'How many fucking strip malls are there here and why are they all Vietnamese?'
-me, both confused and delighted on my first Uber trip down Washington Avenue
"[...]The history of the Vietnamese community, a large concentration of which is in South Philadelphia, is essentially untold and understudied. And unlike other Vietnamese enclaves in the US, there’s no gaudy, generically “Asian” archway entreating the passersby to explore, just a string of unannounced shopping malls and a smattering of nearby businesses integrated into the ever-evolving immigrant territory of the Italian Market and the building materials bazaar along Washington Avenue."
-'In South Philly, Subtly Staking Territory,' from Hidden City Philadelphia, Ariel Diliberto and Austin Argentieri, Dec14, 2011
'Welcome to Philly, bitch.'
-The entire city, collectively, subconsciously, as I watched the riot on Broad Street after the NFC championship.
The first time I visited the house I would move into was a week before I was slated to move in. It also happened to be the Sunday the eagles won the NFC championship and were headed to the Super Bowl.
What a fucking time to be alive. Anyone that lived through it probably remembers spurts of it. Anyone else in the country knows what Philly sports fans are all about. If you have to click those links to know what I'm talking about, you must live under a rock.
I was moving here because recently the landmark restaurant I worked at was closing, and as such I felt there was no need to stay around the area I was living. I decided it was time to newer pastures. I had already spent a lot of time in Pittsburgh, a bit of time in Baltimore, and a blip in New York; rounding it out with Philadelphia only made sense. Luckily the Megabus, a company whose buses are known for being extremely claustrophobic and prone to terrifying breakdowns ran from the town I was based out of (State College, PA) straight to the southeasternmost corner of the fine state of Pennsylvania. It drops you off on a corridor of buses right by 30th street station, and aside from a night at my brothers during his short stint here before a middle school trip to Ocean City, a punk fest that ended terribly, and a one-off visit to a romantic interest, I had spent absolutely no time in the city I would soon be calling home. I called an Uber and was shocked at how affordable it was. I was shocked at how affordable my rent was. And soon I was shocked by this semi-industrial, semi-southeastern Asian jaundiced awning paradise that is Washington Avenue.
Since moving here I've seen a lot of plans for the future of Washington Avenue, but the first thing that piqued my interest upon seeing this bizarre (and as I would later learn, incredibly indicative) part of South Philly was how it got that way.
Turns out there's not that much to know. The quote in the beginning of this post is also ascertained from the article linked here. There is certainly a trend within Vietnamese communities to build strip malls, perhaps from a "[representation of] the American dream of accumulating wealth in a free market economy" I speculate that that is speculation. In true American fashion, there's probably a much more pragmatic, economic and social explanation. Of what those are, I cannot speculate.
But a very talkative and fun cab driver I had a wild ride with after a wild night let me in on some information.
In broken English he explained to me in no uncertain terms that those strip malls started popping up because land was cheap back then and the side of Broad I lived on, oh man, I couldn't have gone there a few years ago. No one wanted to come down here and there was already a very strong community of Italian and Irish Americans. It wasn't easy to build a community, he said. At first the South Philadelphian types didn't take too kindly to it but, time heals all wounds I suppose. Philly isn't exactly known for its kindness to outsiders and, as a Kensington born and raised fellow told me once, they don't travel well either. South Philadelphia is particularly known for this. The place has some interesting colloquialisms, such as the Sopranos-esque tendency to refer to traditional red sauces as 'gravy' and the strange-to-outsiders (and occasionally rather insensitive) culture surrounding the New Years Day Mummers Parade. He insisted most of the people he knew were southern Vietnamese, opposed to the communist regime that took full power in 1975. I emphasized that I didn't care if he was communist sympathizer. We laughed about it, and I forget the rest.
Since this blog is about food, regarding my experience that first evening I will only say that I made the misfortune of forgetting my ID and every bar I walked into where demented fans were screaming 'E - A - G - L - E - S.' The first thing I ate were tacos from a pizza shop-cum-taqueria which remains my favorite to this day. The second thing I ate was copious amounts of alcohol while watching this city cannibalize itself in the most earnest, critically panned, confusing and strangely endearing fashion. The third thing I ate, when I woke up in the morning hungover and jaundiced not unlike a Washington Avenue awning, was a bowl of pho from the closest spot to me. In this instance, that was Cafe Nhan. More on that later. More on pho later. It's time to keep up with this blog.
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