Aya's Cafe - Mediterranean Cuisine @ 2129 Arch Street, Phila, PA 19103

I have a hate and love relationship with Meditterranean restaurants. The thing I hate is the price and what I like are their falafel sandwichs at some carts in center city. Like any ethnic food Mediterranean restaurants tend to be expensive and food at some places I found them to be average at best. But everytime I have a nice falafel sandwich I get tempted to try a new Mediterranean Restaurant in hope of finding a delicious and cheap place to eat.

Aya's cafe located at 22nd and Arch St intersection almost makes my cut of the above mentioned criteria - delicious and cheap food. I have been to this restuarant before couple more times. But this time, I found it to be darker than usual. I guess the soaring Gas costs and inflation all around have hit them as well.

I walk past this restaurant on my way home and have noticed the sign Lunch specials for $5.99 which was very alluring. I mentioned this to my friends at work and they were willing to join me over lunch. So we decided to walk to the restuarant on wednesday that took us about 5-10 minutes from work on an odd chilly June Noon.

We found the place to be unusually dark as we entered. We were seated at a table at about the center of the restaurant. We took the table adjacent to the wall and I sat on the wall side of the table that had some comfortable diwans(throw pillows) for supporting the back. Having felt comfortable, I asked for water with lemon on the waiter's request.

We ordered Lamb Schwarma, Lamb Schwarma with no tahini sauce, Calamari, Chicken Kabob sandwich and Grilled Slamon Entree. The portions were approprtiate. The only lunch special was Pasta Primavera. I did not want to eat an Italian dish at a Meditteranean restuarant and that in the name of a special. I was disappointed on hearing the special. But I perused the menu several times. I was tempted to take my usual Mediterranean - Falafel Sandwich or Calamari Salad. My colleague had been recommending Schwarma since a long time. So I decided to give it a try this time.

It took about 20 minutes before our food was brought to our table. I liked my Schwarma with Tahini sauce. It had a subtle flavor of tahini with the minced Lamb. My colleagues also liked the food they ordered.

To conclude, I liked the restaurant but the food was a bit expensive. The ambience needed some more light and service could be a little faster. I would go back if I was in mood for a good schwarma for dinner but not when I am looking for an inexpensive lunch.

Vic Sushi Bar @ 2035 Sanson Street

I was not comfortable with sushi bar for a long time. My first exposure to a sushi has been the free samples at the food court in the Liberty Two building at 16th and Chestnut. As I had been exposed to more of these free samples, I acquired a taste for them and began to try them out at other places. Vic is an exclusive sushi bar located at the alley between 20th and 21st St. on Sansom St.

I came to know about Vic from the menu card at West end Coffee Tea N SPA located at 2107 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA-19103. The menu card of Vic was located at the window inside the cafe and I was reading it while waiting for coffee one afternoon. The lady behind the counter on seeing the menu card in my hand said that she had been to the place and liked it a lot. I asked what in the menu did she like. She replied that she has tried all kinds of sushi on their menu and highlighted couple of them as her favorite.

Sansom street between 20th and 21st st is a very cozy lane and Vic sushi bar imitates the coziness but with better results. As soon as you enter the room, you can see the counter a couple feet from the door and to right hand side of the counter extension is an idol of Buddha. There was kid in is teens behind the counter who took the order and there were two other males to prepare the food in traditional Japanese attire behind the counter.

The wall on the right hand side of the room has some nice Japanese paintings on a yellow background. There is a small walk way in front of these paintings and about 6 closely spaced chairs for customers to sit inside. The setting is like that of a bar where there is a continuous wooden panel about 2 feet in width adjacent to a glass pane through which can be seen the various food that is used in preparation of the sushi. The food is on the other side of the glass and the cooks take the ingredients out to prepare the food. All the ingredients looked fresh and colorful.

The menu has a range of choices including 16 types of sushi rolls. I decided to try the Roll & Hand Roll section of the menu as most of the items were between $3 to $5.5. They also had 2 Roll Specials for $6.95 and 3 Roll Specials for $9.95 in that section. I decided to order 2 roll special. I inquired as to what was Futomaki and found that it was sushi roll made of avocado, fish eggs and crab meat. I took the eel roll as the second sushi roll as part of the 2 roll special.

After I finished ordering, I went towards the chairs and sat on them. As I sat on the chairs I was asked if I wanted to have my food in. My original intention was do a take home but liking the seating and authentic feel I decided to eat there. I said yes. I believe most of the customers do a to go here. But there was already a couple who had just finished their food sitting at the chairs when I arrived. There were also 2 ladies who arrived and ordered some food for to go while I was waiting for my food.

After I said yes to eating in, one of the guys behind the counter put a small china bowl for the Teriyaki dipping sauce with some disposable wood chop sticks. I think the sauce was Teriyaki sauce that was in small teapots like containers.

The food was served in while porcelain plates that had some nice Japanese deisgn on it. There were 6 Futomaki pieces and 8 eel sushi rolls in all. There was also a side of wasabi and pickled ginger slices that were orange in color.

I started eating my food by trying the ginger first. They had an explicit tangy pickle like taste with the strong taste of ginger. I liked it. The Futomaki was nicely made with different colors like green from avocado, orange from fish egg and white from crab meat in the center. I dipped the Futomaki in the teriyaki sauce lightly and tasted it. It was delicious. I tried the eel roll next. But since the eel roll was small, I had dipped it a little bit more in the sauce and it tasted pungent like the sauce. I tried the next one without dipping in the sauce and I liked it. But I liked the Futomaki a lot better than the eel roll.

I really liked my experience here. The positives are the authentic feel, nice food and the price. I can't think of any negatives other than the fact that the portion of one roll(8 pieces) is small. But a 2 Roll Special for $6.95 should not burn the wallet while satisfying the appetite at the same time.