Everybody Loves Philly (Except Stephen Starr)

For whatever reason, this past weekend just seemed to be Philly’s moment in the national press. It seemed like everywhere I looked, I was seeing another mention of Love City and its food, chefs or famous names. And the weird thing? Most of them were good mentions–which just makes me think that something really, really bad is bound to happen sometime in the very near future…

But maybe that’s just me. Anyway, here’s what the rest of the world has been saying about Philadelphia over the past couple days.

For starters, there was the Eater.com piece on Friday about Stephen Starr giving up on Philadelphia and making (yet another) run at the larger markets with Caffe Storico, an as-yet-unnamed 200-seat meat-opolis  in Greenwich Village and a newly expanded catering operation all in NYC, and a new Parc and Buddakan in Washington D.C.. This is in addition to Route 6 that he is prepping for an opening right here on North Broad.

Then there was this–a website/tumblr called This Is Not A Cheesesteak that I also found while reading eater (even though they found it by reading the Gurgling Cod). TINAC is nothing more than a repository of awful, inauthentic versions of cheesesteaks discovered in various locations across America (most notably, at Arby’s) and pictures of same. There is also some discussion of cheesesteak semantics, definitions, the difference between cheesesteaks and cheese steaks, et cetera.

Important note for fans of boneless pigs: The McRib is back in Philadelphia. You can get ’em while they’re floppy, now through November 20th.

Finally, Philly got involved in a cross-border slap-fight with New York in a Travel + Leisure “City Face-Off” which, oddly, Philly won handily. I mean, that’s awesome, sure. We’re #1 and all that. But if my reading of the numbers is correct, Philadelphia came out on top most due to its “Friendly People,” their relative “Athleticism” and “Driving Ability,” our antique stores and flea markets, barbecue (WTF?) and the “Safety” and “Cleanliness” of our fair city. We also, apparently, have better coffee, beer, street food and burgers than the Big Apple.

So yay us. I expect the hordes of barbecue-loving antique shoppers, McRib fanatics and cheesesteak purists to be descending any minute now.