saltwatersteve.com/travel

Hello faithful readers… we are here at staging in Philadelphia, PA and we have had a small bit of time to check out the South Street area for dinner the last 2 nights.

Our first night we went to Jim’s Steaks at 3rd & South. I had a steak sandwich with “Whiz” (Cheez Whiz) with peppers and onions - Meghan had hers with provolone with mushrooms, peppers, and onions. Yum! Surprisingly though, I found myself wishing they had put more whiz on my sandwich. It was a very light spread, not like they dunk the whole sandwich in it. It was interesting to look through the window and see the man working the grill with a huge, Costco-sized can of Cheez Whiz sitting up there.

Last night we walked back down to South Street with Greek food on our minds. The walk took (about 20-30 minutes) is quite nice from our hotel near the Philly convention center - we passed lots of cool rowhouse neighborhoods, an artsy mosaic-covered building, a couple community gardens, etc. We went in to South Street Souvlaki, near 5th & South. What a great place. We ordered an appetizer plate loaded with several dips including melted feta (eat your heart out Suz), baba ghanoush, hummus, tzatziki, dolmas (not really a dip - sorry), and something else that I don’t remember the name of, but was very much like slightly cooked pureed garlic (eat your heart out - me). Our waiter (the barman) recommended dragging a beet through the garlic dip - pretty intense.

I had a gyros sandwich, hold the tomatoes and lettuce. It was slathered in tzatziki, which, despite being horribly messy, is the only way (IMHO) to eat a proper gyros sandwich. Personally I still prefer the tzatziki served at the Greek House in Norman, OK, but perhaps it is just what I am accustomed to. Washed all this down with a couple draft Yuenglings Lagers (a Pennsylvania brew). All in all, great food in a great atmosphere and reasonable prices - highly recommended.

One of our fellow Peace Corps trainees from New York City accompanied us and mentioned that if we like Greek food then we should love Georgian food, which uses many of the same ingredients. Uh oh. 2 things came to mind: 1) maybe we should have had Mexican or something else we won’t be able to get, and 2) I better start jogging again because I won’t be able to afford to buy any bigger pants anytime soon.