Sushi comes to East P'unk

On a recent Wednesday evening beyond the Roman fountain that spouts (and sings Sinatra) on East Passyunk Avenue, you could behold the miracle of the fishes. A hip sushi cafe called Izumi had flung open its big, inviting windows, creating a gawker delay on the sidewalks after work: sushi on East P'unk?!

Old-timers on the block - where East Passyunk meets Tasker - are getting used to change. At the Sicilian social club across from Paradiso, an upscale eatery of the Center City stripe, one graying denizen wasn't startled so much that sushi had migrated south of South Street. He was shaking his head that, once again, another restaurant had opened at all: "They're everywhere!"

And so they are, though in some cases not for long: In the five years that a revival has taken tentative root on "The Avenue" south of the Italian Market and east of Broad, a few pioneers have died along the trail - Trattoria Luca is gone, and Albertino's Ristorante Italiano, and its brief successor, Clementine's.

But time marches on. A new Mediterranean place is staking a claim. And two gastropubs - or restro-pubs - are about to join the lineup, both from experienced South Philly hands.

And on these blocks, "downtown" to generations of Italians before the malls and big-box stores sapped its life 30 years ago, you could feel in the October twilight the pulse rising. The new wave of settlers - bike-riding, eat-outing 25-year-olds - hunkered at the counter at B2 Cafe, and spilled onto the sidewalk from the recesses of Cantina los Cabalitis, home of the braised goat taco, Mexican beer, and tequila flights.

Here and there, aging natives gathered under streetlights, their Italian accents still thick as Sunday gravy. Locals say more older residents are strolling after dark, emboldened by the street life of the nascent hipster scene.

Its latest manifestation, of course, is month-old Izumi, Japanese for "fountain," its window frames lipsticked with red lacquer, the interior - on full view from the street - stylishly dim and contemporary, the music that ubiquitous techno-house that thumps on a mindless loop.