Asad’s Is Bringing Its Wildly Popular Fried Chicken to University City

Asad’s is bringing hot chicken to University City. / Photograph by Scott Lewis

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story said that Hi-Lo tacos took over Scoop Deville’s Walnut Street location. We removed that part of the story because it was incorrect. Scoop Deville is open and shares the same street address as Hi-Lo tacos at 1109 Walnut Street.

Howdy, buckaroos! And welcome to another week of the Foobooz food news roundup. We have got some EXCELLENT news this week for anyone out there who loves Christmas, tacos, fried chicken — or maybe all three. So let’s kick things off this week with …

The Best Fried Chicken News You’ll Hear All Week

You guys know how much I love Asad’s Hot Chicken, right? I mean, I wrote about them here. And here. And again here. The original Asad’s on Roosevelt Avenue is, to me, one of the defining restaurants in Philly right now — an all-hustle fried chicken shack operating out of a gas station parking lot in the Northeast that regularly gets lines that stretch down the block. It’s the kind of place where you can meet just about every kind of Philadelphian there is. And the chicken is just amazing.

Lately, Asad’s has been on a bit of a tear, opening new locations all over town. There’s one on Cottman Avenue now. Another on Knights Road in Bensalem. A fourth in the works in Burlington, NJ.

But now I’m also hearing that there’s a fifth outpost that was just made official: 16 South 40th Street in University City — basically 40th and Market.

And while yes, there’s been talk about a UCity location for months now (occasionally even with that South 40th Street address attached), this is the first time Asad’s made it official.

No idea yet on the opening date, but you can bet I’m gonna be keeping an eye on their Instagram feed. As always, you’ll know more when I know more. Keep watching this space.

Okay, what’s next …

Hi-Lo Puts Down Roots

Photograph courtesy of Hi-Lo Taco Co.

For months, chef Jeff Newman worked the pop-up circuit, banging out his signature breakfast tacos (among other things) in Fishtown, Kensington, Center City — wherever he could find a space and someone willing to host him. His operation, called Hi-Lo Tacos, became known for Newman’s homemade tortillas, barbecued meats, killer breakfast tacos and smart collaborations. If you ever caught him on the streets, you know just how good (and how popular) Hi-Lo has been. And if you’ve been following along on Instagram, you probably already know what Newman has had in the works for the past several months: a brick-and-mortar location to call his own.

Well, as of last week (November 28th, to be exact), Hi-Lo Tacos is up and running in its brand new permanent home at 1109 Walnut Street in Midtown Village.

Newman posted some excellent behind-the-scenes videos during the build-out of the new space (this one in particular is a cinéma vérité masterpiece on what it’s really like to open a restaurant).

And he’s a lifer with 20 years already behind him in the industry, so he’s coming to this with no illusions. Hi-Lo had an audience but it was never going to get any bigger without a permanent home. This was just the next logical step.

Photograph courtesy of Hi-Lo Taco Co.

Plus, Newman has a solid taco bar menu that’s neither too lean or too ambitious. On the floor, he’s honing in on that fine dining quality/casual atmosphere thing that’s working so well lately. The dining room is running on a QR-code ordering system and what he’s calling a “hybrid” service model in order to get a little fast-casual efficiency working in a dining room and bar that can seat almost 70.

And he’s got two other things going for him. First, he opened a takeout window that opens right onto Walnut Street, and I love a place with a takeout window. Second, he’s got a liquor license.

Right now, Hi-Lo is doing a dinner-only schedule that includes some all-day breakfast tacos (including a burnt-ends version with egg and white cheddar), 10 not-so-breakfast tacos (the smoked chicken with guajillo BBQ sauce is right at the top of the list; and the Cajun-fried shrimp with Old Bay and Valentina butter look excellent, too), homemade chips and salsa, a couple tostadas, some smoked-and-fried wings. Newman and his crew are hoping to add breakfast and lunch services, too, but that’ll likely have to wait for the new year.

Moving on.

Teddy Sourias LOVES Christmas

White Elephant / Photograph courtesy of Craft Concepts Group

Or at least Sourias and his Craft Concepts Group love making money off Christmas. And this year they’re tripling down on the season.

After Tinsel and their newly made-over Uptown Express beer garden which is now three times the size (and has three times the decor) as Uptown Beer Garden’s prior holiday iterations, they’ve opened White Elephant.

If Barbie was spending a night in Philly, White Elephant is absolutely where she would go. It is a floor-to-ceiling pink and glittery fantasia with trees and lights and tinsel and sparkles and not one, not two but three hundred disco balls.

Which, just for the record, is a LOT of disco balls.

Photograph courtesy of Craft Concepts Group

As Laura Swartz noted in her holiday pop-up bars roundup last month, the White Elephant team had been quietly building the space formerly occupied by Blume in secret. They opened their doors on Friday, December 1st at 1500 Locust Street.

Happy Birthday, Friday Saturday Sunday!

Friday Saturday Sunday is turning seven. / Photograph courtesy of Friday Saturday Sunday

There is no holiday that Philadelphians don’t know how to celebrate. No anniversary, memorial or special day that we won’t turn into an excuse to go out drinking and maybe also have a bite to eat. Honestly, it’s one of the things I love about this town. There is NEVER an excuse to be bored unless you really want to be.

In the last couple days, I’ve received probably a dozen different event announcements for holiday parties, seasonal soirées and what-not. But the one that first caught my eye was one that had nothing to do with the holidays at all.

On Saturday, December 9th, Friday Saturday Sunday will be celebrating its seventh birthday. And what do you need most for a seventh birthday party?

If you answered a party clown, a hip flask or pony rides, you’re wrong. What you need is a birthday cake. And that’s just what FSS is whipping up — in collaboration with New June Bakery — for a party starting at noon that will see the entire bar covered with slices of celebratory birthday cake.

Photograph courtesy of Friday Saturday Sunday

Of course, this being Friday Saturday Sunday (and Friday Saturday Sunday being one of the best restaurants in the entire country city right now), it couldn’t just be any normal birthday cake.

No, they’re knocking out a spread of Assassin’s Handbook tiramisu — an absolutely deadly combination of orange zested olive oil citrus chiffon, mascarpone custard, a mulled wine and Jamaican rum-soak, an amaro averna berry compote with Valrhona cocoa brut, topped off with a jabanero Swiss buttercream.

I know. It’s a lot. But that’s kinda FSS’s thing, you know? Just absolutely destroying your expectations for what a dish, a meal or a birthday cake is supposed to be. They’ll be serving their birthday “cake” for $10 a slice starting at noon on the 9th. They’re planning on it going until 3pm, but there’s a very good chance that all the cake will be gone before then so, you know, plan accordingly.

More Festiveness

Dock the Halls! / Photograph by Lex Nemchenko / PUNCH Media

Meanwhile, Enswell and Sam Jacobson from Stargazy are getting together to celebrate Boxing Day with an all-walk-in English feast. Expect Welsh rarebit, potted rabbit, fried fish sandwiches, black pudding and Scotch eggs.

And over in Fishtown, Dock Street is taking a page from Teddy Sourias (see above) and turning their tasting room into a non-stop Christmas party for the entire month of December. Decorations, seasonal drinks, holiday movie nights — they’ve got it all. And all you have to do is show up.

But hey, if you’re looking for more things to do this month, we just put together a list of all the coolest events happening in Philly for the entire month of December. So if you’re looking for something to do, we’ve got you covered.

Now how about some leftovers?

The Leftovers

Looks like Tyler Akin just can’t get enough of the hotel life. He’s been running Le Cavalier in Wilmington’s Hotel Du Pont for a while now, and word just came down that he’s put his name on a whole new project.

Bastia will be the name of his new Mediterranean restaurant, attached to the boutique hotel Anna & Bel on Susquehanna Street in Fishtown — making it something of a return for Akin, since he opened Stock there like a billion years ago. Beyond a vague opening date (late winter), there’s not a ton of details yet about Bastia — but over at the Inky, Klein took a long look at what’s happening with Akin, in case you’re interested.

Meanwhile, Townsend Wentz has a new restaurant called Oltremare which is about to go into preview mode at 2121 Walnut Street — the former home of his eponymous Townsend in Rittenhouse. It’s going to be a “Seafood forward Italian restaurant” and seeing as the press preview is this Wednesday, I’m guessing that the public opening is not too far off.

Kampar is coming back! / Photograph courtesy of Ange Branca

And finally this week, if you didn’t already see it, I spent some time talking with Ange Branca about her new restaurant, Kampar. She has some big ideas, a super-inclusive residency model that could seriously change Philly’s restaurant scene for the better, and we spent a lot of time talking about how spaces can dictate menus and what she’s been up to for the past couple years. It was a good time, and you should totally read the longform version of my interview with her if you’ve got a minute. But if you’re looking for the tl;dr version, it’s this: A new, MUCH bigger version of Branca’s Malaysian restaurant, Saté Kampar is coming to the former Nomad Pizza space at 611 South 7th Street. It should be opening sometime in January.

And honestly, I can’t wait.