Restaurants
{Told you I had a thing for all things pumpkin and fall.}
Rise and shine! Breakfast of champions: Starbucks oatmeal with dried fruit and mixed nuts, and soy chai latte.
And bloggers hard at work, borrowing wifi from the hotel Starbucks.
After fueling up with our fill of both coffee and internet, we hit the streets of Philly.
I had no idea Philadelphia was full of such beautiful architecture, but I shouldn’t have been surprised, it is the Old City after all.
Our walk coincided with the arrival of several flights, and soon there was a HUGE group of us trekking down the street. We soon realized our original destination of Govinda’s vegetarian restaurant wasn’t going to be able to serve or hold us all. A bunch of us split off and kept walking a few blocks until we stumbled upon the Pumpkin Market. It ended up being a great choice.
Local coffee and seasonal produce, sandwiches, ice cream and fresh squeezed juice? What more could you want?
It was still pretty crowded, but they did a great job handling the sudden influx of hungry foodies.
We grabbed our salads and sandwiches to go, and parked ourselves outside on the sidewalk, enjoying the great Philly weather.
With only one cook on site, it took a little while to whip up all those sandwiches, but there was plenty of seating outside while we waited.
Everybody:
{Photo courtesy of Kath}
My buddies Sarah & Allie. <3 them.
Brittany & Lauren.
Would you believe this is the first time I’ve had seltzer water? I think it was the lime flavor that made it. 😉 Cold, fizzy, and refreshing.
And then lunch arrived: a housemade bean burger with avocado, chickpea salad, and a fresh pickle.
The burger was great- a mix of different beans, some smashed, some not. It went great with the sliced avocado. It was a little squishy, making it hard to eat as a sandwich, but with a little help from a fork and all was good. Perhaps I should have gone with the burger-over-salad option.
The chickpea salad was my surprise favorite: tangy balsamic vinegar {I’m guessing?}, and red bell pepper and onion slices made it the perfect complement to the mild bean burger.
I’d say it was a pretty good meal for a spur of the moment choice!
Are you a sandwich or a salad person?
Restaurants
Upon arriving in Philly, there was one goal in mind: food. {Surprise, surprise.}
A group of us that were in town early for the Summit headed down to Farmicia, a restaurant that emphasizes local food choices.
The menu, though not large, included a diverse selection of meals, from roast lamb to vegan tamales, crab cakes to capellini.
After laboriously pouring over the menu and agonizing over selections, we quenched our appetites with a basket of sourdough bread and herbed butter. More please!
The first thing that caught my eye on the menu was a roasted peach salad with walnuts, goat cheese, fennel and greens, but the waiter had to go and mention his favorite dish: the French lentil salad.
After going back and forth 800 times, I decided to step outside the box and go with an educated recommendation.
The salad was a bed of greens covered with French lentils and peppers topped with goat cheese cakes. { No worries: pasteurized!}
While I enjoyed the salad, it wasn’t my favorite. The flavors were good, but the texture was a little off for a salad. The goat cheese cakes didn’t disappoint though, and neither did the company:
Jen, Lisa, Julie, Courtney, Tina, me, Diana, Alicia, and Lisa.
The evening ended with a well-timed thunderstorm: exactly coordinated with our .8 mile back to the hotel. Needless to say we ended the night a little soggy.
What’s the most unique salad you’ve had? This one was pretty off-beat, but my favorite is any kind of salad with grilled lettuce.
And PS, go check out tiny sneakers to find out how we felt about hearing our baby’s first heartbeat.
PPS If you want tiny sneakers’ updates in your reader, you can subscribe here.
Other
Nothing says welcome to the beach like seafood…
and a sunset!
It’s pretty much a requirement to eat fresh seafood when you’re in such close proximity to the ocean.
On recommendation from the rental agency owner, we headed to Dead End Saloon Fish Factory Grille, a restaurant known for it’s water front views. The road to the restaurant literally dead ends into the sound. The “fish factory” in the name had us wrongly assuming there might be a large choice of fish on the menu.
The restaurant offer outdoor-only seating, which is perfectly ok in my book, especially when this is the view from your table:
The seafood choices were limited to a catch of the day and several crab cake dishes. Being as I don’t paricularly enjoy whole fried flounder, I opted for the crabcake sandwich.
{I really, really don’t care for tails on my plate, thankyouverymuch.}
Unfortunately the crab cake left much to be desired- it was old and fishy tasting. I suppose I should know by now to leave the crab eating to Maryland.
The fries, however, were surprisingly tasty- spicy and crunchy without being overly greasy.
So while our seafood requirements were quite fulfilled, our sunset views were. Not a bad way to start vacation.
What’s your favorite beach meal?
Review
The husband and I spent last night in Concord on a double super secret mission. One that makes me an awesome wife. One that makes him an awesome husband. They’re entirely unrelated.
But it meant an excuse to stop at a restaurant for just one thing. {A very southern thing that I would have gagged at a few years ago.} Fried pickles.
Concord is a super commercialized area outside of Charlotte- known for a giant outlet mall and lots of chain restaurants.
In a struggle to find a non-chain restaurant last time we were in town, we stumbled upon Tavern at the Mills.
To be honest, the food choices aren’t all that fantastic; almost no vegetarian options, let alone vegan options.
But the beer is good…
and the fried pickles are insane.
This coming from the girl that hated dill pickles until a few years ago, and doesn’t particularly like deep fried foods that aren’t of the French fry variety.
But pop those suckers in a deep fryer and serve them with a side of spicy honey mustard, and you’ve got something worth writing home the interwebs about.
And because Blue Moon and pickles don’t a meal make, we got some barbecued nachos on the side.
A giant, face-sized plate of nachos.
Perfect for sharing since the husband can eat all the cheesy-chicken pieces, and I get all the jalapeno-guacamole pieces. Despite our most valiant efforts we only made it half way through the monstrous stack. At least we have lunch for tomorrow!
Do you like pickles? Have you ever had fried pickles or is that just weird?
Dinner
I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures of my dinner tonight. It’s probably good for your sake though because it’d make you drool. 🙂 (Jusst kidding)
I had a dinner for work tonight, hence the lack of pictures (like I’ve said before, I’m not messing with confidentiality issues even though it’s a dumb rule when no patients are present). Even though it means a super long day, I really don’t mind work events that result in me eating good food:) And I got to listen to my favorite British doctor give a lecture.
Anyways, we went to a fairly new restaurant called Graffiti’s Bistro. I was excited to check it out. And then I was really disappointed. I hate giving negative reviews, but I’d rather be honest. I was so not impressed it wasn’t funny.
They ran out of appetizers- no biggie, except they ran out before the time the lecture started…That makes no sense.
For my dinner I had grilled salmon, garlic potatoes, and chef’s veggies, which ended up being white & green string beans & carrots. Sounds pretty good, no? Um my mouth was thoroughly insulted by the amount of salt on everything, especially the salmon. Literally, a crunchy crust of salt. Now, I’m not a complainer when it comes to restaurants, so for me to openly admit this is a sign of how seriously horrifying it was.
The roof of my mouth and tongue are still on fire from being scalded by salt.
Last chance for a good impression: dessert. Hard to mess up, right?
They served it in a box, as is customary for these dinners. (I guess it’s their way of saying “get out of here!”). I opened my box to steal a few bites before I left.
Imagine my surprise when I saw dessert contained….ice cream. (?!) Thank goodness I wasn’t planning on staying for coffee and I don’t live 45 minutes away like some people. The rest of the dessert was apple crisp. I liked it ok, but only because of my weird obsession with oatmeal.
Imagine making the blandest oats you could possibly conjure up. Then put them on top of apples. Don’t add any sweetened, even though it’s main function is dessert. That was it. Like I said, fine for me. General public? Not so much. It was the first time I got to finish dessert myself and didn’t have to worry about sharing with the husband.
I have some leftovers of my dinner too, so you can see pictures tomorrow, but honestly, unless I rinse it under a high powered faucet, I’m not so sure I’m going to be able to eat it.
To top it all off, I found this is where we’re having a celebration dinner for work next month. Boy oh boy. Oh well, guess they get a second chance to change my mind.
Please excuse my negative rant. Consider it over. (I meant to say I didn’t like it so much and stop, but I guess that didn’t happen….)
