September 20, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local Life

What a difference a word makes
Greeks bearing gifts of ‘Mediterranean’ food at Athena
by LEN LEAR

Konstantine Grigorakakis is definitely hot stuff, as one can easily see, and so is his food at Athena. (Photos by Jimmy J. Pack)

Konstantine Grigorakakis hails from the region of southern Greece near Sparta, the scourge of the ancient world because of its militaristic domination of its neighbors. Despite his Spartan heritage, however, Konstantine’s passion in life is, to paraphrase a popular t-shirt expression of the 1960s, to make food, not war.

The 48-year-old co-owner (with wife, Maria Fisfis Grigorakakis, 43, who grew up in Northeast Philly with parents who had emigrated from the Greek island of Chios) of Athena restaurant, 264 Keswick Ave. in Glenside, has learned that customers have to be able to digest words as well as food. And certain words go down more easily than others.

Bane of Hill backyard becomes toast of the town
by MIKE TODD

Mike and Kara Todd, as far away from a swimming pool as they can possibly get.

Apparently, savvy homebuyers these days just don’t have an appreciation for leaking, algaefied monstrosities that fill up the whole back yard and suck the cash out of your wallet and the leisure time out of your life with equal vigor.

My wife, Kara, and I arrived at this conclusion after receiving a raft of negative feedback about our above-ground albatross from people who otherwise seemed interested in buying the house that we vacated earlier this summer.

Now that buyers are holding the cards and sellers are holding the bag, it seems that folks are much less willing to inherit oversized bowls of chlorine and misery than we were four years ago.

Hill Farmers Market favorite is now adding spice to Wyndmoor
by JIMMY J. PACK JR.

Bhagya Lawrence  is a native of Bangalore, India, whose Indian foods business, Bhagya’s Kitchen, has relocated from the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market to 1010 E. Willow Grove Ave. in Wyndmoor. Bhagya’s husband, John, still sells some of her foods at his business, Delectablez, in the Chestnut Hill Farmers’ Market. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

The Chestnut Hill Farmers’ Market is a cornucopia of ethnic foods. Over the years folks who loyally head to the market have been able to partake in Middle Eastern, Mexican and Japanese foods. While many of the small shops come and go, Bhagya’s Kitchen, a gourmand’s Indian food dream, has not only grown in size (as well as customer count) but now also has another home on Willow Grove Avenue.

Bhagya Lawrence, owner of Bhagya’s Kitchen at 1010 E. Willow Grove Ave., was both shocked and happy at the quick growth of her eatery.

“We’ve been looking to expand for a while,” says Bhagya, dressed in a green apron and dishing out chicken in a creamy red sauce into a container. “While in the Farmers’ Market I expected to do well, but the business really took off much more than I expected. We were so lucky when this place opened up.”

Squeeze enjoyment out of pricey, tasty Tangerine
by LEN LEAR

Customers dine in the unique dining room whose wall has 150 candle-filled niches in a beehive pattern.

Stephen Starr is an enigma, like Bigfoot or the Bermuda Triangle. The most successful Philadelphia restaurateur and arguably the most successful non-chain restaurateur in the country, he is unassuming almost to the point of anonymity. The ultimate non-diva, the owner of 12 Philly restaurants, two in New York and two in Atlantic City, does not hang out with celebrities or sycophants, does not do the nightclub scene, has no entourage, does not wear designer clothes, drive a fancy car or live in a mansion.

If you passed Starr on the street, you’d swear he was an engineer or high school math teacher. I’m willing to bet that some of his newer employees would not recognize him if they served him an overpriced cocktail.

I’ve only interviewed Starr once. It was a few years ago at Angelina, an upscale Italian at 7th and Chestnut that turned out to be Starr’s only failure. (Blue Angel also closed, but it was reportedly not losing money.) He said he rarely eats in his own restaurants and that his favorite food is a tuna fish sandwich. So what’s he doing with all of those multi-million-dollar palaces of gastronomy that the average wage earner cannot think of entering unless he is prepared to wash a sink full of dishes?

You are all completely unoriginal — just like Jen
by JENNIFER NAGEL

An old boyfriend once said to me that there was nothing original left in the world — which, if you think about it, is a pretty unoriginal thing to say in the first place. He wasn’t the first person to say it to me, and I’d probably read it somewhere before. He went on to be a completely unoriginal goon — dumped me with a “It’s not you, it’s me” (well of course it is! Duh!), went on to be mediocre at a corporate job at a corporation that wasn’t anything but mundane and kind of annoying, much like him, and bought a townhouse in some trendy suburb of something else trendy, just like every other 28-year-old who’s afraid to settle down. In short, even the person who told me there’s nothing original left is unoriginal.