Road Tasted - Philadelphia Style

I have decided that Philadelphia may be one of the greatest cities to eat in as a vegetarian... which seems totally strange considering they're known for cheese steaks. But seriously - I have never been in a situation where just about every restaurant I step in offers a wide selection of vegetarian stuff.

Heaven.

So - the weather was doo doo but the food was magnificent. I think I'll end up blogging about Philly and the anniversary all week so I'll try to just focus on one thing each post. Today its all about the food.

Ryan had sent me a link to a vegan restaurant called Horizons on 7th Street near Old City (where we were staying). It looked fancy schmancy and I somehow managed to talk The Mr into eating here on our first night. The food was f'n amazing. We pigged out and got a bottle of wine, starters, entrees and dessert. Somehow the idea of it being vegan made me think it was healthy. Either way - it was delicious. Even The Mr agreed.

The next morning, we wanted to check out Reading Terminal Market for breakfast but it was about 1.5 away from the hotel. That isn't too too far away but when you're starving, it seems damn near impossible to get there. The hotel we stayed in had a restaurant inside that was boasting an award winning Sunday brunch. How can you pass up brunch? I f'n love brunch.

We ate at Azalea in the hotel. The spread was impressive and the food was good but I didn't eat very much. The cost? $50 a person. Had I known that we were going to drop $100 on fucking brunch, I would have eaten my weight in food instead of the 2 plates of fruit and an omelet. Seriously. I even passed up mimosas because of all the stupid walking we were going to do. Yarg!

That night, we ate dinner at an afghan restaurant called Ariana a few blocks from the hotel. It was okay. When I mentioned dessert, The Mr brought up the episode of Road Tasted we watched last month that featured an old fashioned ice cream place. So I spent the majority of dinner looking up that stupid episode on my phone while the other patrons looked at me in horror as though I was the worst date on the face of the planet. I wanted to yell, "It's okay - we're just celebrating our anniversary!"

After a very painful search through the Food Network's website, we found the episode and the ice cream place. The Franklin Fountain. Holy shit - this place is amazing. I never thought I'd buy into the whole "old timey" bullshit but everything is homemade! And the place was so charming... I couldn't resist. I fell in love and will honestly drive 2 hours back to get some damn ice cream. Fuck the cheese steaks - give me homemade ice cream!

Once we successfully tried out one place from the episode, we decided to do the Road Tasted tour of Philly. The next day we checked out Campo's for cheese steaks... well, this was more for The Mr. He originally located the best Philly cheese steak place and mapped it out but when the day came, it was cold and rainy... and it was 2 miles away whereas Campo's was just a few blocks away. Laziness prevailed! But The Mr was satisfied and I was impressed with their vegetarian selections.

Last - I really wanted to check out the place that offered Vegan desserts. So I mapped out Gianna's Grille and was stoked that it was so close. And then we realized that the Deen boys are lazy too since they didn't seem to leave that 10 block radius of places. Aaanywho - we sampled the chocolate peanut butter bomb cupcake and I almost creamed my pants. Okay, not really but it was good.

We did do a quick walk through of the Reading Terminal Market on Sunday afternoon but unfortunately got there about 10 minutes before it closed. Maybe next time because seriously - I was in food heaven.

I would have posted pictures of the food we had eaten but The Mr wouldn't let me take pictures. Apparently it was embarrassing or something...

Next up? What the hell we did in Philly.