Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Philadelphia is apparently the new hot spot for coffee. There are lots of indie shops popping up, and instead of brewing local la colombe, they go for counter culture or stumptown. Amongst one of these newest spots is the gorgeous Shot Tower Coffee. It’s even cool and inviting from the outside. You can enter from this beautiful entrance on the corner or a nicely hidden door on the 6th st side.
This place is surprisingly huge and unbelievably sunny. It’s not one of those teeny shops crowded with lots of tables. It’s really roomy and really only has one giant communal table with individually attached and swivelling benches, and some bar space along the windows. I love how uncluttered it is. They were playing strangely old throwback tunes. We couldn’t possibly believe that the young baristas would have known any of these songs, which probably came out when they were still in the womb.
It’s been sweltering out, so the thought of a hot coffee is quite frightening. Here’s a delicious iced americano.
And here’s an almond croissant that B proclaimed as the best croissant he’s ever had. Or maybe it really was the best almond croissant he’s ever had. Regardless, it’s a great one! Flaky, filled with almond paste, topped with toasted almond sliced, and dusted with powdered sugar, it was rather great. Shot Tower is bright, roomy, friendly, rather peaceful, and serves good coffee and food. What more do you need?

While house-sitting in bella vista and living out my city-girl life, I met R for lunch at Butcher & Singer to try one of their famed burgers. I had no idea how fancy this place was on the inside. I felt pretty bad showing up all schlubby and sweaty after having biked there. But they seemed fine in letting me in. We showed up not during prime lunch time, so it wasn’t all that busy. It seemed that everyone got the burger, so that’s what we did too.And here is the famed Butcher Burger! It is topped with english cheddar cheese and a healthy helping of fried onions. You also get iceberg lettuce (yeah!), tomato, and pickles. And it’s all served with Singer fries. What did I think? This was a great burger! The meat was a tad bit too salty for me (but I don’t like salty things much) but otherwise, it was great. It’s a fat burger, so it’s a bit difficult to eat, but that seems to happen a lot. I also liked the roll, it wasn’t too much bread. And the fries were really good too, almost too good! Service was good. Everyone was nice enough, despite us looking like hobos.

There are tons of places to get tacos around the italian market. We stopped by Plaza Garibaldi per S’s recommendation. When we walked in, it was mostly filled with mexicans, which is always a good sign. The place is colorful and apparently, they have a liquor license now. After an extremely awkward exchange, where our server clearly didn’t understand that I wanted a limon jarritos, I ended up going over to the cooler and just getting my own soda. I guess I am that terrible at uttering “jarritos, limon”. Sadness. The complimentary chips and salsas were just dandy.
Here are the Campechanos tacos, which are steak and mexican sausage. All of the tacos here are served with raw chopped onion, cilantro, and guacamole as toppings. This is the first place where I’ve gotten guacamole as a default taco topping. I didn’t mind it a bit! You also get lime and radish slices on your plate. I love radishes! So these tacos were damn good. Both the steak and the sausage were full of flavor and I loved all the toppings.
I got the Al Pastor tacos and these were only so so. I mean they were fine, but the campechanos just had so much more flavor. And honestly, where were the pineapple? I didn’t see any, let alone taste any. Next time, I’ll just go for the campechcanos!