If you’re “a cup of coffee and a bagel” person the Mood Cafe, which opened last week at 4618 Baltimore Ave., may not be the ideal place for you. It specializes in the lassi, a delicious yogurt and fruit drink originally from India and Pakistan, but gaining popularity worldwide. Indeed, there are 14 kinds of lassi ($2.99), ranging from a more popular mango lassi to a more traditional salted lassi, a drink flavored with South Asian spice. What’s more, you can mix and match the flavors to your taste.

The cafe is the third West Philly venture for owner Hasan Bukhari. His other two ventures, Desi Village (4527 Baltimore Ave.) and Desi Chaat House (501 S. 42nd), have gained huge popularity in the neighborhood. All three have that distinctive saffron paint job. At the Mood, event the tree boxes are painted saffron.

Speaking of chaat, Mood Cafe also offers a good variety of this traditional East Indian and Pakistani street food. Bukhari said he’s ready to teach people about this dish and would be glad to let you have a taste until you find something you love.

Freshly-squeezed juices, ice-cream, milkshakes, and shaved ice, all natural, are also on offer. As Bukhari pointed out, “the focus is on healthy stuff.”

Finally, if you still want a cup of coffee, it’s not a problem. Although it’s not on the menu, Bukhari will make one for you, be it a latte or a cappuccino. No doubt coffee will become a staple when the weather turns cold again.

Mood Cafe hours: Mon-Sun 12:00 p.m. – 10 p.m.

The Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative’s Youth Development Program is hosting its annual “Eats and Beats” event this Saturday beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Woodland Presbyterian Church (401 S. 42nd).

The event helps support the youth-led Rooted in Community Conference and some of this year’s proceeds go toward the expansion of the Mariposa Food Co-op. Rooted in Community, a national organization dedicated to empowering youth to take the lead in their communities to address food justice issues, is holding their conference in Philadelphia on July 27-31.

Tickets are available on a sliding scale for $15-$50 and are available online here.

Here is a late reminder about the food justice movie night tonight at The Rotunda (4014 Walnut St.). Food Stamped, a film about a couple trying to make healthy meals on $4 a day, the typical food stamp allotment, screens at 6:30 p.m.

Doors open at 6 p.m. and dinner will be served. The entire event is free and a discussion will follow the movie.

The Netter Center for Community Partnerships and the Urban Nutrition Initiative are co-hosting the event, which is one in a monthly screening of films related to food justice issues.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there is nowhere in Philadelphia where you can get a whole, free-range, herb-roasted chicken delivered to your door complete with sides.

Until now.

West Philly’s newest chicken joint, Roost, isn’t really a joint at all. It’s a hole in the wall with a stainless steel metal counter, a chalkboard menu and just enough room to salivate.

Owned by the Milk and Honey Market duo of Annie Baum-Stein and Mau Daigle, Roost is located at 4529 Springfield Ave., a couple of doors up from Wayne’s Garage. They’re using the adjacent kitchen of the recently dissolved Kitchen at Penn, which has gone on hiatus with the graduation of its general manager. The Kitchen’s chef, Jordan Miller, is the mastermind behind Roost, which offers fried chicken and chicken tenders along with the rotisserie, and a selection of sides that includes coleslaw, mashed potatoes and gravy, greens and mac ‘n cheese. Oh, and by the way, some amazingly good homemade buttermilk biscuits.

Whenever possible Roost uses locally grown ingredients, including the chickens.

“The farmers we use are up the road,” said Miller.

That means that the chickens, which are from Bell and Evans, are organic and a little smaller, like chickens used to be. These have no hormones or antibiotics like the factory-raised chickens with the Dolly Partonesque breasts available in the grocery store now. It also means that they are, pound-for-pound, more expensive.

Roost is also putting together a vegan menu for the herbivores out there.

A half rotisserie ($9.50), which includes a biscuit, and a side is just about right for two adults. Altogether we paid $12.50 for a half chicken and a small container of red cabbage coleslaw. We were in and out in 5 minutes. The “out” part is important – it’s take out, delivery or eat standing on the sidewalk. No tables and no chairs here.

It’s not Popeye’s prices for sure and if you stop by in person and order fried chicken you will have to wait a few minutes while it is actually fried. Thankfully, there are no heat lamps.

Our only criticism was that our biscuit was not quite done and a little gooey inside. But we chalked that up to the newness of the operation. They are still finetuning things. Roost has been unofficially open for about a week. The official opening is pending and the current hours are 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. They are closed on Tuesdays. The delivery range is Woodland to Market and 38th to 50th.

The complete menu is here. They accept major credit cards and cash.

Correction: The Saturday meeting is 10 a.m. to Noon.

The Mariposa Food Co-op is hosting two community meetings this week to allow residents in West Philly to get a look at its new location on Baltimore Avenue and hear more about the progress of its expansion plans.

The first meeting is Tuesday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the soon-to-be Mariposa location at 4824 Baltimore Ave. Residents will have the chance to tour the new building, which is a five-fold increase in size over the old space, and talk to Mariposa staff and members about expansion plans. The new building is scheduled to open in October and rennovations will begin in earnest this summer.

Another open house will be held on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.10 a.m. to Noon and follow a similar format. State Rep. James R. Roebuck Jr. is scheduled to attend this open house as well to talk about the expansion.

Mariposa continues to seek support for the expansion and there are a couple of ways you can help out. A membership drive is currently under way for the new store. A loan campaign is also ongoing and donations are always accepted.

OK, so you’ve built a farm on a vacant lot near the 46th Street El station. How do you get water to it? If you’re the ingenious folks at the Walnut Hill Community Farm, you build a solar powered irrigation system.

You can get a close-up look at the system on Sunday, May 1 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and even help lay out the irrigation lines. No experience is necessary and all the tools you need will be provided.

The system collects stormwater from the roof of the El station and employs solar power to run a pump to get the water to the crops. A STAKE grant paid for the system.

Walnut Hill Community Farm started last spring. The land is leased from SEPTA and the organization Philly Rooted manages the farm in cooperation with the The Enterprise Center Community Development Center. A youth group, the Walnut Hill Growers’ Cooperative, runs the urban farm portion of the operation.