Food Country Restaurant Reviews serving the Delaware Valley

Jeff's Take: One of the great advantages of city living is the concept of the food cart. A good food cart can offer a quick, convenient, cheap, and delicious meal, and the best food carts can even be deserving of a special trip. In Philadelphia , the best place to go searching for good food cart cuisine is West Philly’s University City neighborhood. Dozens of food cart vendors congregate there every day, offering a variety of options to the thousands of students in the area. How successful are the University City food carts? Just look at Greek Lady , which started out as a cart and now has a permanent storefront nearby. Thanks to a recommendation from my brother Erick, who lives in the area, I recently discovered a cart that could end up being just as successful—Tacos Don Memo, located at 38 th and Sansom. A trip to any food cart carries with it a range of possibilities in terms of quality. Some carts clearly haven’t been visited by the health inspector in quite awhile (if ev

Washington Street Ale House is located in downtown Wilmington on (surprise!) Washington Street and has been around since 1996. The restaurant served upscale pub and tavern food alongside handcrafted beer and microbrews in a restored downtown building. The exposed brick walls, 19th century photographs, oak floors, fireplace, and open porch give the ale house a great warm ambiance. While Washington Street does not brew any of their own beers, they do have 20 beers on-tap many of which come from local breweries. Mike’s Take: It’s hard not to draw comparisons to Iron Hill Brewery when you visit Washington Street. The menu and décor are very similar. In fact, I ordered the same cheese steak eggroll appetizer that I had at Iron Hill. Here is where the restaurants start to differ. Washington Street Ale House’s food is definitely a little more upscale than Iron Hill’s both in presentation and price. The cheese steak eggrolls were very good, but could have been cheesier and a slightly bigger po

Jeff's Take: I had read enough about the countless honors that John’s Roast Pork has won for its cheesesteaks. Local radio station WIP gave it top honors in its recent “ Ultimate Cheesesteak Challenge .” Esquire named it one of the Best Sandwiches in America . The James Beard Foundation gave it an “ America ’s Classic ” distinction. It was time to see what all the fuss was about. To clear up any confusion, John’s doesn’t deal exclusively in pork products. The “cheesesteak” is made with beef, and the “pork sandwich,” made with Italian roasted pork, is served up either on a Kaiser roll (small) or a hoagie roll (large). Both are excellent, but the pork sandwich is a true masterpiece. The Cheesesteak: The thinly sliced steak at John’s is of excellent quality. It’s cooked in small batches, which speaks volumes about the quality control at John’s. Most other busy shops cook their steak in huge batches, which often makes it tougher and drier, since it sits on the grill for longer per

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