While I was in Washington with my mom, I got the news that Amanda got the job she had applied for in New York City! I came out to help her move, but first we had to say good bye to Philly.
I love the murals all over the city.
They have these swings right outside the train station (some with double lounge chairs). My mom likes to swing on every swing she comes across, so I took a picture for her.
By Saturday afternoon, Amanda was free!
We had lunch at 24 on the balcony overlooking the river. Their wood fired pizzas have yet to be discovered by Philadelphia– that place is never as crowded as it should be! We had an egg pizza, quiche and cocktails. Delicious.
One day we decided to check out Hygge– a Norwegian place with small plates and cocktails. As we sat at the bar, we were baffled. It had all the things we liked, but something was missing. It felt inauthentic and like it was trying to hard to be hipster. It had random interior decor with used furniture. The bartenders did not want to be there. We ordered a fried green tomato sandwich to split (which turned out to mostly be cheese). It was really good. But we were not satisfied with the ambiance. We walked down the street to the Prohibition Taproom.
This place was darker grungier (not in a dirty way) but had all of the personality that Hygge lacked. We chatted with the bartenders, admired the food options, and I had a cocktail with watermelon sorbet in it.
The next Friday, we set into town for some errands and donuts. On the way, we came across our buddy, William Shakespeare.
Then we arrived at Federal Donuts. The menu was so overwhelming that we asked the guy behind the counter to help us pick out the best flavors. He suggested three special donuts and three hot fresh. These were ridiculous. There was a berry flavored one, apple with peanut butter and triple chocolate. That triple chocolate was as good as the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had. The hot fresh donuts were similar enough to each other that we decided, if we were to do this again, to get maybe one or two hot fresh and the rest special. The middle one was strawberry lavender. I can’t remember what the others were but they were also very good.
Alright, I’ll admit it. The things we needed to say goodbye to in Philadelphia were mostly food related. The one exception was Amanda’s roof deck. Amanda got a message from her friend in Baltimore who works for NASA that the moon would look particularly beautiful in about 3 minutes. We climbed to the roof.
It was pretty amazing to see the almost full moon to our left, the skyline straight ahead and the sunset to our right.
Our next food stop was Amanda’s favorite happy hour. We returned to the Olde Bar
Where we had buck a shuck oysters, buffalo cauliflower, steak fries and welch rarebit. And cocktails, obviously.
On another night we met up with some of Amanda’s friends at Fette Sau where we had some amazing barbecue, followed by a little table soccer. Believe it or not, I was the champion. I just spun those handles around as fast as I could. There was no method to my madness.
On our last day, Amanda got a Philly Cheesesteak while I had some loaded fries.
Then later that evening we ended at Vedge. This vegan restaurant is one of my favorites. We had
HEIRLOOM “TOMATO TOAST”
smoked sourdough, black lentils, baby shiitake
RUTABAGA FONDUE
today’s soft pretzel, yesterday’s pickle, charred onion
Followed by
NEBRODINI MUSHROOMS
as “fazzoletti”, tomato, basil
CAMPFIRE GOLD POTATOES
black garlic tahini, za’atar, calabrian chile
EGGPLANT BRACIOLE
smoked eggplant, italian salsa verde, cured olive
SEARED MAITAKE MUSHROOM
celery root fritter, smoked leek remoulade
This place is out of this world good.
Amanda likes her cocktails to taste like a campfire. This one had some remnants in the bottom of the glass.
The next morning the movers arrived and took Amanda’s stuff to NYC!