These are Philly’s most coveted menu items, according to Yelp

Yelp is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and to celebrate they are reflecting on some of the biggest tastes, words, and trends that occurred within the past few years. Looking back at the 200 million reviews and 40 million compliments, here’s what they found out about Philly. 

Yelp did some research by comparing the language in reviews for specific cities to Yelp nationwide to help determine what each major city is looking for when it comes to dining. 

Metro spoke Tara Lewis, Yelp Trend Expert about Philly food trends and although she expected cheesesteaks to trend in Philly, on national scale Metro noted that Mexican food and scallion pancakes seemed to top multiple cities list including Philly’s. 

Metro was curious if Lewis was surprised by the rise in these items and Lewis told Metro that, “Mexican cuisine has steadily risen over the last 15 years on Yelp. Similarly, Chinese has remained a top cuisine on Yelp, so it’s no surprise scallion pancakes are popular among Yelpers in these cities.” 

Besides cheesesteaks, scallion pancakes and Mexican food, here’s what Philly’s top searched for words are: Hoagie, roast pork, cheesesteak, broccoli rabe, cheese steak, Dan Dan, BYOB, Philly cheesesteak, American cheese, beer list, scallion pancake, hot pepper, General Tso, restaurant week, fried onion, Mexican, white pizza, mushroom soup, grilled octopus, cannoli, Primo and special roll. Although these are a few of the top searched for items, to look at more of the top searched terms go to yelp15.com.

In addition to localized data, they looked back at the national data as well. Here’s what they discovered about 2019.

In 2019 foods have seen the most significant spikes in popularity on Yelp were oat milk, CBD, the Impossible burger, Açai bowl, and street corn. Currently, trends in cities across the United States are Filipino, Hawaiian, Hot Pot, Tex-Mex, and Vegan. 

With 2020, around the corner, Metro asked Lewis about what we should expect to grow in popularity, and Lewis said, “The Impossible Burger was nearly nonexistent before 2016 but is on track to be one of the biggest food searches of 2019 as it gets added to menus across the country.  With three months left in the year, we may see new flavors and ingredients pop up on menus and in Yelp reviews.”