Before the night was out, they would also savor sweet potato empanadas, fried chicken with bacon-braised collard greens, and alligator sausage.
Marketing expert Tracy Lee founded Dishcrawl in San Jose, Calif., in 2010 has since expanded it to 19 U.S. and five Canadian cities, assigning each to local ambassadors who organize the events.
The idea seemed made to order for Philadelphia, with its base of cool neighborhoods and hot chefs. The first 30 tickets sold out in four hours, said Michelle Cryder, Dishcrawl's resident ambassador. She added another 30 slots, and those tickets went just as fast - even though the names of the restaurants on the crawl would not be revealed until 24 hours in advance. Nor did crawlers know when they signed up that their late-January night out would be so balmy.
Cryder, 23, a Drexel student and sometime food writer, discovered Dishcrawl while interning at a weekly paper in San Jose.
She reached out to restaurants, inviting each to participate by preparing a trio of small plates off their menu or planned for a future menu. The $39 ticket price may change at each Dishcrawl, depending on the restaurants involved, and it's a cash bar for drinks. The money is distributed to the restaurants, with Dishcrawl taking a cut.
"I thought the idea was brilliant and would do well here," Cryder said.
It certainly appealed to Corey Latislaw, 31, and her husband, Jason Cox, 28, both software engineers from the South who moved to Philadelphia in 2010 and are still finding new neighborhoods and eateries. So far, so good, Latislaw said, "We're pescaterians [fish eaters] and Philly is really good for that sort of thing."
