The best things we ate this week

I’ve never arrived to Exton’s Malgudi Cafe and not found a line out the door, whether for a late-night dinner or a blizzard-weekend brunch. That initially surprised me considering Malgudi appears at first glance to be an unassuming restaurant in a Chester County strip mall.

But this cafe is a special place, not only because it’s one of the region’s few Indian restaurants dedicated to vegetarian cooking, but because it may also be the only one focused specifically on the cuisine of the city of Bangalore, in the South Indian state of Karnataka.

I have loved virtually everything I’ve ordered here, from the crunchy stuffed pani puri puffs with sour-and-spicy green mint water to pour inside, to the lacy-crisp crepe roll of its onion rava dosa. But for a true immersion into the homey essence of Malgudi, which was launched in 2023 by four South Indian families, dive into a tray of bisi bele bath.

Known by its loyal customers as “Triple B,” this Karnataka comfort classic is a soulful stew of rice and toor dal (split pigeon peas) that are cooked down with seasonal vegetables until they essentially melt together into a soothing porridge. While the word “bisi” means “hot” in Kannada, this one-pot dish is not fiery so much as it is vivid with fragrant spice — tangy with tamarind and tomatoes then flared with the aromatics of Malgudi’s house masala, a punchy blend of dried red chilies, cinnamon, cloves, and coconut ground fresh. Served hot on a stainless-steel thali tray, there are sides of tart raita yogurt and crunchy boondi pastry beads to add more textures and flavors. On the off chance they’re already out of Triple B (as they were on my first visit), go for the khara pongal porridge of yellow moong lentils cooked down with cumin, cashews, chilies, and curry leaves. Malgudi Cafe, 10 W. Lincoln Hwy., Exton; 484-874-2124, malgudicafe.com

— Craig LaBan

There’s a loose guideline followed by many people who dine out a lot: Get the most adventurous things on the menu. They’re often the best reflection of the kitchen’s passions.

So it was with a little sheepishness that I ordered, among other items, the “classic crab cake” at Bomb Bomb Bar, the deep South Philly institution that Zeppoli and Palizzi Social Club chef-owner Joey Baldino revived last fall. Crab cakes are frequently delicious, but they are also extremely common and seldom edgy, especially next to, say, whole Dungenesse crab and mom’s stuffed calamari.

But I’ll be forever content with my decision-making, for chef Max Hachey’s crab cakes are maybe the best ones I’ve ever had — a paean to blue crab, simply treated. To make them, Hachey combines crab meat from three different parts of the crab with reduced, onion-infused cream plus Dijon mustard, roasted-garlic aioli, chives, lemon zest, egg, and some crumbled Club Crackers (“just a few to held hold it together,” Hachey says). The mixture is scooped into dumpling-sized parcels, brushed with butter, then broiled. The cakes are plated, two to an order, on top of a swirl of basil vinaigrette, then garnished with confit cherry tomatoes still clinging to their crispy vines.

The meal at Bomb Bomb was full of hits, from the zippy antipasto salad to the oil-slicked Italian tuna spaghetti and the lobster and shells in a blush sauce, not to mention those torpedoes of sausage-stuffed squid doused in deep-red gravy. We were too full for dessert, but I didn’t feel so bad skipping it, as it was about as approachable as it gets: an ice cream sundae. Bomb Bomb Bar, 1026 Wolf St., bombbombbar.com

— Jenn Ladd

After eating an extremely gamey Kashmiri goat curry in high school, I had given up eating goat. I use the past tense because more than a decade later, I have relented on my goat fast. Last week, North Broad Street’s Honeysuckle restaurant hosted a popup with chef Paul Carmichael, who runs Kabawa in New York City’s East Village and presented some of his signature Caribbean dishes.

The goat shoulder was a perfect cube of meat, slow-cooked and succulent, bathed in a fiery gravy of habaneros and dried scallop. Glistening like a crown on top of the cube were fried curry leaves. It was absolute perfection, complemented beautifully by the collaborative dessert by Carmichael and Honeysuckle chef-owners Omar Tate and Cybille St.Aude-Tate: a decadent, mousse-y Marquise au Chokola dessert with rum, chocolate, dulce de leche, and djon djon — a rare mushroom from Haiti. Honeysuckle Restaurant, 631 N. Broad St., 215-307-3316, honeysucklephl.com

— Bedatri D. Choudhury