Oh Susanna

Another big name Center City Philadelphia restaurant is calling it quits.

Susanna Foo Chinese Cuisine on Walnut Street plans to close. Foo, 65, tells the Philadelphia Inquirer's Michael Klein it's not the economy, she simply wants to slow down and enjoy her life. She plans to keep her Radnor, Pa., restaurant open.

This comes on the heels of Georges Perrier shuttering his Brasserie Perrier restaurant on Walnut Street earlier this year.

Foo has always been one of my favorite interviews. Way back when she published her first cookbook, Susanna Foo Chinese Cuisine (Chapters, 1995) - and this is definitely a shelf-worthy cookbook for both the hot & sour soup recipe as well as the pork dumplings - I sat down at her restaurant for a very long lunch interview along with my buddy, photog Fred Comegys, who shot some amazing photos of the chef in the middle of the lunch service. Foo couldn't have been gracious. (If I can find the photos in our archives, I'll post them.)

Last year, I talked to her for an article in USA Today's Open Air magazine about "real Chinese" food. Again, another long conversation - and she graciously provided me with recipes. We ended it with Foo suggesting that we should go shop an area farmers' market together.

I think I'll make those shopping plans.