The dish on takeout and delivery | Let’s Eat

We’re in a carryout and delivery world. The Inquirer’s Craig LaBan, who has been otherwise cooking, shares some of his prime finds, and I’ll show you where else to look.

On the grocery side, our colleague Grace Dickinson quizzed local chefs for their most versatile pantry staples. How about miso, coffee, and ... nooch? Read on and I’ll also tell you about a game we call Grocery Roulette that might save you trips to the supermarket.

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– Michael Klein

Though he cooks for his family, Craig LaBan is searching for quality takeout and delivery food. He runs down 10 current favorites for us, including the Cubano from Porco’s Porchetteria, the house bun noodle bowl from Vietnam Café, and a “floagie” from Little Fish BYOB.

Where to find takeout and delivery food? Databases abound. We’ve been collecting them in one handy place. Restaurant owners can email me for inclusion in our list (use the subject line “corona” and specify “carryout,” “delivery," or “both”).

Also this week, the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association created CarryOutPa.com, which has a snazzy user interface but needs data.

If you have been putting it off, now is the time to join Instagram so you can keep tabs on your favorite restaurants and their offerings. And — heh-heh — follow your favorite news sources.

If you find something tasty, or convenient, or otherwise worth sharing out there, let me know by email.

A few notes:

You might already know how to stock a pantry with the basics. Grace Dickinson asked a few Philly chefs for the “secret weapons” they use in their own quarantine meals. She’s also included recipes from Kenneth Sze of Tuna Bar, Nick Elmi of Laurel, and Kelsey Bush of Bloomsday Cafe.

Under federal rules, it is nearly impossible for the more than 1.7 million recipients in Pennsylvania and 682,000 in New Jersey to use the benefits — known as SNAP, for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — to order food by phone or online and have it delivered. That’s why people like Gloria Santiago have to take their chances in public, as Alfred Lubrano writes.

You’re trying to avoid the supermarkets, so you sign up for pickup or delivery at your local supermarket. Then you learn that the next available time slot is two weeks away. I get that.

Meanwhile, you can continue to add to your app order until the day of delivery or pickup. That doesn’t help you if your item happens to be out of stock when store employees fill your order, and the deadline has passed. Stores are not offering substitutions.

On my order at Giant last week, nearly half of the items were out of stock, sending me into the store in person. Then my cousin told me about a hack she calls Grocery Roulette. It’s simple: Order several options, hoping they have one. Maybe you’ll get that big bottle of Heinz ketchup, but you also could end up with Hunt’s or the store brand. (#firstworldproblems, I know.) If your roulette wheel hits and you end up with more than one, consider donating to a local pantry.

Food delivery is the way to go, and cash-strapped restaurants have been complaining about the high fees charged by services such as Grubhub, DoorDash, and Caviar. Grubhub, the largest of the bunch, magnanimously offered to defer its commissions last month, while DoorDash and its Caviar subsidiary recently announced they would cut their commissions 50%. Meanwhile, a class-action suit was filed in New York against Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates, accusing them of charging “exorbitant fees” and forcing restaurants to raise prices for dine-in customers.

Reading Terminal Market has stopped taking online orders at least through April 20 after a surge in demand led to incorrect and incomplete orders in the days leading up to Easter. The market introduced delivery and e-commerce through the grocery delivery platform Mercato in 2018, and filled about 50 orders a day before the coronavirus pandemic, general manager Anuj Gupta told colleague Erin McCarthy.

Last week, they averaged between 8,000 and 10,000 daily orders, he added. The growth overwhelmed the system, Gupta said Tuesday in a letter to customers posted on Twitter, and as result “incomplete/erroneous orders became numerous.”

The market has paused online ordering and delivery through Monday in order to improve the system. As an essential business, it remains open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, while implementing social distancing measures, including limiting customers in the store at one time, and enhancing cleaning efforts. A Reading Terminal employee tested positive for the virus last week, and the merchant ceased operation there so that employees could self-quarantine.

Business-interruption insurance covers fires and such. Word, however, is spreading that restaurants will not be compensated over their losses during the government-mandated shutdown. Here comes River Twice, a new restaurant in South Philadelphia, which has gone to federal court to argue why it should be covered. Thousands of other businesses are in the same situation, and various legislatures, including those of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. are taking up the issue.

Craig LaBan’s Q&A does not appear this week.