Frangelli's Bakery

FOOD

By Kirsten Henri

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Sep. 14, 2005

847 W. Ritner St. 215.271.7878

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When I ask someone if they have a good tip for this column, I usually get an answer like "the fries at Monk's" or "tacos at Taqueria La Veracruzana." Mighty fine options indeed, but they've been done to death. It's not always easy ferreting out lesser-known gems week after week, especially when I wait until the last possible moment before a deadline to go visit a joint and it turns out they're closed for vacation-or worse, closed for good. That's sort of what happened this week, so I was scrambling around waiting for the culinary gods to point me in some sort of direction-any direction-when a friend of mine who lives way deep in South Philly mentioned Frangelli's, a bakery down the street from his house. His eyes started to roll back in his head while describing the perfection of their glazed donuts, and I swear he started to drool. His exact words? "Fuck Krispy Kreme." I hustled via bicycle to get there before they closed for the day, hoping there were some of these magical donuts left for the sampling. My friend says the pastries are at their daily taste peak around 11 a.m., but we procrastinators suffer for our lateness sins, so my donut experience was going to occur at a less than ideal 2:30 p.m. Fortunately there were still a dozen or so left for the taking when I arrived. Frangelli's is a typical South Philly corner bakery-no frills, trays of cookies arranged in attractive layers, white-jacketed ladies scooping goodies into bags. It was hard not to be diverted from my donut mission by a cake roll covered in mouthwatering violet jelly, but I managed to stay true. I took my 50-cent donut home, coaxed it from its white paper bag, closed my eyes and bit. Airy, fluffy and lightly iced-no brittle shell of sugar to crack through here. My exact words? Yep-fuck Krispy Kreme.