This is dedicated to the buns we love | Let’s Eat

If you’ve discovered the new Pop’s Bun Shop and want to keep it to yourself, you may not like me right now. Also this week: We’re feeling this new cookie boom, mourning the demise of an iconic local brand, and enjoying cheesesteaks — in New York City, of all places.

— Mike Klein

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With deep roots in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, the Philadelphia area has always had a strong cinnamon bun and sticky bun game. Among the better ones are sticky buns from Beiler’s bakery counter at Reading Terminal Market; the luscious iced buns from Essen Bakery in Passyunk Square; the extra-sticky buns from Holmesburg Bakery in the Northeast; the German-style stickies from Fritz’s in Bensalem and Oxford Valley; the two varieties from Danish Bakers in Rockledge; the massive, iced buns from Hank’s (available at a few farmer’s markets); and the apricot-dipped cinnamon roll from the Olde World Bakery near Mount Holly.

Philadelphia’s Bella Vista neighborhood seems to be cinnamon nirvana. Function Coffee Labs offers amazing buns as part of its sourdough baking. Isgro’s sells a cinnamon swirl with a cream cheese icing. Termini’s doesn’t make a bun or roll, but it does turn out a crunchy pastry pig’s ear. And now, there’s Pop’s Bun Shop, where John and Karen Blisard are headed into their third week selling both cinnamon buns and sticky buns, plus the puffy, filled pastries known as kolache, out of a takeout window at Ninth and Catharine. Read on and be prepared to join a very long line.

» READ MORE: Great bakeries in Bucks and Montgomery Counties

» READ MORE: Like filled doughnuts? You'll love maritozzi

More carbs! Now that the muffin craze is safely in the rear-view, Philly has joined the cookie parade. Take Rittenhouse Square alone, home to the Sugary (a general bakery, as well), Blueprint Cookies, Chip City, and a forthcoming Taylor Chip location.

Friday at 8 a.m. is the ribbon-cutting for Philly’s first location of NYC’s Levain Bakery (1518 Walnut St.), with swag for the first 100 guests and discounts through the weekend. Levain Rittenhouse’s opening-day proceeds will be donated to Broad Street Love.

🍪Philly-created Insomnia Cookies is opening its 300th store, and a location in Fishtown.

🍪 Why is Nutter Butter going viral? Signs point to a Temple grad and cookie superfan.

If you’ve scoured your grocer’s dairy case for Penn Maid sour cream, cottage cheese, dips, and yogurt, you’re out of luck. Its parent company shuttered the Philly brand. I look back at Queenie, whose smiling face graced the sour cream jars for decades, and tell you an ironic story about the family behind the company.

Would you go to New York City for a cheesesteak? Probably not. But let’s say you happened to be there and wanted a bite of Philly authenticity. I found six shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn that are tasty, even by 215 standards.

Angelo’s, the popular South Philly pizzeria and sandwich shop, launched a delivery kitchen last week via UberEats, and as you’d imagine, it’s blowing up. Be patient, urged owner Danny DiGiampietro. When the app and kitchen are overwhelmed, they halt incoming orders until staff can catch up.

Hiroki has a new à la carte menu, five years after chef Hiroki Fujiyama opened it as a soft-lit omakase room behind Wm. Mulherin’s Sons in Fishtown. Menu includes maki and nigiri, cold plates like hiyashi chuka (cold noodles with sweet soy vinegar sauce) and snapper carpaccio, plus hot dishes such as katsudon (crispy pork cutlet, caramelized onions, soft eggs on rice) and kakuni (simmered pork belly with rice porridge). Hiroki also added a lower priced sushi omakase for $115 with sushi, miso soup, and dessert, in addition to its $185pp omakase (which includes 20 courses of fish followed by meats, two sushi courses, and miso soup).

» READ MORE: Philly's 13 top omakase experiences

Autana Authentic Venezuelan Food, the acclaimed BYOB that closed its Ardmore location in August, will revive the empanadas, mandocas, and arepas starting Thursday as it launches a ghost kitchen for takeout, delivery, and catering. Much of Philadelphia will be covered, as the service area (via DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub) will be five miles from 1308 W. Girard Ave. in North Philadelphia. Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.

Departure. Rory Hirst and JJ Morgan met during training in an Olive Garden in their early 20s, at the beginnings of their restaurant careers. Though Morgan stayed with the company and the Delco-bred Hirst quickly moved on (he was last at the Dandelion in Center City), they remained friends. Fifteen years later, Hirst, with his wife, Krystal, have opened their own bar-restaurant in Media, and brought on Morgan as chef.

The sleek-looking Departure, with a small-plate menu, is in its first week a block from the Delaware County Courthouse. When Rory Hirst first saw the space, a former bank with high ceilings and terrazzo floors, he thought: “airport lounge — but a comfortable one where you’d like to stay.” He taught himself AutoCAD and designed it with low lighting, plush chairs, velvet banquettes, and a 45-foot bar that seats 22.

“Departure” is a play on words — referring to an airport lounge and what Hirst calls a departure from a normal menu. Philly rarebit ($10) is sliced ribeye topped with melted cheeses and caramelized onions atop toasted bread (sort of an open-face cheesesteak). There are salads, fish and chips, poutine, dumplings, taro chips (topped with pickled jalapeño, avocado, and spicy aioli) skewers, and fettuccine and oyster mushrooms with sun-dried tomato pesto. Above are lamb lollipops with chile mint sauce and a swipe of goat cheese hummus, the priciest dish at $18.

Right now, there are 14 cocktails on the list. “We’ll see what sells the best and then we’ll rotate some seasonally,” Hirst said. The big seller right now is a lavender martini, shown below.

Departure is open for lunch and dinner Monday to Saturday. “So much of the industry doesn’t get to spend time with family, so we decided that Sunday would be the day we are going to close,” Hirst said.

Departure, 2 S. Orange St., Media. Hours: 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, and 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Closed Sunday.

Kyle Timpson, a Philadelphia chef appearing on Season 23 of Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen, has always been passionate about cooking: “When the other kids were at home watching cartoons, I was watching the Food Network.”

Fishtown Overnight Market, a late-night gathering of food trucks near the Fillmore, was indefinitely postponed just two days before its scheduled launch. Beatrice Forman said the city hasn’t provided a reason.

Le Virtu is hosting a collab dinner (one seating, 6:30 p.m. Thursday) featuring chefs Andrew Wood, Kristin Wood, and John Taus, with Ian Brendle of Green Meadow Farm. It’s a reunion, as they met at South Philly’s late, great James restaurant; $150pp plus tax and tip, and the menu/details are here.

For Fishtown Social’s annual “Drink Like a Fish(towner),” with three sessions between 3:30 and 9 p.m. Oct. 30, owner Vanessa Wong will open every wine bottle in the house for a tasting. It’s $55pp and benefits Lutheran Settlement House. Guests are encouraged to wear Halloween costumes; there will be prizes. Details are here.

River Twice will reprise its Seven Deadly Sins dinner (one sin per course) on Oct. 28-29. Examples: heirloom beans with octopus by Friday Saturday Sunday’s Chad Williams is “envy,” and there’s a pressé of chicken, sweetbreads, and foie gras with cabbage marmalade and sauce Périgueux for “gluttony.” It’s $125pp at a table, $150pp at the counter, plus optional beverage pairings. Those who dress for a Halloween costume contest are eligible for five of chef Randy Rucker’s Mother Rucker burgers served on Mondays. Details via Resy.

Restaurant portion sizes — speaking of gluttony — can be enormous, and a Penn researcher wants to address this. Alison McCook chatted with Sophia Hua, who found that while people say they are interested in smaller portions, they “kind of eat what’s laid out in front of them.”

A Lancaster County gelato maker competed in an international contest in Italy last month, the first American to do so. She did well, but as she told Jason Nark, next time she’ll need to bone up on her Italian or hire a translator.

When the Eagles play the Browns on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, what new drink will be offered at stadium bars?

A) the Philly Philly

B) a Long Island Iced Kelce

C) the South Philly caipirinha

D) a Jack Stoll-i martini

Find out if you know the answer, and learn about other new menu items.

I keep seeing these new Raising Cane’s fast-food chicken places popping up, and supposedly their Cane’s sauce is amazing. What’s in it? — Seth L.

Caniacs, as adherents of this Louisiana-based chicken-tender specialist are known, are celebrating a huge expansion in the Philadelphia region since Raising Cane’s opened its first Philly location in May 2022 in University City. Most recent: Welsh Road near Easton Road in Willow Grove. Cane’s sauce, made daily on premises, turns up on best-of lists. It’s not a traditional Russian or Thousand Island dressing; the company won’t divulge the recipe, but speculators point to a combo of mayo, ketchup, ground pepper, garlic powder, salt, and Worcestershire sauce. I’ve gotten reliable results through Copykat.com’s method, which calls specifically for Duke’s mayo and Heinz ketchup and urges you to refrigerate the sauce well before serving. Here’s my backgrounder on Cane’s from 2022.

📮 Have a question about food in Philly? E-mail your questions to me at mklein@inquirer.com for a chance to be featured in my newsletter.

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