Tamales Benedict

Caroline's delicious leftover tamales from today's Cook The Book recipe out of the awesome Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook.


Topped with ultra fresh local-pastured-organic eggs from Your Family Cow that made the most beautiful poached eggs I've ever seen in my life. Some herbs from the garden and a dash of Texas Pete. Best breakfast ever.

New Prints!

New hot dog prints!!

•Yesterdog
Super cool hot dog place in Grand Rapids, Michigan that's been there since the 70's. No burgers and trying to order a "plain hot dog" might get you kicked out. Big thanks to photographer Mike Donk for tipping me off and sending awesome photos.

• Blackie's
Old School Connecticut hot dog joint, one of many featured in the documentary A Connecticut Hot Dog Tour. Blackie's will also be selling these prints at the restaurant in a few weeks!

• Rolf's Pork Store
Mind blowing traditional German sausage shop in the middle of Albany. Hand made frankfurters, kielbasa, ring bologna, everything smoked in house. Amazing.




• Fricano's Deli
Awesome sandwich spot in Austin, Texas. Great sandwiches and a bunch of signature dogs including Chicago style and the Reuben Dog. They also do specials every once in a while like a pretty damn authentic Venezuelan Dog. The Reuben dog as well as a few of my other prints are available for sale at the Deli itself, thanks guys! My buddy Garrett Morlan has also done some awesome posters for them, which I'm fairly sure are also available to purchase.

All of these and more are available at hawkkrall.net.


•Taco Prints
Also - these limited edition prints are only available at LATACO.COM! Only a few left!
lataco.bigcartel.com

Broad & Morris Hot Dogs

Thanks to Tim Gough for tipping me off to a hot dog cart that appeared out of the blue. Nothing fancy just some dudes selling hot dogs on Broad Street. The vendor told me they were moving around the corner to Morris (apparently food carts are not allowed on Broad?, or at least that stretch. He also thought I was from the health department after I took a picture ) but they will be there all summer.


My hot dog was sort of gray but the hot sausage was decent. Interesting system of topping your own dogs from plastic deli cups of chopped onions and relish. The meatball sandwich looked good, they do hot roast beef too.

Apparently this corner is street food central in the summer with Cambodians frying whole fish and all sorts of "stands" that are not much more than a flame and a piece of metal to cook stuff on. I really see no reason for me NOT to go out there with a grill and a sack of Sahlen's hot dogs, or maybe one of those awesome German grillwalker suits.

La Copine

 

Nikki Hill from Barbuzzo and her sweet babe Clare Wadsworth are starting a sweet supper club soon and kindly asked me to help out with my crow quill penmanship.

Anything for these guys.

Atlantic City Dirty Water Dog

After the Atlantic City Beer Festival, half drunk from a few dozen 2oz glasses of Harpoon and Chimay, on my way to losing 30 bucks very slowly by betting 1 cent per spin on the slot machines. Couldn't resist this dirty water dog cart.



Delicious Sabretts dog for a whopping $3.75. The "red onion sauce" was a little sketchy and more like chopped onions in some tomato juice. Not as good as New York, but better than Philadelphia.

Taipei Town

Taipei is a fun place to eat. This happened to be the most Chinese food I had eaten in a while, but not the saucy fried Chinese food we know as Chinese food. But more I suppose Shang Hai style Chinese food, like soup dumplings, smokey silky tofu, and peanut noodles. Either or it was awesome and I dream about it.

Tyson Bee's Interview

 I recently raved about my food truck dreams being lived by Tyson Bee's and they were kind enough to grant Drawing For Food an interview. Thanks sweet Dudes.

DFF:Where are your favorite places to eat in Philadelphia?

TB: My favorite spots to eat in PA include:
       Girasole  restaurant
       Sketch burger
       Dim Sum Garden 


DFF: Who did the sweet artwork on the food truck?

TB: Yis Goodwin aka  NoseGo did the beautiful artwork for Tyson Bees truck.

DFF: Where did you get the idea for these dishes and what to include on the menu?

TB: The menu was created by my partners and I.  We came up with the menu by cooking what we like to eat.  Just naming some of our favorite foods we like to eat included Thai, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Mexican, etc.  Thus, decided to come up with a menu that would satisfy our appetites for such ethnic foods.  There are things that didn't make the cut, but might show up later on the menu.  We want to keep our menu seasonal, but of course there will be main staples that will stay on the menu.  But we want to keep the menu exciting and different.

DFF: Where do you get your kim chee?

TB: We get our kimchee from the H- Mart  in Upper Darby.  We were testing out the different kinds, but we like this particular one we got from H mart. We would make our own kimchee, but u know very well that good kimchee takes time to make.

DFF: Where are you originally from?

TB: Originally, parents are Chinese, but I was born in Laos.  Grew up in France, worked in New York for 20 years, worked in West Coast for four years, and now ended up in Philadelphia.


DFF: Why start a food truck in Philadelphia?

TB: City is manageable, cost of living is reasonable, opportunity is still growing for hard working people like us. Plus, Philadelphia is a very sport oriented city, which I enjoy very much.  Philadelphia is also known for their education in not only fine arts, but music as well.  In the future, I would like to go back to school after I make it out here in Philly and study music to learn how to play the violin. 

Sorry Dearests

 

For not updating this darling Food Blog. We've been busy with personal projects and Hawk has turned writing about food and drawing hot dogs into a real job. YES!

But more food projects and news and eating eating eating soon. Because we still love drawing and food.

Koreana

Tucked away in a University City parking lot, sandwiched in between an Indian buffet and a strip club is Koreana, a tiny counter service Korean place catering mostly to Penn students. It's a barebones, family run operation serving a full menu of Korean standards including kimbap, mandoo, omurice, and lots of hot pots.


Quick service combined with affordable pricing and homey offerings makes Koreana a campus restaurant through and through. Be prepared for gaggles of Penn students involved in intense conversations about coding and grad school. But if you can get around the collegiate atmosphere there are some great Korean eats to be had.


A recent lunch of of soondubu, a spicy stew of soft tofu and pork, was a touch spicier than I've had before, with a heavy dusting of chili powder lining the lip of the stone bowl that it was served in. The soup had an almost wood-fired smokiness to the broth, making the spice even more pronounced and wonderfully warming. The chunks of tofu in the bowl were soft and custardy and slices of pork were fork tender. A quick poke around the bowl uncovered a poached egg just below the surface, ready to be broken up into the soup.


The mandoo weren't the best I've had, most likely frozen. The soy-sesame dipping sauce that accompanied made up for some of the blandness. But then again that might be my fault for ordering them steamed instead of fried.

I suppose my one qualm with Koreana is the lack of banchan, just a tiny cup of kimchi to accompany the meal. Other counter service Korean joints including the H-Mart in Elkins Park serve at least a three small dishes along with your main. But banchan aside, Koreana is a great option for quick fix Korean.

Koreana Restaurant
3801 Chestnut Street, Phila, PA 19104
(215) 222-2240

Tyson Bee's

These guys are living my food truck dreams. Tyson Bee's food truck, is delicious, and perfect to be parked on Bainbridge and Broad on New Year's day.

Smartest peeps. Which I think they might be parked here every Saturday, so get in line. Or normally during the week on 33rd and Spruce.

The Endamame Taco, even though I am not an endamame fan by far, was really delicious and surprising. Mack got 2!

Of course I got the pork belly bun, which was a braised pork belly in hoisin sauce and cilantro, super yum.

But we ran into our friends who got the Thai Basil Chicken bowl and The Korean Beef Bowl, both looked  and smelled awesome.

What I loved about these guys serving it up on New Year's Day on Broad Street, was a moment when a police officer came up the the truck and said:

" I dont know what a Thai Basil Chicken Bowl is, but I want to try it"

Which made me smile hard.

Cafe Chau

check out the jar of fresh chili peppers

I love getting tea in this little guy

That's right drop ceilings and tiling, ahhh reminds me of my grandma's.

Bo Kho

Bun Rieu

 

No Cafe Chau is not my house, it's WAY better because it has flourescent lighting and a widescreen TV. Which every delicious Vietnamese restaurant should have at least one or the other.

Adam Erace wrote about Cafe Chau in last week's City Paper and as soon as I saw the article:

1) um it's called Cafe Chau, I mean I had to know
2) I whipped out my phone and mapped how long it took to get there from the apartment.
3) Hey more places to get a banh mi, Holla at me.

And the people there were the nicest sweetest people. The Bo Kho, Vietnamese Beef Stew, was stellar. The bread was really good and just toasted hot, and not everyone makes this dish which is great in the winter. The Bun Rieu is the tomato broth and crab meat soup, which I have to say I prefer the Nam Son version of this dish. But the iced coffee, um it's love is like whoa.

Cafe Chau
7th and Jackson St.
(215) 463-1095