Soho Pizza Slices

After barely eating at Supper, we needed some genuine sustenance before heading out to National Mechanics. So we quickly grabbed some slices at Soho. It's in old city on Market. You see a lot of late night activity here. I think the last time I ate here was super late. They're open til 3:30!R got a couple slices of plain and I went with pepperoni/sausage. They didn't have plain pepperoni or plain sausage. It was a winner. This is perfectly good pizza to fill your belly. The crust is nice and thin and slightly crunchy. The sauce is good. It's nothing extraordinary, but it's a nice fairly cheap slice that you can grab while in this neighborhood. If available, there is nice outdoor seating up front. Just be wary of the very aggressive homeless people.

Soho Pizza
218 Market St
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 625-3955

Supper Snacks

Got to attend another yelp event earlier this week. It was held at Supper, and my only previous experience at Supper was for their deviled egg event. This event had a fall theme so they even had some hard apple cider (spiked with tequila of all things), regular margaritas (which aren't fall themed at all) and some various beers. This was the strongest and harshest margarita I've ever tasted. And not in a good way.
There was really barely any food, to all our stomachs' disappointments. What they did have was teeny tiny spinach fritattas. These were actually excellent. But you know, practically thumbnail sized. And there just weren't enough of them or enough rounds of them to go around.
The only other food they had were these teeny tiny crab cakes. Theses were probably the best crab cakes I've ever had. I don't know much about crab cakes, but these were super creamy and not chunky. I know lots of crab cake have hunks of veggies and stuff in it, but these were nice and smooth. Love, love, loved these! Just wished I could have had more of them since they were so petite! I still haven't had a real meal at Supper yet, but judging by these crab cakes, I just might have to!

Pre Show Eats At Good Dog

Before heading out to catch an amazing show by Mono (japanese post-rock band extraordinaire) wet met up at Good Dog for some food. I wasn't actually super hungry, or else I would have scarfed a good dog burger, so we just ordered a big thing of their signature fries. You know I'm so in love with these. They're a mix of regular and sweet potato, and it comes with a dipping sauce too. I would pay so much money if I could get a bowl of just the sweet potato fries. I don't know where they get these, but they're just the best sweet potato fries. What ends up happening is that I just pick out the sweet potato ones, leaving the regular fries for whoever wasn't quick enough to sneak them first.

Bloomsburg Eats

So what did we actually eat? Well, lots of random stuff. H/A got an orangeade. It was made with actual real oranges! And made by free child labor. Yay for free child labor! This was like an orange julius, without all the added sugar, and in a much larger cup. Really good. The cup was so huge we hardly madea dent in it. H/A and R both got gyros. R got hers without any veggies, and H/A got his loaded. I actually got stuffed cabbage, because I wanted some old-fashioned home cooked food. It was good!Roasted corn on the cob dipped in a giant vat of melted butter. Whoohoo! Damn I love this stuff. And we hosed this bag of cotton candy on the drive home. It was awesome!

Bloomsburg Fair - They Really Have This Stuff

I'd never been to a county fair/agricultural fair like this before. You've seen it on tv, but seriously folks, this stuff really happens. People grow fruits and vegetables and animals and stuff, and they compete. And you get blue ribbons and such. It's crazy, yet adorable.

Award winning bell peppers. Award winning watermelon! But to me, how would you know if it's tasty on the inside? Just because it's pretty on the outside doesn't mean shit. It could be a terrible watermelon.

Prize winning beets and brussel sprouts. I had no idea this is how brussel sprouts grew. Don't they look like... giant buds?

All kinds of apples.

And to top off the freakshow, the award winning giant pumpkins. These weren't the winner. But they were huge, and their poundage was written on them.This is the one that one. 1105 lbs of pure unbridled freak gourd. Just imagining the logistics of transporting that pumpkin from patch to the fairgrounds makes my head hurt. There were also baking contests too. This one was for angel food cake, which is a cake I'm very partial to. There were also pie and chocolate categories as well. And oh yes, there were cows, and sheep, and goats, and chickens, and rabbits!

Bloomsburg Fair - Too Much Food

We went to the 155th Bloomsburg Fair on saturday, its opening day. R has been talking about this for awhile as she went to school in Bloomsburg and wanted to go back and check it out again. She had mentioned that it was a big deal, and huge, and had crazy stuff, like Elvis impersonators. Man. Huge it was. Like freakin ginormous. In the night that we were there, we probably only covered about 1/2 of it. We didn't even get to the rides. We didn't see any of the tractor pulls, or the demolition derby, and other crazed shenanigans. What we did see was tons of food options. It was rather mindboggling. And way too many to choose from. We walked around for hours trying to decide where to eat. And here are some of the things we passed.

Stromboli Land, or space ship? I liked the name of this sticky bun joint. Tons of waffles, but this was the only pumpkin waffle joint. Homemade ice cream with the churning done by some sort of old-fashioned cranking machine. This was truly old school. Tons of hot sausages. Eat the Bowl, another cute name. Deep fried stuff! Are we in Scotland? I've never met any Greeks named Dave, but he's selling gyros here. Crabby Larry sells seafood. This was a family affair so there was no alcohol served. Sadly, this was the only kind of beer to be had.

Varga Bar Al Fresco

After falling in love with Kanella earlier this year, it was hard to not notice the birth of the Varga Bar across the street. It opened in May and I finally got a chance to go check it out. It is literally across the street from Kanella. Lots of pinup shots and even pinup murals on the ceiling. There are a smattering of tables and booths inside, and while it's still nice out, a decent amount of al fresco seating.

It was coincidentally the last night of restaurant week, but we just decided to pick our own food. The menu itself is kind of slim, but there's plenty of choose from. It's actually quite simple, but the dishes have been swankified a bit. Like these crab cheese fries. A simple bowl of fries, but they throw crab on top! It was like a bowl of fries topped with crab chowder. It was brilliant. I'm going to start doing this on my own. They also have a large selection of beers and cocktails. This was one of the special sidecar cocktails. It was nice and strong, but it still doesn't beat my favorite sidecar, at the Sidecar.

Another example of how they swankify food. This is a little crock of mac and cheese, but it is made with gruyere, fontina, and mascarpone cheese, and topped with bacon and some bits of truffles. The bacon was a lovely touch. The truffles, not so much. Since my last experience with truffles (the truffle deviled eggs at supper) I realize that I'm just not into it. But it was still a good dish.

P got one of the specials of the evening - goat with pasta. He liked it, but it was not enough goat. I do have to say, the bowl was a little small, and probably way too small for a grown man. He cleaned his bowl and probably could have eaten a few more bowls of this.

I wasn't too hungry after the mac and cheese so I went with the kobe beef sliders. You get three adorable little sliders with bacon, shallots, vermont cheddar, tomatoes, and lettuce. I liked these (they just come cooked medium) but the buns were too thick and too dense. There was tons more bread than slider, so it was a bit too heavy on the bread side. It also came with really excellent onion rings on the side, and some pickle slivers.

The service here was pretty good. The clientele here is nice and mixed . I think it's a nice place to stop by for a drink if you are in the neighborhood. The food is pretty good, but nothing extraordinary. It's a nice addition to the philly dining/drinking scene, but nothing to bowl you over. But I could probably see myself coming back here.

Late Night At Coney Island

After the wedding, we went back to Club 18. And then we left to get some beers and some health food from Coney Island. This place is a pottsville institution. And everything in there is terrible for you. I had to have some.
Some lovely rows of dogs heating up on the grill. It was nearly 2AM and they had this many dogs on the grill. I suspect they get quite the after hours foot traffic.
They throw mustard, onions, and chili on top. Who can resist a chili dog?
See this vat of... grease? Under those onions are burgers. Yes, burgers. They fish the burgers out from that mystery liquid and throw it on a roll, along with some of these soft and sweet onions.
And yeah, then they throw cheese and chili on top. And then you stuff it all into your gourd and hope you keep it all down. I really liked this burger. Would it have tasted as good if I hadn't been drinking and it wasn't the middle of the night and I wasn't sitting in front of a fire? I can't be sure, but I'm willing to find out some day.

Coney Island
2300 W Market St
Pottsville, PA 17901
(570) 622-7722

Another Wedding!

So I ended up crashing a wedding at the Schuylkill Country Club. As it was at a more traditional type of place, it ended up being a pretty traditional wedding. No pizza, no ribs, no nacho bar. But there was quite the open bar.

Salad and bread. Both of these were actually really great. The rolls were warm and dense. The salad had lovely dressing... slightly mustardy, but still good.There was no meal selection in the rsvp's, so it wasn't surprising that it was a buffet. Although this place was kind of fancy, so it was still a bit surprising. Here's the rice dish that's hard to describe. It was like a cross between plain rice pilaf and plain risotto. The rice was incredibly mushy, but not in a bad way, so it was like a risotto, but incredibly buttery. So we're not really sure what it was, but we all really loved it. There was also asparagus, chicken, and salmon.
I'm not a big salmon fan, so I just stuck with the chicken and the asparagus, and the mystery rice dish. It's hard to describe the chicken too, but it was baked, and it was incredibly moist and tender. The asparagus was also cooked quite well and nice and buttery. The meal was quite heavy on the butter. No complaint from me though. I'm all about putting butter on everything.

The cake was an incredibly rich and dense chocolate cake with chocolate goop in the middle and some vanilla frosting on top. There was also a raspberry sauce drizzled on it. The sauce was too tart though, so I had to avoid it. I'm not typically a chocolate person, but this cake was quite delicious. I ate the whole thing. I couldn't help myself. I'm all wedding'd out for the rest of this year!

Orwigsburg Dining

I headed up to the Pottsville area over the weekend to crash a wedding. After my drive, I was starving. So we walked a few blocks to downtown Orwigsburg for some small town eats. Valenti's is an italian joint, and apparently, they bake their own bread.
C got a side salad with mozzarella cheese. This actually looked like a pretty amazing salad. I did taste some, and it was really good. The dressing was great. But the amount of cheese was ridiculous. This starts a theme of heavy cheese.
J got the fresh turkey club sandwich. This is tons of food. It was a pretty good sandwich. These chips were amazing! They looked homemade. Homemade or not, they were super crunchy and not too salty and quite great. I ate too many.
I really wanted a sausage sandwich so I got this sausage parm with sweet peppers. Can you see any sausage or peppers or bread? Not really, as it was positively drenched with mozzarella cheese. There were about 3 slices of cheese on the bottom, then some sausage and peppers and sauce, and then a few more slices of cheese on the top. It was just beyond a ridiculous helping of cheese. It was more like a cheese sandwich with some sausage and bread. I ended up scraping most of the cheese off. It's a shame really, because the sandwich itself was fine. It was just hard to eat and had to be severely edited to attempt enjoyment. Take our advice Valenti's, ease up on the cheese. It's just not necessary.

Valenti's Pizza
218 W Market St
Orwigsburg, PA 17961
(570) 366-1408

Feelin The Love At South Philadelphia Taproom

I wanted to go back to South Philadelphia Taproom ever since the first time I went. I dragged J there on a quiet tuesday night.

There weren't too many people there, so we had our pick of tables. We didn't get to pick the super low table in front, as it was already occupied. We tried a few beers. Our server was beyond nice, and actually from Ireland, and happily brought us free samples of the beers without us even asking. To tell you the truth, I think he had a little man-crush on J. He didn't bring me any free beer.
J got the burger. Look at that beautiful and giant yellow tomato. The burger came with mustard already on it. Lucky for J, he likes mustard, and he liked the burger. If I had ordered the burger, I would have been livid. It came with a side salad and a bunch of pickled veggies - cucumbers, mushrooms, and tomatoes. They were a bit on the spicy side, and I liked it.

Of course, I got the meatloaf entree, which comes on top of mac and cheese. It was still as good as I remembered. The meatloaf has a nice grilled flavor from the char marks. And the mac and cheese is so super mild and delicious and creamy. And the homemade ketchup just makes the dish. It's different than store-bought ketchup, but perfect for this meatloaf and the mac and cheese. I really should branch out and try other things on the menu here. I guess it's an excuse to go back!

Free Donuts

I love it when you go to Dunkin Donuts on really off times (late nights, weekend afternoons) and order a donut and they throw in a bunch of free ones. Yet another reason for me to heart DD!

Pabbit!

After enjoying probably one of the last hot days of the year, we worked up quite a hunger. So we met up with J and S and headed to Pub & Kitchen. You know, the place with the pabbit logo. Pig and rabbit. By dinner time, it'd finally cooled down, so we got a table outside. The temperature was perfect, but unfortunately the bugs were out. The sangria. Strong, and expensive. J's salmon. Seared on the outside and still mostly raw on the inside. Served on top of wax beans. J absolutely positively cleaned this plate. Squeaky clean. It's impressive. J's burger. It is presented quite beautifully. With caramelized red onions and a perfectly sized piece of bibb lettuce. He couldn't stop raving about it. He absolutely loved it. S and I both got the meatloaf special. The meatloaf was ok, but it had big hunks of carrots in it. A big no no for me. And not much flavor. And the green beans had a mustard sauce, with whole mustard seeds. Another no no for me. But the potatoes and gravy were pretty good, although it needed more gravy. Overall, ok meatloaf, but nothing I'd order again. Service was fine. I think the menu is a little limited, so it'd be great if they could add some more things to the menu. But I would definitely come back here.