Miran - Korean Restaurant @ 2034 Chestnut St

I wanted to visit Miran located on Chestnut St between 20th and 22nd Streets for a long time. I have tried other Asian restaurant around this block and have walked past this restaurant several times. I finally picked a day to have lunch here with my client representative.

The ambiance is warm and cozy. The server got us water and asked us if we wanted anything to drink. I must have got coke or something. For the Main course I had Seafood Hot Pot. My colleague got Salmon Teriyaki Box.

The Seafood Hot Pot was really hot in both ways. It was hot in temperature and in spiciness. Having a liking for hot stuff, I did not mind the spiciness much. The hot pot was more like a soup with liberal sea food like shrimp, crab legs and some kind of fish pieces thrown in for good measure. The rice and the sides were little in comparison to the hot pot content. I guess they are just sides. I had to order extra rice to complete the hot pot as the hot pot by itself got a little hot for me to take it directly after a while.

The Hot Pot was $13.99 and the Salmon Teriyaki was about $10. The check came to about $35, which is $17.5 per head. The cost includes the food, soda, taxes and tip. That's still expensive for my budget. The food is great, service was good. I will definitely visit it for lunch with family, but will think twice before taking my wallet for lunch.

Bloggers Messy and Picky have a thorough review of this restaurant.

Pot Belly @ 17th and JFK Blvd.

History of My Discovery: I received a coupon in my mailbox from this restaurant. The coupon had a free salad or sandwich offer and I decided to give a try. What best to try a restaurant than for free?

Location: It is located on the left side of 17th st when heading south on 18th from JFK Blvd intersection.

Ambiance: Well lit with large section of tables with space for many customers to sit. The place is a self serve fast food chain kind of a place. It had 2 sections, The upper section had the food counter where you can order food and small place with 2 tables. The lower section, had stairs connecting from the upper section, is bigger and had many more tables to sit. The street outside is always busy and you can distinctly feel that noise coming in.

Food I had: I had a Veggie Salad that had artichoke, roasted peppers, chickpeas, cucumbers and tomatoes. Nothing else stuck out of the normal to try from the menu. They are different sandwiches, pan pizza and salads on the menu. They also had smoothies, cookies, coffee and other beverages.

Portion size: Had to compare the size of a salad. To me a salad seems to fill the appetite for only about 30 minutes.

Price: $7-$9.

Rating: 3/5

Pho Xuo Lo - Vietnamese @ 907 Race St.

Location: 907 Race st, close to 8th and Race St intersection in Chinatown.

History of Discovery: My brother goes to temple and has a vietnamese friend. She recommended this place for a cheap authentic vietnamese food. I went there with my wife and brother for dinner on night in mid June. Yelp.com has some nice pictures of the food here at 

Ambience: The place is more like a fast food place than a restaurant. I little cosy and lots of people.

Food I had: Curried Chicken with Poatato, Pho Soup and 

Price: The average food item price is from $7-$9 well within my range.

Portion Size: Generous.

Service: Service is shoddy and the people can hardly understand english. Heavy customer traffic could sometime lead to this but that should be an oppurtunity to improve service and not the other way round. Many ethnic restaurants fail to get this basic act.

Rating: 2/5. 

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.

Byblos - Mediterranean @ 114 S 18th St.

History of my Discovery: My colleague took us to a team lunch about 2 years ago in 2006. That was my first experinece of a Greek(Mediterranean) cuisine.

Location: Located on the 18th st and Chestnut St intersection, to restuarant is on 18th St and south of Chestnut St to the right while going south on 18th St.

Ambiance: It resembles a bar lounge that is converted to a restaurant in the day. The tables are comfortable and lighting is good enough. The restaurant is really busy all the time. More busy for dinner sometimes than for lunch. I had to wait 45 minutes to be seated for dinner.

Food I had: I have had lamb kabobs, falafel sandwich at a very low price of $6.5. 

Price: The average lunch menu is priced $6 and the item is priced considerably more for dinner.

Customer Service: The service is excellent. The waiters are very courteous and willing to offer advice when needed. 

Rating 3.5/5.

Wrap Shack - American @ 120 S 18th St.

Wrap Shack on the square is an exclusive wrap restaurant located between Chestnut and Sansom on the 18th St in Center City. Dont let the name dupe you.This place is no shack, but a full blown restaurant that is well maintained.

I decided to try it just to satisfy my craving for a quick bite after my writer's workshop at Rittenhouse sqaure on a cold May Tuesday at 7:45PM. I was walking along the 18th St towards Market and saw the name Wrap Shack on the wall that was next to a cheese steak place. I quickly read the menu from outside. I liked the content and most importantly the price. The description on the menu was also very simple and clear.

I was quickly asked by the cashier with a pleasant smile as to what I wanted. I said give me couple minutes. I read the menu again and was torn between the Thai peanut popper on the Vegetable Wraps section and Shrimp Stir Fry wrap on the Seafood Wraps section of the menu. For a moment I also wanted to be safe and try the Buffalo Chicken Wrap on the Chicken and Steak Wraps section. But my love for seafood took me over and I asked for the Shrimp Stir Fry Wrap.

The cashier was a young lady and there was a gentleman cleaning the tables on the rear end of the restaurant. On hearing me order the Shrimp Stir Fry the gentleman came over and said that they are out of bean sprouts and asked if I want to replace with carrots, zucchini or mushrooms. I thought that was a nice gesture. I would not have known the difference if he did not mention it. I said I will have zucchini. He instructed the cashier not to bill me for zucchini. You have a choice of white, wheat, spinach or tomato for the outer tortilla kind of bread. I asked for the spinach wrap.

The restaurant was well lit and the ambiance had a wooden tone to it. The walls had wooden panels and the floor was also wooden. The wrap was about $8.5 including taxes. While I was waiting for the wrap, I struck a conversation and asked how when the restaurant was opened. She said the restaurant had been at the present location for about a year and it was situated in old city for the about four years prior to that. I asked how the business was and she replied that they were doing well.

The restaurant was quite empty when I entered at 8:05PM but a little later a group of about 8 entered. Some of them looked like repeat customers as they were explaining what was good to the others.

The restaurant had a board displaying the specials for the day. They had Chicken Parm Wrap with French Fries and Soda for about $10. The same display was located at the cashiers counter as well.

I brought the wrap home and wanted to see how it looked. That was a mistake which I found soon. I had wraps several times before but nothing that was stir fried in them. I opened the aluminum foil and cut the wrap into two in the middle. As I did that the juices of the stir fry came out. The wrap had succulent shrimp in broccoli, fried onions and zucchini. The wrap was tasty. But it became tough to manage the wrap with the juices flowing out continuously. The shrimp were fresh and succulent and the vegetables were well cooked in the stir fry sauce that had a subtle deliciousness to it. I would have been fine if the wrap had been in the aluminum foil.

The size of the wrap was big enough to satisfy the appetite. The spinach wrap was also good. It was thin than wraps from other places and hence did not contain the juices well within it. But it did not have the raw taste to it like that of a tortilla.

The menu also contains Breakfast Wraps, Salads, Appetizers and sides like fries and onion rings, Smoothies and Milkshakes. Overall, I liked the enthusiastic people, the ambiance and food was great. I will definitely try the Thai Peanut Popper my next time.

I could not find a website for this restuarant excepting thier page on my space at http://www.myspace.com/wrapshack. You can find their complete menu on this myspace page though. They have another location at 146 N. 2nd Street in Old City which is actually a shack. I have not been to the shack in Old City. I am just reporting what I found on thier myspace page. Correct me if I am wrong and I will do my due diligence in updating the information.