Academic

The Best Chinese Food In Philadelphia, And It Comes From A Truck

By Dan Filler

I know the topic is fluffy, and the story local, but let's speak some truth: the best Chinese food in Philly comes from Kim's Dragon.  Kim's Dragon is a truck.  And one of the great perks of teaching at Drexel and Penn (the two schools are continguous) is the proximity of this fine food.  I have long had a particular taste for spicy cuisine chinoise.   When I was fresh out of college, a paralegal at Heller, Ehrman (RIP), we would hustle over to Hunan Restaurant (now known as Henry's Hunan) at lunch.  The food was transcendent - and smokin' hot.  Later I discovered the food at the unprepossessing Hunan on Haight, which served an awesome black bean chicken.  That was a long time ago - 1984-87 - but I remain on a perpetual hunt for excellent spicy Chinese food. 

Cut to Kim's Dragon, which parks on Ludlow Street,  an alley behind Bossone Research Enterprise Center - also know known as Drexel's I.M. Pei building.  The alley is truly a restaurant row, in a vehicular vein; there are probably ten different trucks vending foods of various sorts.  Kim's features a particularly delicious black bean sauce, but their Singapore noodles are excellent as well.  And in a turn that will please vegetarians, they offer a vegetarian hot and sour soup.  On this last point I think they fall short; it turns out that a good hot and sour requires the use of a little pig meat.  But hey: I thought Alabama was a gourmet eating state!

I can't vouch for the rest of the menu - and this Drexel Triangle review stands in stark oppostion to my impressions.  (For reviews of Penn food trucks, look here.) And I can't speak to the cleanliness of this food - the city restaurant inspector has been less than enthused by the truck's compliance with code.  But I reassure myself that trucks always carry a bit of extra health risk - how else can they serve such fine food at bargain basement prices? 

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on February 14, 2009 (boomark / email).