New York à la Keiko: Philadelphia

Thursday, March 28, 2013

2013 Wedding #1 [in Philadelphia] + duh! grilled cheese and cheesesteaks!

I have a long weekend coming up. I asked for Friday off so I can have a stay-cation during Easter weekend and also my sister will be visiting from Montreal for some shopping! It's my first day off in 2013. Yay!!

Last weekend, we took a short trip to Philadephia to attend a Sunday wedding ceremony held at the Stotesbury Mansion followed by a reception in Chinatown. We left Sunday morning from New York which is only a two hour drive to Philly and after dropping off our bagages, we grabbed some lunch inside the historic Reading market before heading to the ceremony. We ate the cheesiest of grilled cheese sandwiches from Melt Kraft. Dave got the ultimate THE grilled cheese sandwich called the Valley Thunder. It is packed with Valleyfield cheddar cheese, brisket and mac n cheese squeezed into between two buttered toasts!! I had the regular grilled cheese which had 3 kinds of artisanal cheese plus bacon which was highly recommended even though I didn't really like bacon (I shouldn't have gotten bacon). I was stuffed after the first half of the sandwich! So heavy... cream...bleuh..not good before fitting into a dress if you know what I mean. And yes, when you are in Philly, you gotta have cheesesteaks so after the wedding we passed by Patz to pick up a sandwich except, not for me. Maybe because we overdosed on cheesesteaks our last trip but mostly, I was stuffed from wedding food (cupcakes!). I had a bite though so I did not miss out.

The next morning, our friends stayed behind while we caught an early 7 a.m. bus back into the city so we could both make it back to work. I headed straight to work while Dave decided he would just take the day off...

We have another wedding to attend this Saturday...wedding season is in full force!

Reading Market since 1893!

Valleyfield Melt Kraft

Avenue D grilled cheese

Melt Kraft: Valley Thunder with cheddar, brisket and mac n cheese

The Bride and the Groosmen

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Thursday, July 12, 2012

nykeiko eats and play: In pictures-Day trip to Philly! Lotsa cheesesteaks

Do you think Pat's, Geno's or Jim's have the best Philly's cheesesteakss..but who cares?!

So we didn't go to Philly JUST to find out who in town has the best cheesesteaks but we might as well have! I had never tried cheesesteak before this!

If you Google 'Best cheesesteaks in Philly' right now, you'll find a list of top ten Philly's cheesesteaks.

The top 3 are:
1. Pat's King of steaks since 1930.
2. Geno's steaks since 1966.
3. Jim's steaks since 1939.

These are the three places we tried within the span of 1-2 hours I think. We got one sandwich from each place, 2 from Jim's and shared it. Of course, a friend of mine had to mention trying Tony Luke's which is number 4 on the list but... we can only eat so much cheesesteaks in a day and we weren't feeling it after going to Jim's.

I think for this type of food anyway, who makes the best cheesesteak is all arbitrary to one's personal taste. For me, I didn't love any of them. Maybe I just don't like cheesesteaks in general but I KNOW that if it was just more fatty, greasier and cheesier, I would probably love it a little more. Maybe I should talk to the chefs! *knock on windows. "Hi can you change your 70 year old recipe?". Nonetheless, Pat's cheesesteaks came out as a favorite for all of us. Geno's steak was dry and Jim's steak was drier. The end.

After eating eating eating, we finally started the sightseeing. We parked by Independence Hall to see the Liberty Bell, walked across Chinatown to get to Reading market and finally end up at the Love Park. We then drove to get some water ice at Rita's water ice and then off to the Art Museum! On our way back home, we had dinner in Edison New Jersey at a Taiwanese noodle joint called 'Noodlelicious' which seemed to be everyone's favorite part of the trip!