Philadelphia Locally Roasted Coffee

When I lived in Long Beach, CA, Tom and I were fond of a local coffee shop called Polly’s Gourmet Coffee. The wonderful thing about Polly’s is that they roast their own coffee daily, right there in the store, using a 1929 roaster brought over from Germany after WWII. You could smell the freshly roasted coffee from a block away. When you entered the store, there was a chalkboard that would tell you what coffee was brewed that day, and each of their many varieties were all labeled with the roasting date.

So, when we moved to Philly, we made an effort to seek out locally roasted coffee. I found an article in the Philadelphia City Paper that set me on the right track. I would say that there’s nothing quite like Polly’s, but there is a great deal of locally roasted coffee if you know where to look. In this post I’ll share what I’ve found so far.

Green Street Coffee Roasters is a Philadelphia-based, small batch, specialty coffee roasting company. Tom and Chris Molieri started Green Street Coffee Roasters in July of 2011; Chris had acquired a passion for coffee roasting after spending a year living and working in Portland, OR. I’ve only seen the coffee in a handful of places, but my favorite spot to buy it in Center City is Metropolitan Bakery. You can also buy their beans online.

Re-Animator Coffee is a small, locally owned and operated micro-roaster based in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia, started in 2011 by roaster Mark Corpus and partner Mark Capriotti. Their coffee is also only available in a handful of places, but I usually get it from Sue’s Produce Market or Green Aisle Grocery. You can also buy their beans online; within Philadelphia, it is delivered free via bicycle.

Philly Fair Trade Roasters specializes in small-batch organic Arabica coffee, hand-roasted locally in Philadelphia on a daily basis. Roastmaster Joe Cesa has been roasting coffee in Philadelphia since 2002, previously as the proprietor of Joe Coffee, which closed in 2009. I find the PFT coffee a little easier to come by than Green Street or Re-Animator; I usually get it at the Fitler Square Farmer’s Market or Pumpkin Market. You can also buy their beans online.

Rival Bros. is a Philadelphia roaster specializing in custom blends of small batch roasts. Lifelong friends Jonathan Adams (of Pub & Kitchen) and Damien Pileggi started Rival Bros in 2011. You can enjoy their coffee at their mobile coffee truck, or you can order their beans online. I usually get it from the truck, but I did order online once and it arrived promptly after roasting day.

Old City Coffee is a 100% Philadelphia operated business, roasting only high grade Arabica high-grown coffee, in tiny batches. Old City Coffee, Inc. was founded in 1984 as a one-person operation, by Ruth Isaac, at its original location on Church Street. It opened its location at Reading Terminal Market in 1988, where all the roasting takes place currently. You can buy their coffee at either of the two locations or order online. Of all the coffee places in Philly, the Reading Terminal Market location of Old City Coffee is the one that reminds me most of Polly’s in Long Beach; I just wish I were able to go more often when they’re actually roasting so I could inhale that aroma of fresh roasted beans, and I wish there were a more relaxing spot in the busy market to sit and enjoy their coffee.

Chestnut Hill Coffee Co. is a café and roastery based in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. Inspired by the best of European and Seattle cafés, the café opened its doors in 2005, and in-house roasting began one year later. DiBruno Brothers used to carry their beans, but I can’t find them there anymore. In Center City, their coffee is served at Marathon Grill and at Cake and the Beanstalk, but I’m not sure where you can buy the beans other than at their café in Chestnut Hill (conveniently located near the regional rail station). They have an online store, but at the time of this writing, it is not yet operational.

Blue Water Coffee is roasted in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. I know very little else about it, but you can buy beans from Ants Pants Café, either in the restaurant or online. I have also heard it is available at Café Estelle.

La Colombe is probably Philadelphia’s most widely known local coffee. Founders Todd Carmichael and Jean Philippe Iberti conceived the idea of “culinary coffee” in 1985 while attending school and working in Seattle’s coffee industry. In 1994, they set up a roasting facility in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood. La Colombe is very popular in Philly, so you can get it pretty much anywhere, but I prefer to buy it from their Rittenhouse Square café. You can also buy it online. Unlike most of the other, smaller roasters I’ve mentioned, the La Colombe beans aren’t labeled with a roasting date, so I’m quite wary about buying it at most stores, not knowing how long it’s been sitting there. I hesitated in including it on this list, as it is much more large scale than the others I’ve mentioned, with cafés all over the world, but it is certainly a very important part of the Philadelphia coffee scene.

So, after identifying the above, we’ve made an effort to get something different each time we buy coffee for consumption at home. I’ve avoided giving specific coffee “reviews” to any of the above, as it doesn’t seem fair after only trying each roaster a few times, with a different blend or variety each time. However, I will name a few favorites. By far our mutually agreed favorite is the Green Street Organic Mexican. It makes us say “wow” with every cup. We also really enjoy the Blue Water, both when we enjoy it at Ants Pants and when we buy it to brew at home. La Colombe’s Lyon was exquisite. We liked the Old City Blend from Old City Coffee, and I look forward to trying more of their selections. All in all, it’s really fun to keep trying new things. Lately, we’ve expanded our horizons to include New Jersey; currently we are enjoying an organic Guatemala roast from Grover’s Mill, and we’re also fans of the Garces Trading Company blends from Rojo’s Roastery.

Tom’s Clam Recipe

I don’t really have A recipe for my clams, just a general method. Basically, I try to balance some spicy things with some sweeter things. This time around, I used garlic, shallots and black and crushed red pepper, and dried chorizo to provide some spice and peas, carrots and fennel for a little sweetness.

I began by frying up the garlic and shallots. I don’t really measure anything but for something like this, I was rather generous, using about 7-8 cloves of garlic and 1 rather large shallot.

I next threw in one chopped carrot, followed by about half a head of chopped fennel. I fried them until they just started to become soft.

Then I added the chopped chorizo, the black and crushed red pepper and some herbs. I usually use basil, thyme and oregano. Again, I tend to be generous with everything for this dish, but it’s all a matter of taste.

Since the chorizo didn’t need to really cook, I just fried everything enough to blend the flavors. Since the clams need to steam in this mixture, I needed to add liquid. I added some clam juice (maybe about 1/4 cup–again, I don’t measure) and about 1/3 a bottle of beer. I used Saison Dupont, which is also quite fine for drinking with the clams.

I let this come to a simmer and then add some frozen peas. I bring it back up to a healthy simmer and then add the clams and cook until they open.

That’s it! Simple and delicious. Pairs very well with lighter beers. We also had a nice multigrain sourdough bagette to dip in the juices.

“Meet the Maker” Bourbon Dinner at JG Domestic

When Foobooz posted “Like Bourbon? So Does Jose Garces,” we said, “Why yes, we do.” Tom’s birthday was coming up, so I got on the phone right away to call JG Domestic for a reservation to the Four Roses “Meet the Maker” dinner.

"Crescent" cocktail

We arrived an hour before the dinner for a complimentary cocktail hour. We were treated to a refreshing cocktail of Four Roses yellow bourbon, lemon juice, mint, and ginger ale (if memory services correctly). We had a nice time mingling in the bar area with the other guests, and the JG Domestic staff really made us feel like VIPs. They also had an excellent spread of prosciutto, speck, smoked ham, mustard, and warm house ricotta for us to snack on while we waited to be seated. Eventually we were led back to a private room in the back of the restaurant, with two long, communal tables, and then the dinner began.

At our seats, we found small cups of four different Four Roses bourbons: yellow label, small batch, single barrel “Garces” (made especially for Jose Garces restaurants), and limited edition barrel strength. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to start drinking them right away or if they were going to be paired with specific dishes, but after awhile when the serving staff starting coming around with refills, we figured we should get started.

Master Distiller Jim Rutledge gave an in-depth history of Four Roses bourbon and how it got to be where it is today. It was interesting for me and Tom to learn that some people associate the Four Roses name with a mass-produced blended whisky that it made in the past, as we have only known Four Roses in more recent years for its small batch bourbon. We felt lucky to get to try all the varieties of Four Roses bourbon that were available this evening, as apparently they aren’t widely available in Pennsylvania.

In the meantime, the servers brought out the first course of food, which included house dinner rolls, smoked corn chowder, and a salad of Luna Farm winter lettuces. The dishes were all served family style, which was a surprise to me, but it made for more of a social experience with our neighbors, and it made the serving much more manageable, as there wasn’t room on the tables for too many dishes in addition to of all the cups of bourbon. The rolls, soup, and salad were all delicious. It’s nice, even in winter, to be able to have food made from fresh, local ingredients. It was rather dark, so we didn’t get any good pictures of this portion of the meal.

Our second course was amazing. The staff came out with big plates of St Louis spare ribs with bourbon BBQ sauce; macaroni and black kale gratin; and house-made pickled vegetables. Here, the bourbon was really able to shine, as it made for a great pairing with the meat. The meat was falling off the bone, and the macaroni-and-cheese was some of the best we had had in a long time. This photo doesn’t do it justice, but it was best we could do with the low lighting.

Dessert consisted of JG Domestic’s sublime beignets, served with bourbon vanilla mousseline and Maker’s Mark butterscotch. I am cheating and posting a picture from a previous visit to JG Domestic that was taken in the daytime under better lighting. We absolutely love this dish, and so did everyone else at our table.

All in all the meal was a tremendous value. It was $55 per person, but when we got our check it was actually broken down into $35 for the dinner and $20 for the bourbon tasting. For the food, that was a total steal, and for the drinks, even more so – I think even the 2 cocktails we had prior to the dinner were worth $20, let alone the multiple refills of bourbon we sampled during the dinner itself. Hats off to JG Domestic and Four Roses for putting on this awesome event.

Variation on the Bacon Stack

One of our favorite neighborhood places for breakfast, Ants Pants Cafe, has a dish that they call the “Bacon Stack.” Their version consists of toasted sourdough bread with bacon, tomato, arugula, sunny side up eggs and freshly shaved pecorino romano. It truly is a thing of beauty which I have had several times.

Ants Pants Cafe Bacon Stack

Last weekend, we decided to make our own version. We had mixed greens and eggs from our CSA. The eggs we get from Crawford Organics are the BEST EGGS EVER. We’ll never go back to supermarket eggs after having fresh eggs from a local farm. A world of difference. We also had bread from Big Sky Bread as well as a variety of cheeses from Di Bruno Bros. The only thing missing was some meat, so we made another trip to Di Bruno Bros. (which is just a few blocks away–lucky us) and picked up some Jamon Serrano and Prosciutto. We forgot that there also was tomato on the original, our loss.

I toasted a couple of slices of our wheat bread. We don’t have a toaster, so I actually pan fry the bread with some butter. After that, I fried our eggs over easy. When the toast was ready, I piled on some of the two kinds of meats, followed by a generous portion of greens. I gently added the eggs on top and grated some parmesan over it all. So simple, yet so delicious.

Our Version of the Bacon Stack

I’ll definitely be back to Ants Pants Cafe for their version, but it was fun experimenting with this variation.

Our Version of the Bacon Stack

Herb Crusted Arctic Char with Parsley Citrus Pistou and Cherry Tomatoes

The other day, Tom sent me a link to a recipe for Herb Crusted Salmon with Arugula Citrus Pistou and Grape Tomatoes. We’ve been following the REMCooks blog, since its author was one of the first to discover and comment on our blog (thanks!). Anyway, it looked so tasty, we decided to try it sometime this weekend.

We made a few variations to the original recipe, based on what we had on hand and what we could find locally.

First, we went to the market to get some salmon, but ended up leaving with arctic char. Being from the west coast and having a preference for Pacific Northwest salmon, I’m not a huge fan of the salmon we get here on the east coast. Plus, I could never get arctic char on the west coast, so, why not take advantage of its availability here? Not to mention I just love the flavor of arctic char, but I had never cooked it myself, only had it in restaurants. Challenge accepted.

The other major changes we made to the recipe were a few ingredients in the pistou. Most significantly, we used parsley instead of arugula. I love arugula, and it’s not a problem to get it, but I had a giant bunch of parsley from the CSA that I really wanted to do something with. Similarly, it’s not that we couldn’t get pine nuts, but I happened to have walnuts around, since I had made a pesto earlier in the week that called for walnuts. Finally, though I had parmesan cheese, I also had some aged asiago that I wanted to use up, so I ended up using the asiago instead.

Other than that, we were pretty faithful to the recipe. Oh, except that for the herb crust, we had dried oregano and thyme instead of their fresh counterparts, but we did have fresh rosemary, and we just mashed all that together with a mortar and pestle.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for:

What an absolutely lovely recipe! The lime and lemon in the pistou (pesto? according to wikipedia, pistou doesn’t usually have nuts) really gave this a unique flavor. I can see how it would be even better with arugula, but it still went very nicely with the parsley, creating an overall fresh and tangy flavor that went fantastically with the fish. It was also interesting to me that the pistou recipe didn’t contain any garlic, which made it taste rather different from the usual pesto and contributed to the overall refreshing effect. I think the sharp asiago gave the pistou a little extra kick as well. The arctic char was incredible; it seems a bit milder (less fishy), moister, and creamier (fattier?) than salmon. I’m not sure if I got really lucky or if it’s hard to screw up, but either way the fish was cooked perfectly. The herb crust was just the right touch to give it some additional flavor and texture but still allowing the fish to shine through. It’s not tomato season, but the cherry tomatoes we found turned out to be pretty good (I can’t wait for tomato season!), and were a great pairing with the dish as a whole.

We’ll definitely do this again sometime. We’d love to try it with arugula as the original recipe calls for. I can also see it working really well with cilantro, but since Tom’s not a big cilantro fan I probably won’t be trying that anytime soon. I can also see this working well with other types of fish, and even steak. Thanks to Richard at REMCooks for the idea!