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Molly McVety
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Tag: fishtown
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Cake & Joe’s third cafe opens this week in Center City
Cake and Joe will open a new cafe in Center City at 1735 Market St. on Feb. 18. The first 100 will get free individual cakes. Owners Sarah Qi and Trista Tang opened their first shop in Pennsport in 2020, followed by a second cafe in Fishtown in 2022.
Michael Tanenbaum
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The War on Drugs’ holiday benefit concert series is revived with three shows at Johnny Brenda’s
The War on Drugs will play three nights at Johnny Brenda’s in Fishtown with proceeds going to the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia. The Philly rockers are reviving the ‘Drugcember to Remember’ for the first time since 2022.
Michael Tanenbaum
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3 Philly restaurants, including Kalaya, named among 50 best in North America
Kalaya, Friday Saturday Sunday and Royal Sushi & Izakaya were recognized among the best in North America by a group of 300 chefs, restaurateurs, journalists and gourmets.
Kalaya ranked seventh on the 50 Best brand’s inaugural list of “North America’s 50 Best Restaurants,” which evaluated restaurants in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. Friday Saturday Sunday ranked 16th and Royal Sushi & Izakaya was 32nd. Kalaya’s owner Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon was named North America’s best female chef.
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The 50 Best list is published by the United Kingdom media company William Reed, which is known for publishing annual editions of the “World’s 50 Best Restaurants.” Restaurants from Mexico, Central America and a few Caribbean countries, including Cuba and the Dominican Republic, are included in the company’s list of “Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants.”
Kalaya was recognized for its “imaginative Thai cooking with reams of charisma” and ability to elevate Thai food to an upscale dining experience in its luxe warehouse in Fishtown. Its $98 tom yum soup, bird-shaped dumplings and tamarind-glazed pork chop stood out to the experts who compiled 50 Best’s list, but Suntaranon particularly drew their praise.
“As beautiful and evocative as Kalaya’s ambiance is, the most luminous part of it is Suntaranon herself,” 50 Best’s entry reads. “She’s the charisma magnet that powers the whole restaurant, as comfortable handling a searing hot wok as a Birkin bag, she understands hospitality is about making guests feel special.”
Suntaranon spent three decades as a flight attendant before opening the first iteration of Kalaya in 2019 in a small space in the Italian Market. She was 50 at the time and named the restaurant after her mother, who sold curry pastes while raising Suntaranon in southern Thailand.
Within its first year, Kalaya won the James Beard Award for best new restaurant. This year, it was named a James Beard semifinalist for outstanding restaurant. Suntaranon also was named to the Time100 list, garnering praise for her “wild, whimsical” nature.
“Kalaya is a place where every detail is deeply personal,” Suntaranon said in a statement. “I named the restaurant after my mother. This restaurant was built with love and pride to preserve the flavors and memories of my childhood. I’m so grateful to my team and partners who work tirelessly to deepen their understanding of Southern Thai food and culture and, in turn, share that passion with guests.”
Friday Saturday Sunday, an American restaurant in Rittenhouse, was lauded for its infusion of classic French technique with African diaspora influences and for its Lovers Bar’s “extraordinary” cocktail menu. Earlier this year, head bartender Paul MacDonald was named among the most innovative bartenders in the country by Wine Enthusiast.
Royal Sushi & Izakaya in Queen Village, was recognized for its casual but energetic atmosphere and nigrini entrees prepared with “texturizing knifework as fine as calligraphy.”
Molly McVety
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Kalaya chef’s new cookbook is filled with her favorite home recipes – including her mom’s curry paste
Nok Suntaranon credits much of her success as a chef to her mother, Kalaya, who ran a curry paste stall in Thailand’s Trang province.
“I grew up helping my mother around the house, in the store and all of that,” said Suntaranon, the chef behind Kalaya in Fishtown. “My family, we all love food and dinner time is always the best time and my mother is such a great cook. So when I moved here, I just wanted to cook for myself and my husband.”
Suntaranon is sharing her home recipes in a cookbook, “Kalaya’s Southern Thai Kitchen,” due out Tuesday. Her restaurant, Kalaya, which draws its name from her mom, has received many accolades, including a James Beard Award and a spot on the New York Times’ 2023 list of the best restaurants in the country.
Suntaranon began working on the cookbook in October 2020, not long after she opened Kalaya in Queen Village. The restaurant moved to its current location at 4 W. Palmer St. in 2022. In choosing which recipes to include, Suntaranon said she focused on the meals she like to make at home – much like she did with her restaurant’s menu.
The cookbook includes recipes for Gaeng Som Pak Thai, a sour curry with shrimp and pineapple; the curry paste Suntaranon made at her mom’s market stall in Thailand; and Tom Yum Goong, which is the same base recipe as her restaurant’s Tom Yum soup.
There are sections on the “building blocks” of sauces, pastes and spice blends, breakfasts, salads, soups, stir and wok frys, grilled and steamed dishes, and desserts. Many are quick recipes, Suntaranon said, noting Southern Thai food is typically served family-style with lots of shared dishes.
![Kalaya's Southern Thai Kitchen]()
Provided Image/Michael Persico for Clarkson Potter
‘Kalaya’s Southern Thai Kitchen’ is out Nov. 5.
At Kalaya, Suntaranon said, customers sometimes express concerns about the spiciness of her dishes. Some of the dishes included in the cookbook pack in the heat, though she urged cooks not to adjust the spice levels, saying they create important flavor profiles. But Suntaranon said she included plenty of recipes for milder dishes, ensuring there’s something for everyone.
“No matter what page you turn, you will have something for yourself, you will pick something up to cook,” Suntaranon said. “If you have soy sauce, you have garlic, you have pepper, you have some oil, you can cook something. It’s very, very user friendly, I would say.”
Suntaranon suggested home cooks initially make a dish exactly as the recipes calls, because they have been tested to ensure its taste. But then she encouraged cooks to then start experimenting with the recipes by making substitutions. Good ingredients also matter a lot — Suntaranon shops at First Oriental Market at Sixth Street and Washington Avenue, and the cluster of stores at Seventh and Jackson streets.
Suntaranon said she hopes people will be adventurous when selecting recipes, and she’s eager to see how readers respond.
“The book is unlike the food that we cook in the restaurant, where we can have direct communication with the customer who come into the restaurant and see if they like our food or not,” Suntaranon said. “The book is totally different because we leave it in the hands of the reader, how they interpret the recipes, how they’re gonna do it.”
Michaela Althouse
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Man wanted for attempted sexual assault in Fishtown, police say
Philadelphia police are searching for a man who assaulted a woman in Fishtown on Sunday night.
The man approached a 24-year-old woman from behind after she left a gym on the 400 block of East Girard Avenue shortly before 8 p.m., police said. He made threats against the woman and assaulted her on the sidewalk, according to investigators. He then fled the scene when the woman began yelling.
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On Thursday, police released surveillance video that shows the suspect walking down Girard Avenue and passing bystanders near the intersection of Girard and Frankford avenues. The man continues down Girard Avenue and is seen stalking the woman from behind just before the assault took place.
The suspect is believed to be in his early 30s, police said. He’s about 6 feet tall with a stocky build and a full beard. He was last seen wearing a black Nirvana sweatshirt, a brownish-green winter coat and black Under Armour track pants with white stripes on the side.
Police said anyone with information about this incident can call the Special Victims Unit at (215) 685-3260 or call 911.
Michael Tanenbaum
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Philly artist’s dog drawing spawns coloring book of Fishtown canines
An illustration posted to Facebook has evolved into a coloring book filled with depictions of Fishtown dogs.
“Dogs of Fishtown: A Hand drawn Coloring book” features line drawings of 38 pooches by Philadelphia author and illustrator Jennifer Scott. The self-published book, available on Amazon for $19.99, is intended for colorers of all ages.
The book was born after a friend hired Scott, a Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts graduate, to draw her dog so she could give the illustrations to her mother. Scott then posted her drawing to the Facebook group “Fishtown is AWESOME OLD/NEW/EVERYONE!,” and people immediately requested drawings of their own pets, too.
Scott decided to create a coloring book, and received hundreds of photos from dog owners who wanted theirs included. Scott’s dog, Rally T, appears twice in the book, once with reading glasses and once dressed as Gritty. The Facebook group also voted on the dog that would make it on the cover — a pug wearing a beanie won.
“A coloring book is approachable, there’s no distance, it’s not precious. If there’s 1,000 copies of it, each one looks different because of the way a person colors,” Scott said. “They could make it more like their dog or someone else’s dog and they’ll enjoy using it.”
![Dogs of Fishtown 3]()
Courtesy/Jennifer Scott
One of the 38 dogs who appears in Jennifer Scott’s ‘Dogs of Fishtown’ coloring book.
Scott has published 10 books, including three coloring books. She’s already at work on a “Dogs of Manayunk” book, and she wants to do another “Dogs of Fishtown” volume in the spring. She’s also hoping to do a book featuring cats.
Though she’s worked with many mediums, including paint and sculpture, Scott said that small, neat line drawings feel very connected to viewers.
“People respond to that well, and it’s just more of a personal interaction, it’s more of a conversation, and I feel like it’s more of a real representation of the kind of work that I want to do,” Scott said.
The “Dogs of Fishtown” book is available now on Amazon and will soon be coming to Barnes & Noble’s website, Scott said. Scott also will be selling copies of the book – and her other works – at a book fair at Hilltop Books in Chestnut Hill on Friday, Feb. 23.
Michaela Althouse
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