to allocate between people ordering and getting pizza to the nitty–gritty of greeting people with the perfect level
of friendliness. “I’m like, oh shit, I didn’t know any of that. And I still don’t really know any of that.”
In the rush of it all, Thomas ended up sleeping at his restaurant the night before the soft opening. “With the nerves, somehow 10 p.m. ended up being 1 a.m., and I knew I had to wake up at 6 a.m., and I lived 35 minutes away, so I had a towel, and I slept on that, right over there,” Thomas says, pointing to a booth towards the front of the restaurant. “I just hoped that when the coffee shop folk came in at 6:30 a.m., they didn’t think I was a homeless person.”
“I’ll probably get a cot for the restaurant just in case,” he adds right after he claims that he won’t be making that a habit, “I keep saying that as a joke, and now I’m like, 'Oh, maybe it’s serious.'”
Char sold its first pizza out of Thomas’ parents’ garage in December of 2020. Thomas purchased a pizza oven that August, saving up for the Tom Gozney Roccbox by working at Target. “I wanted one of these ovens before that, but it was 500 bucks and that was too much money for me, but I was like, I hate this job so much, I’m going to buy this oven.” It arrived on Aug. 15, 2020, right before his 17th birthday and senior year of high school.
The dream had been years in the making. It’s 2017, and Thomas likes pizza, but not more than the average guy. He’s on your typical YouTube rot watching the Buzzfeed series “Worth It” where three guys go around
New York trying pizzas ranging from $2 to $2,000. Suddenly, we’re at Mario Batali’s kitchen, Eataly, and he makes a Neopolitan pizza. Batali burns the crust—but not actually, it’s more akin to a char. Thomas recounts the full video with stunning precision. He can name all the restaurants in the video. He can even quote Batali.
“That senior year of high school, it was an obsession. Sometimes I forget it. It was a lot of talking to people on Instagram, sending them DMs and talking to them, and asking them questions and how they do this. Also a lot of forums and YouTube videos and eating other people’s pizza,” Thomas says. “Before I was guzzling every piece of information that I could get. Now it’s a little less of that because there’s a little more to do and you’re tired. There’s the initial passion and there’s still the passion of creating something great.”
The first pizza he made was straight out of the Mastering Pizza cookbook by Vetri. “It was a margarita that was a little small, that probably looks better on the picture than it was,” Thomas says.
He scrolls through his phone and finds a picture of it on Char’s Instagram—it’s the very second post—and reads the caption aloud: “first pizza out of the oven, better than expected, worse than I wanted.”
He started making so many pizzas that it felt intuitive to start selling them. Since he couldn’t drive, people from his school would come to his parents' garage to pick up his pizza. “It wasn’t popular, but the kids in my grade knew about it,” he says. He still has a notes app of all the people who picked up pizza on his first day when they sold 1520 pizzas.
His school year side hustle soon transformed into Thomas post–grad plans. His parents phrased his decision not to go to college as a gap year, but Thomas had already committed himself to Char. “In my head, it was like the pizza might not work out, but there’s an opportunity for the pizza right now.” Thomas says. “It was like an opportunity of my passion for the thing—or I could go to college, because everyone said that, like me and my family argued all the time.”
“I don’t think it was that one day I was like, ‘Oh my God. I got this realization that pizza is my life’s goal.’ It was more just like at the time, this seemed the better of two options, and I thought I could put a lot of effort into this at that time, instead of just going to college,” Thomas says. “I was thinking about it all the time. I was like pizza, pizza, pizza. But even now I’m not like— this is my true life’s passion. Maybe it is. It could be. We’ll see how it is, this is a new endeavor. If I have to work 100 hours a week every week, it’s not gonna last 20 years.”
Nov. 17, 2021 marks the start of Char as Thomas’ professional career. “And that
was like actual selling. The other stuff, it was there, but I knew most of the people so even when we really messed up we got slack,” Thomas says. “Like, what are they gonna say to a high schooler selling out of his garage?”
He graduated, went to Senior Week, came back the following Saturday, and started working at Cicala as a pizza maker on Thursday. "I was a personality hire through and through,” Thomas says. “Like, I wasn’t good at the job and I probably could do a lot better, but they let me stick around because I talked a lot of shit. But I was a loss on the payroll.”
“And, so, a lot of it is lucky and a lot of it is talking to people and sending them DMs. That’s like 90% of it.” He reached out to Ellen Yin to ask how Fork had managed to stay open, who recommended that Char get a line of credit. Alex Kemp, who runs My Loup, taught him about the importance of the employee–boss dynamic.
In a way, Thomas sees his age as an advantage in building connections—though he’s well aware that with his full beard, it’s easy to forget the fact that he’s only 21. “You get a little more support when you’re young,” Thomas says. “Like if there’s someone who's passionate, enthusiastic, and, like, not a dickhead—like this person is a nice person, people typically try to support that.”
Thomas is not looking to push the bounds of pizza with inventiveness—he’s a little defensive about the idea. “There’s one time I’ve done Indian pizza … it tastes good, but I also hate forced fusion,” Thomas says. “I just don’t know how to cook Indian food. So if I don’t know how to cook Indian food, why would I screw it up even more by putting it on pizza?”
Thomas is focused on the details, all the way down to how the flour on the crust feels between your fingers. “Sometimes, I still fuck it up. Where, like, I don’t want to launch too heavy with flour. Like, after you’re done eating, you’re rubbing your fingers, and there’s three fingers of flour. It’s just a textural feel for me—a delicate crisp.”
Despite the fact that he’s already opened a restaurant at only 21, Thomas is hard on himself—claiming that he doesn’t work as hard or fast as he should. He demands a certain level of artistry from his pizzas. “Most of the time when I eat my pizza … I spit it out like, 'Oh, this sucks,' and then sometimes I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m better than everyone else,'” he says. “I don’t know if that’s because the dough changes or that’s because when it’s like your own things, it’s very hard to be content with it. A lot of people have good pizza. Good pizza doesn’t really mean anything.”
Viraj Thomas is looking for great. k
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