Places I Want to Eat in Philly When I Finally Get a Chance

I have been to Philadelphia three times, two of those times have been in the past year. I have NEVER had a philly cheesesteak and I am starting to give up hope! I have also been told about numerous other places to eat and, as all my loyal readers know. I LOVE to eat!! So I thought I would make a list of places I want to eat.

Now there's debate about Pat's vs. Genos but my two friends who took me to philly at Thanksgiving think that Jims is the best. Someone I was talking to likes the Steaks at Genos but the fries from Pats and I can't remember what I was told by other Philly natives. Suffice it to say there are at least three sandwiches I desperately need to try!!!!

I also heard pleasant things about a place called Ritas that serves custards and water ice. Apparently it's not as good as the mom and pop places it shut down, but since it's almost the only game in town now, sure, go for it :).

I have also been told that Philly is the mecca for diners. The one I remember being highly recommended was Morning Glory Diner for breakfast. My friend says you have to get the glory cakes and scrapple (a PA "treat")

My boy and I went to Cereality which is kind of a cute place (and dead if you get there at 8am on a Sunday) in the Penn area they have four really cool pre-made ideas for mixing cereal and topping (it includes malted milk balls in your cereal for heaven's sake) and then there's the sky's the limit choices if you yourself are creative. They also sell the lucky charms marshmallows separately in little sealed bags if you don't want to take the time to pick them out yourself (it was one of those cash register buys like gum I thought it was really fun :). Oh, and they have a cute specialty spoon that's also a straw, it comes in four colors. It's kind of pricey for the cereal concoctions (costs as much as a high priced box of cereal) but it is a fun treat. This time we bought cereal to go, we brought it home for my roomie. Next time we're hoping to enjoy some ourselves.

Also in the Penn area is a restaurant called White Dog Cafe. It tries to purchase food from local farmers and when we were there the food was great (the service was pretty bad, but in an amusingly bad way as in the waiter poured water down himself and a person's menu).

Speaking of terrible service. . . . Everyone says Morimoto's is a must. My boy stops there every time he goes to philly (makes a point of stopping in philly every time he goes home) and Christina and Robert went both times they were in philly and Laurie LOVES it too. I am more excited about the sushi places I talk about later though. Anyway, I had three really good dishes and a great dessert, but I didn't like the service (as in they didn't pass the "diet coke test" I couldn't hear all of the servers, the manager had to come over twice to straighten out difficulties etc.) and the dishes weren't so good that I was willing to spend that much money. Everyone assures me that usually the service is incredible though. So perhaps it deserves another chance.

Miix is a sushi place that has a weekday special of all you can eat (but you get to order it). Such a novel idea (to me anyway, Christina assures me it's rare, but there are better places in NY -- of course she'd say that though ;)).

While I was searching for that place, I found KISSO mentioned as really good several times. I especially liked this article about the place.

Also, rumor has it that sometimes the Sofitel also has fruit sushi for breakfast (it's seasonal). I have heard it's incredible though and based upon the fruit sushi we helped make (as in my friend Christina did all the work and the rest of us took the credit for it) it has to be delicious!

My Philly friend's favorite place (and another place that Christina and Robert returned to -- as in they've visited it twice -- on their second trip to Philly even though they are not beer drinkers) is Monks It also happened to be half a block away from the place where my boy and I were staying, still we managed to miss it.

To follow the Belgian theme, there's also a Belgian sugar waffle place nearby called Bonte My friends Christina and Robert are still talking about it (it kind of makes me hate them). Apparently these waffles are not like normal waffles they're made from a yeast dough and you can get items mixed into the dough (instead of topping it) and then the dough is pressed into a waffle. People are really wowed by this treat!! Plus it's designed to be portable so you can eat it as you walk to the next place I want to go.

We actually managed to make it to DiBruno Brothers (one of the few places). They have a place in the Italian market apparently but my boy and I went to the one in the city center or whatever. It's a huge specialty market with soo much good food and the people are really knowledgeable, friendly, and excited about their product whether it be cheese, or bread or whatever. They remind me of my candy store people here. There are lots of samples and really good sandwiches and pizza, and cheese and bread, and they have giant pickles that have pickle flavor all the way through, and cool specialty products like blood orange vinegar and giant ($98) bottles of nutella. I really could keep going on, I loved it here.

So that's my list. Feel free to leave me comments with more recommendations.

Oh, and in gastronomical sadness, apparently the place I mentioned when I was home in AK (Mumbo Gumbo) that has the best biscuits ever is closing :(. That was a total tangent, but that's not unusual.

Falling Behind

So it seems any time I go on a trip I end up falling terribly behind on my blog. It's sad but true. I will try and catch up on the trip, but I also, want to talk about the sermonette I gave on the common and about getting Harry Potter (and no, I won't tell what happens in the book, calm down).

Getting Lost in Every State is Easier Than You Might Think

So we started out at 7:30am (half an hour after my boy had originally wanted to leave). We managed to get all the way to Weston (for those of you not from Boston, read not that far) without mishap. We hit the toll and instead of getting back on the highway we got diverted onto the exit and ended up in the quaint little town just outside of Boston. In the process of getting back on the road, we discovered a tiny turnpike sign covered in vines and behind a bush. I wish that we had taken a picture so I could show you how bad it was. Instead you'll have to look at my terrible clip art rendition (sort of like those old America's Most Wanted sketches).

Anyway, we found it. We continued on to Connecticut without mishap and stopped for breakfast (we'd been up since 6 and it was now close to 10am). The complex where we stopped for breakfast also had a grocery store so we went to get some ice. When we returned a guy hopped out of his car and started talking to me about mine (which doesn't look as good as the one in this picture). He said he had the exact same one (there were only 3,500 made in the year mine is from) and he asked where I got parts (it's getting harder and harder) and then he started asking detailed questions about type of engine etc. and lost me. He gave me his number and said to call him if I thought about selling (I think he plans on harvesting the parts from my car). I also plan on calling him soon. I can't afford the repairs on my car and while it lasted to PA and back, it's not going to last much longer. . .

We started off again with the cockiness that comes from driving an admired car. We didn't get far before we saw a sign for Route 7 South. That was what we were looking for according to the directions and I shouted at my boy as he flew past the exit. We turned around. and caught it again. Then we ended up down a road that reminded me of construction that happens in AK. It was down to one lane with lots of construction on the side and totally in the country. We were stuck on it for miles and couldn't turn around because of the amount of traffic. FINALLY after much finagling, we managed to get on a side road, off road it for a minute and then turn around. My boy patiently explained exit 7S wasn't until we were in NY. Oops. We continued on to my friend's house in NJ only getting slightly detoured as a result of a missing street sign (I was convinced it must be her street because of our luck, turned out it wasn't).

We had a very pleasant visit with my friend, who has a baby I haven't seen since he was a little tiny bulge in his mother's stomach (arguably I didn't really see him then). He's now a very active 1 and a half year old with strong feelings about meat (does not like it even hidden in pasta) and a love affair with fruit. He was game to try most foods though. Even though he didn't seem to enjoy them much, he did try two salt and vinegar chips. He also showed us around the whole house (with a good portion of the tour spent in the play room and in the back yard sand box area) and he sat down to read No David, which is usually a hit with almost 2 year olds :).

We pulled out of my friends drive way after our lovely visit and were zipping along (for a long time) before we realized we'd missed the turn. So we zipped back to almost where we started and found the correct street. We repeated this process a couple more times with a couple more streets and managed to see the mall my boy's firm is working on. I did not, however, manage to get a very good picture of the structure of the ski slope which was visible from the road. I will post my lousy (as in they may as well show a Sasquatch or loch ness monster) quality pictures sometime soon.

We got on the NJ Turnpike and stopped and started our way to philly. We managed to get there only 40 minutes late, but utterly exhausted because of the tension of riding around with crazed traffic for so long, and getting lost and having no air conditioning. It was with great relief that we dropped the car at a parking lot and washed up before meeting friends for dinner.

Blurrrrrrrrrrrr

So the vacation is a bit of a blur at this point. I am sure I can sit down and parse out a number of events (right now I am currently thinking about some random matching dresses, frogs sentenced to death by fire and my ability to get lost in every state from here to PA).

I will try and write more about it later. The trip was good. I am tired. Also, there was a break in at my library while I was gone so my boss's computer is gone and she is left using mine, meaning I can't write at lunch today.

I will try to either write a post tonight or tomorrow (when the other librarian leaves so we each have our own computer).

Well, I've Lost It. . . .

I just screeeeeeched in a guy's ear to explain how annoying it is. It didn't help, he won't transfer me to the powers that be that make the decisions. We've told them repeatedly that we close at 5:00pm, currently we're scheduled to have the tech visit us between 7:30pm and 8:00pm. I have called twice in the last hour. Both times they have assured me that they will call me back with a more exact time. It hasn't happened yet. I don't care that I am in their computer as a nut case. They have made me that nut case.

if I hear SQUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEE much longer, I might really, really lose it. I mean really.

I have to go home so my boy can grind his meat and so I can clean the house boil eggs make cucumber salad etc. Not to mention this is the one night a week I revel in television, watching Little People Big World and then tons of the Cosby show (on both TVLAND and Nick at Night). So they're not winning points over here, let me tell you.

UGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!

A Round of Earplugs

Perhaps we'll all become more productive now. One of the women here remembered she had earplugs. Plenty for all three of us. It's sort of surreal how quiet the library has become now, and yet a nice respite. I keep glancing at the phone to not miss a call.

When we called at 1:00 we were told that the technician had said at 12:50 he'd be here in an hour and a half. We called again at 2:30 since he wasn't here. We were told that he wasn't in route, but we were still on his schedule. It's 2:45 now, we're technically only at the library for another 2 hours and 15 min. I hope that they make it here before then. . . . .

Also, this alarm thing and the fact that it's fourth of July week has done nothing to cut down on requests. I currently have six requests I am supposed to be working on. None of them easy. . . . Tomorrow was supposed to just be a day of shelf shifting and that sort of thing. Now it looks like we might have to work on requests instead :(.

If One More Person

Asks whether we're doing something about this alarm I may have to kill them.

Oh, yes, it's still going on, almost five hours later. I am cranky and getting nothing accomplished (one might ask how that's different than usual, you know if one had a death wish).

It's not Improving

I am getting a headache. We're going on two solid hours of hearing aid feedback on steroids type sound (not to mention the hour and a half of sporadic sounds we had earlier today).

I opened my first diet coke of the day (because I am trying to save money) and it exploded and had to be thrown out. (after getting all over the corner of my desk and the floor).

I know I am not Job (I even have really close friends going through a lot tougher crap) but I can't take this much longer.

This Weekend

I forgot to update on this weekend. It was pretty chill by our standards. We watched several netflix movies and we ran some errands and got some prep work done for the bbq we're having on Wed.

The funniest thing, I think, was when my boy was falling asleep during one of the movies and I kept asking him questions to make him stay awake. He started only answering "I don't know" (which is his most frequent phrase in general and which quickly into our relationship became my least favorite phrase ever). I finally said "do you notice how answering 'I don't know' doesn't stop my questions?" His quick response, "giving you a real answer doesn't either" and then he turned away and went back to sleep.

Stop the Maddness

The burglar alarm here at the library has been going off sporadically since 9:00 (well for longer than that, I have just been here since 9:00). At 10:15 it decided to spice things up and the alarm in my office (and I believe the offices above) has gone steadily every since. We called ADT (if I haven't mentioned it already on this blog, I HATE ADT. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER,NEVER use ADT. They are a terrible company. They're unresponsive (by which I mean that they don't give a damn). ADT said it was our phone system. Verizon sent someone out 30 min ago (ADT said that the soonest they could send someone was next Monday). Our phone lines are all in perfect working order.

We called ADT back and they said if we paid an up front emergency fee of $300 we could get someone out. That was 30 minutes ago (after 6 phone calls and I was hung up on twice). Still no sign of ADT.

The other librarian here just came back from dealing with Verizon. She said (with a slightly manic look on her face) if you stand in just the right spot in the stairway it sounds almost like a song because everyone's alarm is just slightly off.

I am going to call other alarm companies now. I can't stand this one minute longer. I hope that the building can cough up the $10,000 it will take for a new alarm company to come in. Perhaps it's good that the alarm is making noise constantly -- it will make the cost of the new alarm company easier to swallow.