Craig LaBan’s favorite Shore restaurants | Let’s Eat
High-end Mexican comes to Kensington, the Michelin Guide arrives in Philly, and a Beard semifinalist is opening in the burbs.
Our Shore Guide is packed with surf, sand, and foodstuff. A must-read is from critic Craig LaBan. He eats everywhere, right? Here are seven Shore restaurants he actually wants to return to.
Also in this edition:
High-end Mexican: lt’s showtime for Amá, from chef Frankie Ramirez.
Michelin’s coming: The inspectors are on the job already, and the chefs are getting excited.
Palizzi-palooza: People are losing their minds over the chance to get a membership.
Restaurant news: One of our 76 restaurants has a new location on the way, and a James Beard-semifinalist chef is opening in the burbs. Read on!
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Craig LaBan shares his seven favorite food destinations he can’t wait to revisit at the Jersey Shore. How would you not want to devour the spaghetti with truffled cream twirled inside a wheel of Pecorino Romano at Cafe 2825?
There are precisely three cheesesteaks worth eating at the Jersey Shore, says our columnist Tommy Rowan. Bet you haven’t heard of at least one of them.
Ten top pizzas from Long Beach Island to Cape May, all mapped out for you.
Hammonton — just a quick jump off the Atlantic City Expressway or an hour‘s ride on NJ Transit from 30th Street Station — is no longer only a pit stop on the way to the Shore or a blueberry fancier‘s delight. Mike Newall explains.
Chef Frankie Ramirez is aiming high for his first restaurant, the luxe Amá at Front and Oxford in Kensington. After two decades of cooking for Stephen Starr and other top names, he’s coming into his own.
🌶️ Check out La Jefa, the ambitious but casual new spot attached to the Mexican destination Tequilas in Rittenhouse.
Michelin Guide restaurant inspectors are roaming Philly dining rooms now, and Gwendal Poullennec, its international director, just paid a visit for the announcement. Everybody wants to be an inspector, he says, until you see what they go through.
Palizzi Social Club, that always-hot ticket, is opening its membership — 25 newcomers will be admitted on four consecutive Thursdays through the end of the month. They start at 3 p.m., and be advised that last week, the line began at 7 a.m. If you miss out, all is not lost.
🎥 Video: Take 3 minutes and check out the President’s Room at Palizzi, and you can groove to the tunes of Doug Drewes and Huck Browne.
Quintessence Theatre’s current production in Mount Airy, The Return of Benjamin Lay, is a rousing effort to get modern audiences to see the British abolitionist Quaker as a prescient leader, in the vein of Hamilton. Rosa Cartagena found a particularly remarkable sense of timing, too.
Scoops
Chance Anies, chef-owner of South Philly’s Filipino BYOB Tabachoy, an Inquirer 76 restaurant, has signed a lease on Fairmount Avenue for a new restaurant, where Tela’s Market was. Kiki Aranita gets under the hood with details about Manong, Anies’ Filipino American bar-grill inspired by Outback Steakhouse.
Malvern Buttery, the farmhouse-style cafe on King Street in Malvern, will branch out later this year to the former Kindred Collective at 836 W. Lancaster Ave. in Bryn Mawr. This one will be flagged as the Buttery Bryn Mawr, with a full-service coffee bar, pastries, bread, savory dishes, and casual, quick-serve dinner plates. The Malvern original is due to get more seating and dinner options this summer.
Restaurant report
Heng Seng Noodles. “There wasn’t too much Cambodian food in Philly back then,” Annie Huong was saying the other day. Back then was 1989, when her parents, Anthony Huong and Pouv Song, opened Heng Seng in South Philly’s Whitman neighborhood.
Gradually, the modest restaurant’s dry-noodle dishes became prized both inside and outside of the Cambodian Teochew community.
The couple’s children — daughters Sarah, now 28, and Annie, 26, and son Lange, 25 — helped out in the restaurant but went to college and began pursuing their own careers. Last year, Anthony Huong tossed out an idea: How would the children like to run the restaurant?
“I talked to my siblings, and we were discussing how we wanted to save his restaurant because we wanted him to retire,” Annie Huong said.
But Heng Seng, she said, is “very small and kind of outdated.” Change of plans: The kids scouted a new location — the last empty storefront in Hung Vuong Plaza, a strip mall in Cherry Hill, the wonderland of strip malls — and this week they’re opening Heng Seng Noodles. It’s a comfy bistro with booth and table seating. Their parents are staying put at Seventh and Tree Streets, though they’ve closed temporarily while the kids get started.
The Cherry Hill menu is far more ambitious, but most everyone during its soft-opening period has gravitated to the dry noodles topped with sweet soy sauce and served with a side of soup. Since opening time is 10 a.m., the traditional breakfast bowl of rice noodles (kuy teav) is a good bet, as is fried rice congee. Shown above is bok lahong, a funky, spicy-sour salad, and starters include crunchy shrimp tempura, shown at top with a glass of what appears to be Ovaltine.
It is Ovaltine.
“It’s a core memory for us,” Annie Huong said. “Our parents brought us back to Cambodia a few times, and every time I went back, I would get it.”
Heng Seng Noodles, 1467 Brace Rd., Cherry Hill. Hours: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, and 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Closed Tuesday. Wheelchair accessible.
Briefly noted
Asif Ali of the Hulu series Deli Boys embarked on a hoagie crawl — his first ever — during a Philly stop on his comedy tour, and Hira Qureshi caught up with him.
Alice, at Ninth and Christian Streets in the Italian Market, is expanding hours with a weekend “midday menu” (noon-5 p.m.) with full bar service and a few plates, effective with this weekend’s South 9th Street Italian Market Festival. Food initially includes a fried chicken sandwich ($15); green salad ($19) with green garlic, Parmesan, and crispy artichoke; and fries ($10) with shio koji and garlic aioli.
Beet Hunger Bash is Philabundance’s 40th-anniversary celebration (7-9 p.m. Wednesday, as in tonight) will be a tasting event featuring 20-plus Philly restaurants and chefs at the Pump House in Bala Cynwyd. Tickets ($400) are here.
Jay Wolman, the roving chef (now in Philly) behind Intermission, is doing a two-week residency at Superfolie (1602 Spruce St.), Chloe Grigri and Vincent Stipo’s cocktail bar. He’s taking over the kitchen with his own menu from May 14-17 and May 21-24. Reservations are available via Tock, though walk-ins may be possible.
The Delicious City Philly Podcast, featuring chef Eli Kulp, Marisa Magnatta, and Dave Wez, will do a tailgate as a fundraiser for the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign before the Phillies-Braves game on May 27. It’s 4-7 p.m. in Lot G outside of Citizens Bank Park and will include Mike’s BBQ, chef Reuben Asaram of Reuby, Coco’s Gelato, Porcos Porchetteria, and Pastramski’s by Chef Scott Sumsky. Fourth & Jawn will roll in with a full tailgate rig and a DJ, while Kenwood Beer, Surfside, and other local drink partners will provide beverages and Ice Sculpture Philly will provide an ice luge. Ashley Foods is supplying all the food and ingredients. Limit of 75 people; tickets ($85pp) can be purchased here, with 25% going to the American Heart Association.
The 10th Muhibbah Dinner fundraiser by chef Ange Branca of Kampar is taking place from 6-9 p.m. June 2 at Sor Ynez, 1800 N. American St. It will support the Welcoming Center. Besides Branca, chefs include Alex Tellez of Sor Ynez; Dionicio Jimenez of La Baja, Cantina la Martina, and Cantina on the Go at Human Robot Jenkintown; Amy Rivera-Nassar of Amy’s Pastelillos; Jason Okdeh of Farina Di Vita; and Chad Durkin of Porco’s, Small Oven Pastry Shop, and Breezy’s Deli. It’s BYOB; tickets ($160pp) are here.
Chef Kevin Tien of D.C.’s Moon Rabbit will collab with Kalaya chef-owner Nok Suntaranon for southern Thailand-meets-Vietnam dinners on June 2, a reprise of a recent D.C. meet-up. Dishes include banh xeo with turmeric crepe, river prawn, nuoc cham, herbs; duck massaman with duck leg confit, curry, potato, almond, pickle; and namkhaeng sai with shaved ice, pineapple compote, pandan bread crumbs, and jellies. It’s $135pp plus tax and à la carte beverage, on Resy.
Queen Village, enjoying a busy restaurant scene, is planning its first-ever restaurant week. Pencil in July 18-Aug. 3 (excluding Saturdays); price points will be $60, $40, and $20 to broaden the restaurant selection.
❓Pop quiz
Top athletes are singing the praises of what carbohydrate:
A) chocolate
B) pasta
C) potatoes
D) quinoa
Find out here if you know the answer.
Ask Mike anything
What’s happening at Golden City restaurant on Bethlehem Pike in Colmar, which closed recently after so many years. — Kelly D.
The Lee family did indeed have a good run of 39 years. Next up for the location will be a restaurant backed by Sichuan chef Peter Chang, a 2016 semifinalist for the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic. His culinary odyssey reads like a novel. Chef at the Chinese Embassy in D.C., Chang and his family were due to return home in 2003 but vanished from the embassy just days before their scheduled departure. He then led a peripatetic life, cooking around the D.C. area under a pseudonym before going legit with a series of restaurants in the D.C./Virginia area. I’m seeking clarity on why a Peter Chang location, with a bar, is opening in Hatfield Township, of all places.
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