Foodies, listen up. While we were away for the summer, lots of new spots opened up. There’s now a juice truck and another coffee truck, a BBQ joint is under construction, and wine bar Biba should be opening any day now.
While we’re excited about these new establishments, we mustn’t forget some of the old tried and true spots. Fortunately, they’ve received some new updates and added new offerings. Here’s a rundown:
- Marathon has an entirely revamped and much, much smaller menu. Their customized “Control Freak” salads are no longer available, but the new grub is much improved. Service is still abysmally slow.
- At Gia Pronto, new salad additions abound! you can now add bacon, portobello mushrooms, or blue cheese to your salad.
- Copa has a snazzy new bright yellow awning which makes it look much nicer than the dirty wonderfulness that is its inside.
- Taglio seems to be competing with its sister restaurant, Gia Pronto. Taglio, which was branded as a pizza joint, is now offering fresh salads. After some initial hype, the eatery has pretty much been a flop.
- There is now a sushi bar at Fresh Grocer. More like Fresh Grosser.
Notice anything else? Let us know.
Power's Out At FroGro -- Registers are therefore not working. This would also probably be the wrong day to try their new sushi bar.
Greetings friends old and new! We’re back at full posting speed today, so send your tips, and visit often.
If you’re reading this, you’ve likely noticed that something looks a little different around here. Well, it’s true. We’re redesigned!
Credit is due to the inimitable Thomas Jansen, who worked tirelessly throughout the summer to give UTB its new look. You da best, Tom!
Without further ado, let’s take a look around. Read the rest of this entry »
Having an “oh crap it’s senior year and oh shit classes start tomorrow” moment? So are we. If you think Smokes is getting a bit lenient with its entry policy (what the hell!), today’s a chance to truly surround yourself with your senior peers.
Whether or not you want to give a pretty penny to the Penn fund, it’ll be well worth stopping by their kickoff event today, if only for the scores of free food (Magic Carpet and the like will have booths) and performances from Mask and Wig, Dhamaka, Bloomers and Off the Beat.
We hear attempts to provide free beer were rejected, but sangria will be in supply. Odd choice, but we’ll take it.
Underclassmen, sorry, but it’s a seniors only ordeal. Seniors, the sangria sipping is happening from 4 – 6 p.m. today on 40th Street Field.
The Penn Reading Project seminars, during which freshmen sit in rooms talking about a book they were supposed to but probably didn’t read, is happening today. Normally, we’d just be like, whatever, b-o-r-i-n-g, except, well. How do we say this? This year’s book is about toilets.
For truly unfathomable reasons, this year’s book is called “The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters.” by Penn alumna Rose George. This allegedly has something to do with the fact that this is “The Year of Water,” but we can personally think of a hell of a lot of books related to water out of the context of a bathroom.
This is particularly cruel because, uh, freshmen just moved into dorms and dorms are the birthplace of disgusting toilets. Must you torture them further?
Lest we forget, last year’s “book” was actually a painting.
We Gettin' Ourselves A Makeover -- Surprise! We've been working hard on redesigning the site and it's finally ready! We're very excited! We're in the process of switching it over and smoothing things out, so don't hate if things look a little funky for the next day or so. We'll give you a full tour when things are up and running properly.
Biba To Open Next Week --
Biba, the wine bar by the folks from Tria on 30th and Walnut will soft launch in the middle of next week, according to a source. Andddd we're salivating.
Penn alums, living the dream, yet again. This time, it doesn’t even involve hedge funds or competing on a Bravo reality show about art or anything! Rather, Vanessa Bayer ’04, is joining the cast of Saturday Night Live. Since being the Director of Bloomers, Penn’s female comedy group/Mask and Wig rival, Vanessa has spent time at Second City in Chicago, a well-known SNL feeder. Anyway, legit! We look forward to watching.
It’s that time of year, weirdos who drool over meaningless college rankings! Penn has dropped one spot to number 5 in U.S. News and World Report‘s much-awaited Best Colleges 2011. Harvard, Princeton and Yale predictably retained the top triumvirate (in the same respective order as 2010), while Columbia usurped dear ol’ Penn for the number 4 slot we held on to in 2010.
It’s not so lonely at the top: Penn shares the number 5 position with Stanford this year. MIT and Caltech share number 7, while Dartmouth, Duke and UChicago battle it out at number 9.
Although it sucks that Penn dropped a bit this year, it’s worth noting that while last year we shared the spot with CalTech and MIT, this year they’re lower than us. Anyway, blame Columbia, where fun is apparently misunderstood.
The issue hits newsstands Tuesday, should you need to see this in print.
Everybody freak out! (It’s okay, we already know you are!) Last night, Penn ’09 grad Abdi Farah won Bravo’s Work of Art. The show had many excited Penn devotees, though as one former UTB editor noted, “the shocking oversight is that he wasn’t on cultural elite ’08!”
Did you know Abdi while he was at Penn? Let us know.
As dedicated readers will know, we here at UTB take extreme delight in covering the opening of new food trucks in the Penn hood. Today, we present you with news of the newly opened La Vie Natural Juice and Smoothie.
La Vie set up shop on the southwest corner of 38th and Spruce (right next to Carribean food truck Gigi’s) two weeks ago, after doing a test run on 10th and University in Center City. The truck is run by Fednel St. Fort, a Philadelphian who grew up in Haiti. As the name would indicate, La Vie will serve up smoothies and natural juices: mangoes, carrots, bananas and the like. Read the rest of this entry »
Woohoo! Reports have surfaced that the Sansom Street spot formerly occupied by Bubble House will be taken over by Baby Blues, a BBQ restaurant. The menu (from a California branch) looks excellent. The restaurant hopes to open by the end of the year (ha, yeah right).
UTB investigation/salivation forthcoming.
Believe it or not, NSO is fast approaching, which means…we need to get our shit together.
Can you string together a coherent sentence and search things on Google or perhaps make nice things in Photoshop or edit a video clip? If so, maybe you can join our gang!
We’ve got a steady team of veteran bloggers, but we’re always looking for brazen new team members to join our ranks. Though it’s a fun gig, be prepared to make a steady commitment! Tell us what you can do for us at contact@underthebutton.com.
To overly eager incoming freshmen: hi! We won’t be accepting applications for semester-long positions from ’14ers just yet, but hold tight! We’ll be holding info sessions shortly after NSO for us, and our parent publication, 34th Street. If you have ideas in the meantime, however (perhaps you’d like to chronicle your first trip to a frat party?), feel free to drop us a line.
Update: For some clarification…on the writing end, we are currently looking for staff reporters. So, if you want, pitch us a beat you’d like to cover or a column you’d like to write. If you take good pictures or make videos, tell us about that too.
But don’t worry, she will be back! Career Services guru/Queen of Your Inbox Claire Klieger mentioned in an email today that she will be going to Zimbabwe! What do you think she is doing there?!?!
Fortunately, friend to UTB Helen Cheung (and Kelly Cleary) will be holding down the fort.
Bon Voyage!
