It took me a year to find my favorite cheesesteak in Philadelphia. It's at the Southeast Asian Market, where I got a taste of what the city is really about.
20.09.2023 - 16:41
/ insider.com
It took me close to a year of living in Philadelphia to find a cheesesteak I really like.
It's not from Pat's or Geno's, or other heavyweight cheesesteak purveyors that often appear on lists dedicated to the best in Philly.
My favorite is the lemongrass cheesesteak from Sahbyy Food, a stall serving Cambodian cuisine at Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park's Southeast Asian Market.
Today, the South Philadelphia market is made up of 74 vendors selling an array of Cambodian, Laotian, Thai, and Vietnamese cuisine. In July, Food & Wine called the seasonal weekend market — open through the end of October — one of the best in the country.
It wasn't until 2022, however, that the Southeast Asian Market became official with a website and listed opening hours (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.). But it dates back to the 1980s, when refugees from Laos and Cambodia who fled the civil wars in their respective countries landed in Philadelphia and began selling food there over time.
"There wasn't a market," Catzie Vilayphonh told me of its origins. Vilayphonh, whose title is Southeast Asian outreach network community cultivator at the market, is employed by the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia, which partners with FDR Park's vendors association.
"It was just one vendor here, one vendor there," she added. "And even then, it was word of mouth because back then we didn't have cell phones, we just called each other or told each other, 'I'll be here.'"
As far as Vilayphonh knows, it began with "a Lao lady who had a dark blue van" selling chicken wings for 25 cents, before Cambodian families joined her. But Vilayphonh acknowledged that the market's story is "so sporadic, everybody has a different history of where it first started."
Over the years, despite periodic raids by police, the market blossomed into a community of vendors. "We came together because of the things that were happening simultaneously in our countries," Vilayphonh said. "At the same time, we were learning how to be Americans together."
When I visited on a hot August day shortly after 10 a.m., there were already lines forming at stalls teeming with skewers of barbecued beef and stuffed chicken wings, pots of papaya salad, and parcels of sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf.
I was trying to keep up with Chutatip "Nok" Suntaranon, who was weaving through the stalls ahead of me. I'd asked the Philadelphia chef — whose flavor-forward, southern Thai cooking at her Fishtown restaurant Kalaya has propelled her to culinary fame, and earned her a James Beard win this year — to take me on a tour of some of her favorite food in the city. And she delivered.
Soon after we parked at the Southeast Asian Market, Suntaranon gravitated toward the Sahbyy Food stall, stopping by to