All About the Kielbasa: Big Daddyz BBQ, Folsom, PA

It's all good but keep your eyes on that sausage in the upper left corner
Photo Credit: TH

While Philadelphia and its surrounding suburban areas aren't exactly known for barbecue, it's not like places that serve good 'cue are hard to find. No one is ever going to mistake any style of slow-smoked meats and homespun sides as uniquely Philadelphian. The folks here are surly, insular, and prideful, but they're certainly not self-important like the magazine editors who proclaimed "Brooklyn BBQ" to be a thing instead of just gentrified Memphis, Texas, or Kansas City styles served in smaller portions for jacked-up prices. Barbecue isn't as plentiful here as it would be in those locales, and the width and breadth of BBQ joints pale in comparison to how many different places you can get a good cheesesteak. That being said, whether it be Sweet Lucy's or Fette Sau, you can find good 'cue in the area.

The Best Poundcake You'll Ever Eat: Stock's Bakery, Philadelphia, PA

The cake so good you'll eat it even if no one's having a birthday
Photo Credit: TH

Cake is kinda like sex or pizza. Even when it's bad, it's good. A lot of people settle for the Duncan-Hines boxed cake, and that's fine on a budget or in a pinch. Whether it's quick and easy or made by overblown Italian pseudocelebrities from Jersey City and covered in nigh-inedible fondant, cake almost never feels like an everyday dessert. It's for special occasions, because it's so moist and decadent. There's a reason why they put Marie Antoinette's neck on the guillotine for her tone deaf dismissal of the poor in France saying "let them eat" it. There's a reason why cake is almost always the food of choice when a filmmaker or television director wants to show a depressed woman trying to cheer herself up. It's reserved for birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and funerals. Bad cake is still mostly sweet and moist if flawed. Good cake though? Much in the same way that good or great pizza or sex leaves an impression, the best cake always leaves you wanting more even if you've eaten it all, or more pointedly, even if you've eaten too much of it and can't fit a single morsel more into your belly.

In Praise of Your Local Mexican Joint: La Tolteca, Wilmington, DE

Pure comfort, which is what all great Mexican should be
Photo Credit: TH

Tex-Mex food, the stuff that Americans generally know as "Mexican" food but is really a hybrid of of American and Mexican culinary ideas, hits the peak the highest for a lot of people, myself included. Authentic Mexican food can be extremely good too, but much like with any country as big as Mexico is, the cuisine is not monolithic. But the Tex-Mex food when it is really good is worth going out on the first weekend of relaxation on stay-at-home orders. When it's bad, well, you tend to stay far away from places that serve bad Mexican food. The variance is wider than most common varieties of food Americans eat. It's hard to screw up tomato sauce or gravy completely, and even bad Chinese food (which similarly to Mexican food is basically an immigrant invention over here, not authentic food made in China) is tolerable if you stick to the vegetarian options. However, you really haven't lived until you ordered a chile relleno from a bad Mexican joint, and the pepper comes out hella undercooked while the batter on the outside more resembles an omelet than something crispy and breaded, which in a sense is the same as saying you haven't lived until you thought you were in danger of dying.