I absolutely love Sky Cafe, but I hadn’t been there since last summer. And how did I know it had been so long? Because Betty remembered! Yeah, she knew me the second time I came in, and she still knew me, months later! Yet another reason to love this place, aside from the tasty food. And what more can I say about these fried dumplings. They’re the best, just the best. I could just eat these all day long. They’re hot, meaty, magical.
In addition to the dumplings, which are a must, the other standout item on their menu is always the tofu salad. It’s hard to describe this sauce, other than the fact that I would put it on everything if I could. The salad is just pretty much iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, sprouts, fried tofu, peanuts, and then the SAUCE. It’s slightly spicy, sweet, peanut-ish, and you just want to drink it up. I don’t know how they fry these tofu cubes to be so delicious, but they just do it right. Anything would taste amazing with this sauce, but these tofu bits just go beyond. Even when my mouth burns from the spice I can’t stop eating it. It’s a must for you vegetarian folks!
This is the mie komplit. Sounds kinda french, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. It’s a bunch of noodles with pickled eggs, more fried dumplings(!), veggies, pork, and fried shallots along with a bowl of chicken broth soup. The broth was pretty meh. The noodles were much better and more exciting.
I forget the name of this one but it’s a wide flat rice noodle and seafood dish with gravy. Yum. I love wide flat rice noodles, seafood, and gravy, so how could I go wrong with this? And even though it was seafood, there was some sausage in there too, surprise! This is definitely my favorite indonesian restaurant in philly, and one of my favorite restaurants in general. It’s like an adorable hidden gem, only I wish it weren’t so hidden so that everybody could go here! And you know it’s super cheap… like crazy cheap. I promise to be back more this summer!

I love going over to M’s house for dinner because she feeds me so incredibly well. And it’s always gourmet! She also usually prepares a special cocktail to go along with the meal. This drink was called the amazonia, and is made with champagne, cachaca, mint, and others. It was delicious and super strong.
We started off with some black bean and banana empanadas. Yes, it sounds like a strange combination but it was really great. She just made these with store bought phyllo dough so they were also super easy to make.
The main entree was a brazilian seafood stew. This also seemed fairly simple to make. To speed up the process, she had actually prepared some of the ingredients in advance. She used shrimp along with fish and had them marinating in one bowl.
The tomatoes, cilantro, and green onions were also prepped in one bowl.The green peppers, onions, garlic, and crushed red pepper were in another. Then everything was cooked together and coconut milk was also added and fresh cilantro was sprinkled on top. This was so good! It was flavorful and fresh and there was no ingredient that didn’t work in the dish. I typically don’t even like coconut milk in my food either, but I still really loved this. This is definitely something any seafood lover would enjoy, and since I witnessed it all, it is super easy and quick to make.
She also made these ridiculous salted caramel truffles and I ate three of them. And because of how rich and luxurious they were, it was about two too many… but beyond amazing!

I love me some Kanella, but hadn’t been there in awhile. Well, it was time to change all that. Here’s their houmous with pita. Damn y’all, this is so good. The houmous is smooth and creamy and zippy with just enough bite. The pita slices are warm and toasty and I love the fresh veggies that come with it. And it’s a nice healthy portion of it.
Here is the grilled halloumi and lounza sandwich. The halloumi is the cheese and lounza is ham. So it’s a cypriot style ham and cheese sandwich. It was filled with some veggies and served on this amazing grainy bread with all kinds of seeds all over it. I’m usually turned off by really healthy and grainy breads with visible nuts and seeds, but this was great.
The same bread came as toast with my Shaksouka. It is two poached eggs and a cumin scented tomato and pepper stew. Oh this thing is so amazing! It’s an amazing meal, any time of the day. The place was pretty crowded even though we were only seated a little before they technically closed for lunch. The service was friendly, but nothing comes out very fast. But that’s ok. This place is totally worth the wait!