Though the pizzas are the main attraction, Manakeesh is no one-trick Arabian pony, with worthy starters and sides like luxuriously creamy hummus freckled with sweet paprika and served with a balloon of blistered, baked-to-order pita.

"There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing," the Scottish poet famously said, but in the case of Kennett's staying power, the bard just might be wrong.

Today, Gabe, 64, and his son, also named Gabe, have resurrected the family business with Marabella Meatball Co., a marinara-red charmer with seating for 30 and enough meatballs to feed the Roman army.

Though her plates are uncommonly pretty — accessorized with caramelized onions and oyster mushrooms, the fluffy tamales are objects d'art in corn-husk coveralls — her cooking also radiates an undeniable soulfulness.

Unlike sulfates, the Corner's tonics may not treat Oregon Trail ailments, but they'll remedy a boring Thursday.

Snug as a coach cabin, Jet's street-level bar so captures the carefree terminal zeitgeist of the 1950s and '60s, you half expect a Catch Me If You Can Leo DiCaprio to hurry through the door with a gaggle of leggy blond stewardesses.

Saying people were miffed when the Khyber announced it would be turning into an izakaya is like saying people were miffed about Ruben Amaro dealing Cliff Lee after the '09 season.

They've got the requisite Belgians stocked, as well as American crafts in the second-story Cask Saloon, but where Fork & Barrel excels is the rare, the endangered, the odd, the emerging.

Though their cooking careers have taken them out of the city, the siblings are South Philly born and bred, and I'd put their gravy up against my grandmother's any day.

Slight of stature and sweet as Vietnamese coffee, Chau Troung is a tripe charmer in a junior-size sweatsuit, and I don't know where her house-special beef pho has been all my life.