Eats meets West: Follow the foodies to University City Dining Days

READY, set, eat.

It's time for University City Dining Days, a neighborhood feasting promotion that offers discounted three-course meals at favorite West Philly restaurants today through July 29. The food fest, started by the University City District in 2005, is so popular that for the first time it's running for two full weeks offering $15, $25 and $30 menus at 29 hot spots.

It's an event that couldn't have happened 20 years ago. Even 10.

Back then, there just weren't enough really good restaurants to lure Philadelphians out of Center City and adventurous eaters out of the 'burbs. Used to be, White Dog Cafe, Palladium and La Terrace were it for destination dining in West Philly, with most of the other eateries dishing typical student grub or inexpensive ethnic fare.

Things have changed. A dozen new, full-service restaurants have opened in the neighborhood in the past 18 months, bringing the total to more than 100 - not counting the pizza and cheesesteak shops. Despite the down economy, University City brims with commercial vitality, from new retail to an ongoing march of restaurants.

Dan Stern cast his vote for the neighborhood with the opening of MidAtlantic in the brainy Science Center, at 39th and Market. Jose Garces, Philly's own Iron Chef, is soon to open JG Domestic, a farm-to-table American, in the Cira Centre. Bobby Flay (our other Iron Chef) opened the first urban location for his casual Burger Palace concept at 39th and Walnut.

City Tap House, Landmark Americana, Distrito, Vietnam Cafe - the list of new and newish restaurants goes on and on. An outgrowth of seasonal and year-round farmers' markets in the 'hood continue to attract local foodies.

Stroll the streets and you can feel that University City has an energy about it, a sense of change, even excitement. Yet it's still very much a neighborhood, gritty in places, shiny new in others, and mostly somewhere in between. It's become an honest to goodness dining destination, a haven of owner-operated restaurants that encompass everything from gastro pubs and fine dining to just about every flavor of international cuisine.

Most of the foodie action fans out from the Penn and Drexel campuses, extending into the leafy Cedar Park and Spruce Hill neighborhoods, with Baltimore Avenue a veritable restaurant row to the south.