Day 12: I Have Never Taken Part in Craig Laban’s Tuesday Chat

I’ve recently become somewhat addicted to reading Craig Laban, Philly’s premiere food critic. My obsession with the Philly.com food section is, let’s be honest, incongruous with the way I live my life. "Going out to eat" for me and Pam usually consists of bar food, so what the fuck am I doing reading articles about the newest fancy Rittenhouse Italian steakhouse or whatever bullshit?

Frankly, I don’t know. After a bit of reflection, I kind of equate it to people who look at real estate listings for fun in their spare time. Just like you know you’re never gonna afford that Ambler, PA mansion, I know I’m never going to be ordering $8 oysters at Ocean Prime, but it’s still fun to read about. Let’s call it escapism.

Craig Laban has been the go-to food critic in this town since I start perusing the Inquirer occasionally as a child, but I just started appreciating him recently. It was nice, for instance, to see his glowing two-bell review of our favorite neighborhood haunt, Bait and Switch in Port Richmond. It felt personal to me, in a good way.

(His rating system, by the way, is zero to four "bells" instead of stars. As in Liberty Bell. You get it. Zero bells is shit, one bell needs improvement, two bells are great, three bells are excellent, four bells are fucking elite and there are like six restaurants in the city with a four-bell review.)

I honestly don’t know how he is able to visit so many restaurants, bars, etc., every week. Like, the reason there isn’t any pictures of him online has to be that he’s so goddamn fat from eating so much great food, right?

Anyway, in between eating out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Laban also apparently makes time for an hour every Tuesday to talk food and drink with the hoi polloi. Today, I and other anonymous internet dwellers chatted with the man himself on Philly.com. I allotted my lunch hour to line up with the chat, and I wrote my questions in advanced.

Other people asked questions, and through Laban’s insight, I learned:

• St. John feta is bangin’ and can be found at DiBruno Bros.
• There is a brewery called La Cabra in Berwyn and it makes a great raspberry ale.
• There’s a sliced pizza place on 21st St. called Rione that just opened.
• Maido has good Japanese curry.
• Nam Phuong at 11th and Washington has a good Vietnamese crepe, and contrary to popular belief, Vietnamese crepes do not have eggs in them.
• The Borgata in Atlantic City has a new Italian restaurant, and it is subpar.
• Gotta try Andy’s Chicken in Fishtown one of these days.

Will I actually go to any of these places? Probably not. But I find it strangely interesting to read this man’s opinions on food.

I was lucky enough to ask two questions:

And:

Cheers to many more food adventures this summer! Though hopefully more that actually involve me eating some food instead of just reading about it.

Love,
Joey
a.k.a. JK
a.k.a. JNS1