The 2011 22nd & Philly Scarpetta Awards

Welcome everyone to the first-ever 22nd & Philly Scarpetta Awards!

Why the Scarpettas? On the About 22nd & Philly page, we detail why we started this blog and how we define a good food experience: "at the end of the day, if Bradd cleans his plate with a piece of bread, you know it was a good meal." Little did we know there is an Italian phrase for using bread to clean your plate, Fare La Scarpetta. We learned about the word from Anthony Bourdain's show, The Layover, when he visited Rome.

What better way to characterize our own "Best Of" awards for Philadelphia?

The Scarpettas are based on the eateries we visited in the past year, food quests, local events, readers and friends we’ve met, among other considerations. It's our way of pointing out some of our favorite - and least favorite - discoveries within local food scene during 2011. Either our plates were clean, or something was left to be desired.

And the 2011 Scarpettas go to...

Hot Chocolate Wars: European style at Capogiro and Philly Chocolate

(update Fall 2013: Philly Chocolate moved to 1944 South Street in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood)

The folks behind Capogiro UPenn's Twitter feed spotted my tweets about reviewing hot chocolate around Philadelphia and tweeted at us to suggest their own Italian Hot Chocolate. Glad they did, because a) I wouldn't have thought of going there for anything but gelato and b) the Italian HC ended up being great!

20th & Sansom Capogiro Italian Hot Chocolate 

I have traditionally shied away from the thicker, European style hot chocolate fearing it would taste like a liquid candy bar, but the version at Capogiro may have won me back over. I tried it at the 20th & Sansom location, whose rendition was just rich enough. I could also tell high quality chocolate was going into this drink, versus mass-produced syrup or powder (it is, after all, $4.00 so it better be good).

As an extra perk, in addition to the just-larger-than-espresso cup of cocoa, you get a bonus mini pitcher with at least two more cupfuls to drink. It stayed really hot the entire time, too - just the thing to warm me up after holiday shopping. I have to warn you that the surface may not seem so hot, but it is very hot underneath so sip slowly to avoid a burned tongue. Finally, whipped cream automatically came on the side, just how I prefer it. While there, I also had a good tuna melt panini, which was a basic tuna and cheddar sandwich on yummy multi-grain bread.