Philadelphia Italian Market @ 9th and Washington

I always say that one of the reasons I love going to school in Philadelphia is because the food here is so good.

There is hardly a restaurant downtown that I don’t enjoy (unless it’s La Viola West three times in two weeks). But when it comes to food on campus, there is something left to be desired.

Though my friends at more isolated schools will call me “sustenance-spoiled,” I don’t care. Because it’s true: I’m sick of the menu at Greek Lady, tired of the sluggish service at Marathon, and can’t bring myself to eat Qdoba more than once a week.

Izzy and Zoe’s has fallen to a level so far below acceptable that I try to forget it exists.

Even though Gia and Metro add some quality to the overall food options on Penn’s campus, we have a serious dearth of selection when hunger strikes… and it strikes a lot, considering that thousands of people in the Penn community eat three times a day.

Fed up with my options (and not willing to wait more than an hour to order something online from campusfood.com or 20 minutes physically in line for Magic Carpet in 40 degree weather), I finally mustered up the energy and ambition to do the unthinkable: cook. In someone else’s kitchen, obviously.

It. Was. Delish.

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