This past weekend was the Italian Market Festival in South Philly. I’d never been to it before, so I thought I’d check it out. I went on Sunday, and it was a beautiful and sunny day. Parking wasn’t too terrible, as long as you were several blocks away from the festivities. I loved seeing the whole roasted pigs the most. It’s great to see that kind of thing in person. Look how cute this little old man is!

There seemed to be three distinct sections of the festival. On the immediate north side of Washington ave was the Italian market side. And then further north was the craft/artisan side. There were some excellent artists there, including photographers, woodturners, and jewelry makers. And to the south side of Washington ave was the Mexican-ish side. That’s where you could find the mozzarepas, the arepas (basically corn pancakes) with mozzarella in the middle, the mayo covered corn on the cob on a stick, and some tacos al pastor. I’d never seen these mozzarepa things before, and thought they looked intriguing, but didn’t try one. I’ve heard of the corn on a stick from friends who drove through Mexico before. Corn on the cob, smothered with mayo, cheese, and chili powder, is regular street food there. I’ve never tasted this, but I bet it is good. Not that I’m a mayo fan, but my friends told me it’s surprisingly tasty. And the tacos, it is the Mexican take on spit meat (like gyro meat or doner kebab meat), carved onto corn tortillas. I bet those were good too.

I got a little paranoid about trying any of the food. My boss just got food poisoning a few weeks ago and was out of commission for days, so I’ve been extra-vigilant about not eating things that could be questionable. And seeing all this food sitting outside in the heat made me a little nervous. Mac & Cheese put up a very nice posting about the festival and she actually tasted alot of the food there. So please read her blog, which I love.

There was also live music. I only caught the band on the main stage, which was a terrible cover band singing very cheesy songs. I didn’t have high expectations, so they were expectedly bad. Also, I had the pleasure of seeing Vito, from the Sopranos, hocking his book and cigars. It was hilarious to see him there. A real-life fake mobster in person.

On my way to the car, I decided to try something else for the first time that I’d been wanting to try for awhile, banh mi, a vietnamese hoagie. You’ve probably heard of these, and so had I, but for some reason, I hadn’t had one before. So I decided to go for it. I got mine at the Ba Le Bakery & Restaurant in the vietnmese shopping center on 6th and Washington ave. I was sad to see that the Pho Ba Le next door, which had been “closed for winter” for a while, looked closed for good, as everything inside had been cleared out. I was sad because they had the best chicken pho ever. EVER people! EVER! And now I doubt that I’ll be able to find any chicken pho like that ever again. It’s the end of the era. Sniff.

So Ba Le is a take-out only place. They have a whole bunch of stuff, most of which I had no idea what it was. They don’t even have any menus or anything so I didn’t even know if they had banh mi. I had to ask someone if they had them and she said yes, they do. So I ordered one, even though I didn’t know what kind. I just said one banh mi please. And then handed it to me. I’m not sure which kind it was but it had the roasted pork and two mystery lunch meat type meats on there. It also had the daikon, carrots, cucumbers, cilantro, and jalapenos. It all came on a delicious long roll with some a special mayo type concoction. I loved it. I really did. I took off the jalapenos because I didn’t care for them, but I loved everything else. The crunch of the rolls and the veggies, and the meaty flavors of all the mystery meats. Yum. I also got some of the fresh rice paper rolls, these had roasted pork in them. I tell you what, seriously, this place has the best rolls of this kind, hands down.

Ba Le Bakery & Restaurant
606 Washington Ave
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 389-4350

This past weekend was beautiful, and perfect for a bbq. A fajita fest was had in Fairmount park on Saturday. Hosted by a native Texan, W was super serious about it. You should have seen all the meat, chicken, shrimp, and veggies that he spent hours marinading. It was quite impressive. You should have seen E’s grill too. It was a professional grill with 3 sets of burners, perfect for fajita meat cooking. We were all in awe of it. It’s portable, to boot, and can be put together in 3 minutes.

I myself had to bring some vittles, so I brought some skirt steak. Skirt steak is really the cut of meat you want to use when making fajitas. It’s a cheap cut of meat, or at least it’s supposed to be. If you’re in texas it’s cheap, if you’re in Pennsylvania, it’s not. Pish. It took me many trips to random grocery stores to find it. It’s like hunting for treasure! And when I did, I found it at my nearest crappy Super Fresh, and I snagged the last one. Because it’s tough, it has to be marinaded. So here’s a pseudo-recipe that I got from the Big T, another Texan.

Skirt steak fajitas:

Skirt steak (good luck finding this)
A beer (ideally Shiner Bock, but Yuengling Lager works too)
Lime juice (a good amount of it)
Chopped garlic (I used a lot)
Sliced onions (again, a lot)
Hot sauce – vinegar based (I used crystal’s and threw in a bunch of swigs)

Really, I don’t know exact amounts so just make it up as you go, that’s what I did and it worked out just fine. Let this marinade for at least 12 hours, making sure all of the meat is covered. Rotate it a bit as it’s marinading in your fridge. Then grill it up, to maybe medium, or however y’all like it. For the fixins we had guacamole, W’s homemade salsa, cilantro, sour cream, cheeses, and such. Really, put whatever you want on it. It’s all good. It was a good first bbq of the season, I’m hoping for a lot more. I’m also hoping I find some better places to find reasonably price skirt steak. Let me know if you know of any!