5 Quick Questions with Tonight’s Guest Host Felicia D’Ambrosio

We had a great time with last night’s guest hosts Suzy Woods and Drew lazor. Suzy handled the notoriously tough Vous crowd like a champ, and the round Drew wrote about food was damn good (I’ll post it a little later.)

Tonight, we welcome Felicia D’Ambrosio. She is managing editor at Grid Philly, writes for the City Paper, and is partnering with Michael Solomonov, among others, to open the highly anticipated Federal Doughnuts this summer. Here she talks about her best night of bartending, the most underrated bar in the city, and teaches us something we didn’t know about beer.

JGT: You took the bartender to food writer path. Give us one of your favorite bartending memories.

FELICIA: One of my best bartending nights was when the Phillies won the World Series.  I had been tending bar for much of the playoffs at the Belgian Cafe, and a huge groups of regulars had coalesced around the one TV.  When the end of the last game seemed imminent, and our victory close at hand, I began closing checks as fast as possible ’cause I knew everyone was going to go berserk.  They did indeed, and Chef Evan popped open tons of cheap champagne and we sprayed the crowd and screamed ourselves stupid.  Kisses all around. Then I rode my bike home through the debris of the Broad Street mayhem. Best night ever.

JGT: You know a lot about beer, having both written extensively about it and served it. Tell us something about beer we don’t know.

FELICIA: There’s much debate about how beer came about in the first place, as it was almost certainly an accident. There’s “wet grain” theory, and my favorite, “magic stick” theory.  As in, prehistoric people would stir the pot of grain gruel with the magic stick, which was inoculated with yeasts, and would start the conversion from porridge into sweet intoxicant. Dr. Ernie Schuyler of the Academy of Natural Sciences has some great research on the topic.

JGT: What’s the most underrated bar in the city?

FELICIA: Jose Pistolas is awesome, especially the upstairs. It’s sort of an employee lounge for the Monk’s crew (Joe Gunn is one of ours from back in the day) — great bartenders, huge beer selection, and shots of Jameson big enough to kill you.

JGT: What’s your prediction for the “Next Big Thing” on the Philadelphia bar and dining scene?

FELICIA: I’m still waiting for ramen, but the Royal Izakaya should be open soon, so we’ll see if that spawns imitators. Since I’m opening a fried chicken-and-donuts place with CookNSolo and the Bodhi Coffee guys, I’ll say gourmet donuts and fried chicken.

JGT: Ok, same question I closed with on Lazor. It’s 8 p.m. You’re being executed at midnight (needless to say, for a crime you didn’t commit). What’s your last meal?

FELICIA: My mom-mom’s manicotti and my great-grandmother’s Thanksgiving stuffing. A magnum of vintage Dom and a bottle of Cantillon Fou’ Foune. A giant pile of strawberries in season with DiBruno Bros. burrata and the best olive oil money can buy. The lobster custard served in an egg from Talula’s Table, then some king crab legs and butter. I’ll finish off with more from my mom-mom: her cream puffs, then some of Mr. Martino’s chocolate pudding. This is exactly how I plan to die, anyway.

Here’s another great interview with Felicia on Grub Street a couple of years ago.

Wire Quiz Redux Friday at Ugly American

The Wire quiz on Sunday was awesome, but I know some people wanted to play but couldn’t either because of the time or because they couldn’t find a seat. So Friday we’ll do a more intimate version of the same quiz (If you played Sunday, don’t come, cause it’ll be the same questions.) So at 7 p.m. on Friday, I’ll be hosting the Wire quiz at the Ugly American. It was a very fun quiz, so if you’re a big Wire fan and couldn’t make it on Sunday, this is your chance to see what you know. It’s all in the game, yo.

Meet Drew Lazor, Who Guest Hosted a Round Wednesday at Black Sheep

We’ve got a couple of guest hosts at quizzo tonight. One of them most of you already know. The Beerlass, aka the Lovely Ginger, will host our opening round at the Rendezvous tonight. Beer Lass is well known in beer circles for repping for Sly Fox, for hosting the IPA girls beer club, and for running her Beerlass blog. Of course, she has also helped me at several Quizzo Bowls.

The other one is not as well known in quizzo circles, but is quite well known in food circles. Drew is the Food and Web editor at the City Paper and creator and editor of the popular Philly food blog Meal Ticket. Drew was so fired up he asked if he could write his own round. I said “Sure.” He’ll host that round tonight at Black Sheep.

I asked Drew a few questions about himself, the best and worst of the local food and drink scene, and what he’d request for his last meal:

1. When did you first become interested in writing about food?

Have definitely always been into food, but mostly the egregious overeating of it until I was assigned the “Feeding Frenzy” restaurant column as a college intern at City Paper. Kinda went from there with it and eventually became the food editor. Now when people ask me what I do I tell them I write articles about cheeseburgers.

2. What’s been the highlight of your career so far?

A few years ago Georges Perrier called me at work and yelled at me for a solid 15-20 minutes because he was upset about a (very positive!) review Trey Popp wrote of Le Bec-Fin, right after it had rejiggered its approach to become more casual. I was so flattered! Seriously. I’m pretty sure he didn’t care who it was who answered the phone, he simply unloaded on my ass because I picked up, but still, I’ll never forget that. GP tore me apart! As far as writing goes I enjoyed writing a long piece about pizza in Philly last summer.

3. Give us three of your favorite restaurants in Philly and a quick reason why.

This is always difficult but I’ll try. Mémé because it’s an honest place and it has bone marrow and fried chicken. Nan Zhou because I like to watch the dudes stretch noodles and slap them on the counter. Bistrot La Minette because it feels like France and I’ve never even been there.

4. What’s the coolest thing about the Philly food scene right now?

All the street food that’s been popping off! All the trucks are great of course but then you’ve got a lot of up-and-coming operations that are outdoor/stationary, like the carts setting up at Garden Variety at 2nd/Poplar. And then the Vendy Awards are happening in July here too. I think it’s cool that it’s growing so quickly.

4b) What’s the lamest thing about the Philly food scene right now?

I’ve been whining about this for years. There is no late-night pho. WHY IS THERE NO LATE-NIGHT PHO PLACE? PLEASE SOMEONE OPEN THIS.

5. You’re being executed at midnight. The warden takes your order at 8 p.m. What are you ordering?

My mom’s lumpia (Filipino egg rolls), my dad’s Yorkshire pudding, my girlfriend’s guacamole, sizzling mussels from Mémé, beef and tripe in chili oil from Han Dynasty, a crab pie from Matthew’s in Baltimore, Arista roast pork sandwich from Paesano’s, Kelly’s burger from Grace Tavern and the entire suckling pig situation from Amada, washed down with a Yards Philly Pale Ale, a Ballast Point Sculpin, a Penicillin from The Franklin and anything with bourbon in it from Southwark. Then Sour Patch Watermelons. And a Twix. With water. Whole lotta water.

Thanks Drew. We’ll see ya tonight!

Bounty Bowl at City Tap House Tonight

We start the JGT Summer Invitational tonight at O’Neals at 8 p.m. $3.50 margaritas and a $50 certificate for the winner. On to the City Tap House, which has been a lot quieter since the kids ran home to the hills. That means that getting your hands on the richest bounty in the city just got quite a bit easier. I’ll put it this way: 3rd place last week scored 48 points, and got a $25 gift certificate. $3 Sly Fox and a great pizza special. Not to mention that anyone who can knock off L. Ron Hubbard’s Diabetics will earn an extra $15 in prizes. That’s on top of the insane $100 first place certificate. I would highly recommend you making an appearance at the CTH tonight.

Oh Snap! JGT Invitational Combines with City vs. City Smackdown!

So we kick off the 2nd annual JGT Summer Invitational tonight at O’Neals and City Tap House. You know how the scoring works…but there are a couple of major wrinkles this time.

The Top 15 teams after 8 weeks will earn an invite. However, there will be a 9th week for a few “wild card teams” to do so. More on that later. Any team that scores 16 or more points in the following 8 weeks will have an opportunity at the $100 bonus drawing. There will once again be opportunities provided though both wins, physical challenges at various quizzos, and facebook challenges to earn points.

Each of the following 8 weeks will have a different theme. We start this week with Food and Drink. The other 7 themes will be (in no particular order. Working on guest hosts for some rounds now. Will let you know once I get calendar lined up):

  1. Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll
  2. Denver Rules (we’ll play by the rules the Geeks Who Drink play by in Denver).
  3. I Heart the 2000s Week
  4. Sports and Entertainment
  5. The Humanities
  6. Pictures, Mysteries, and Music
  7. Ladies Week

In addition, you’ll be able to score points by playing Koob and Kristy’s quizzes on Pop Culture. The Main Event will go down on Sunday, August 7th at National Mechanics (3rd between Market and Chestnut). But this will be more than just an event for local pride and glory; you’ll also be representing the city of Philadelphia, as we will be going City vs. City with Denver, Albuquerque, and Nashville. Our Top 10 scores will be averaged against their top 10 scores, with the winner gaining the bragging rights and the rights to name the Trophy. That’s right, there will be a trophy handed out to the winning city, and the winning city gets to name that trophy. The trophy will retain that name in perpetuity. So if you don’t want to be playing in the future for the Eddie George Cup or the Dog the Bounty Hunter Cup or some other such foolishness, be ready to bring your A-game. There are a couple of other cities that we’re currently discussing this with, so don’t be surprised to see a few more towns enter the mix as we move forward.

I REALLY WANT THE BEST TEAMS TO PLAY (Jams, Lambda, I’m looking at you). The winning city not only gets the glory, but they will get to name the Local Legend Cup. Don’t do it for yourselves. Don’t do it for me. Do it for your city. City vs. City Smackdown: It’s on.

Fayette Crew Mafia Almost Perfect at Wire Quizzo

The Fayette Crew Mafia won The Wire quiz at POPE on Sunday night in what can only be described as a sheiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit show. It was a packed house, standing room only, and it was filled with people who are freaks about The Wire. I mean, I thought I knew the show, but these people really knew the show. The Fayette Crew Mafia got 39 out of 40 correct, plus all 4 bonuses, for an all time high score of 124. The only one they missed, they described who I was looking for but couldn’t think of the guys name (and it was a question about Baltimore, only partially about The Wire). The Dickensian Aspect of Cheese Faced Bitches and Some Shameful S*** tied for 2nd with a 109. The rest of the scores are posted after the jump. If there is enough demand I will rehost the same quiz later this week (maybe Friday?). Let me know if you want to play. I know a lot of people tried to play but it was just too packed.

Continue reading “Fayette Crew Mafia Almost Perfect at Wire Quizzo” →

Coolest Photo You’ll See All Day


Doesn’t this look like a Tim Burton movie set? It’s actually Schmidt’s Brewery. I posted a 1970s Schmidt’s ad on the Phillysportshistory site that’s pretty cool and started doing some research on Schmidt’s. What you’re seeing above is the entrance to their brewery, where the Piazza at Schmidt’s now stands. Here’s some info, courtesy of the awesome Philaplaces website (you’ll also find some more great photos there):

Poised on the boundary between Northern Liberties and Kensington, this sprawling 15-acre site was home to Schmidt’s, Philadelphia’s largest and most famous brewery, established in 1860. Schmidt’s was the last survivor of Philadelphia’s brewing industry, closing down in 1987 after over 125 years and leaving Philadelphia without a brewery for the first time in 300 years. Schmidt’s Beer — and its tenacity — was a point of pride for all Philadelphians. The Schmidt’s closure signaled once and for all the end of Philadelphia’s industrial era.

Wire, Sci-Fi Quizzes Tonight


This Wire quiz has taken on a life of its own, as it seems to have created more buzz than any other quiz I’ve ever done. I’ve given the details out earlier, but here’s the Cliff Notes of what you need to know: Event starts at the POPE at 7. I would suggest you get there by then. It’s going to fill up early. I’m working on it now, and I think it’s gonna be a good one. But definitely get there early. We’ll get started around 8:30 or so.

If Sci-Fi is your thing, a good night for that as well, as Mike Minion is hosting a Sci-Fi quiz tonight at the Ugly American. Questions on classics as well as the hilariously bad. He’ll also have a set of the first 3 Alien movies to give away. That starts at Ugly American at 8 p.m.

The 2nd Annual Summer Invitational

Hard to believe, but it’s time for the 2nd annual JGT Summer Invitational. It starts next week. I’m still working on venue and band, but this one is gonna be the greatest Invitational yet. I’m gonna have celebrity hosts the next few weeks, as well as a little stand up comedy between rounds at the Bards.

There’s also going to be a bit of a wrinkle. Each week will be a new theme. There will be a Sports and Entertainment Week, a I Heart the 90s Week, a Denver Pub Quiz Rules Week, a Science and Technology Week, and so on. We start next week with out Food and Drink quiz. In honor of Beer Week, all questions will be food and drink related.

I’m also going to be hosting some special quizzes throughout the summer, in addition to Mike’s special quizzes at Ugly American and Koob and Kristy’s special quizzes at Drinkers, which will also count towards points. And only the top 15 qualify. Gonna be quizzes in just about every category imaginable this summer, and it all starts Sunday, with me hosting the Wire quiz at POPE and Mike hosting the Science Fiction quiz at Ugly American. Both start at 8 p.m. I’ll have more info about the Invitational itself on Monday.

All new physical challenges, all new quizzes, and a lot of surprises. As my kind of douchey college roommate once said, “F*** the bulls***. Let’s do dis!”