Will Travel for Food - A Long Weekend in Philly to try a restaurant
Nov 13th, 2017, 10:22 AM
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Will Travel for Food - A Long Weekend in Philly to try a restaurant
Had a fun three days in Philly with my mom. She had never been.
The reason for the trip was that I heard an interview with the chefs behind Vedge and wanted to go try it out.
Philly is driving distance so it seemed like a reasonable plan and my mom was up for it. I made a reservation back in Sept. for our trip dates to ensure we got a table. It was amazing! Well worth the trip! I am vegetarian (and my mom has recently gone that direction almost exclusively) so I was excited by the prospect of fine dining where I could truly try anything from the menu. It's a small plates style restaurant so we had 6 total plates plus dessert. It was too much food but it was all incredible.
https://www.npr.org/2016/10/13/49780...iece-of-a-meal
http://vedgerestaurant.com/
I wish I had made reservations at V Street, too but we already had lunch plans for Saturday (cooking class) and didn't want to pin ourselves down for Saturday dinner but in retrospect, we should have. Our uber driver said the chefs also have a restaurant called Wiz Kid, which is vegan Philly Cheesesteaks. Normally I would think that sounds terrible but after eating at Vedge I would have liked to try them (again, didn't work out with out plans).
Since my mom had not been to Philly before we also went to Independence Hall (reserved our time tix ahead of time) and the Liberty Bell. Our Independence Hall tix were at 3:20 which put us back out of the tour by 4, at which time the security line for the Bell was short and we got in within a few minutes. This was on Friday, Veteran's Day.
We also took a cooking class at La Cucina at the Market.
http://www.lacucinaatthemarket.com/
Anna taught a group of about 12 to make pasta. The class began at 10:30 so by the time we made it through three different pasta shapes and sauces our meal was ready for lunch. It was delicious. The class is a real class, not a demo, so we got to do everything. She gives solid and clear feedback as you go and by the time we finished we both felt we were going to be confident enough to make pasta at home. In fact, it's what we are going to do four our Thanksgiving this year. The classes are not on a regular schedule, you have to check for them, and she does a lot of corporate/private events. I think it is probably best to use their Facebook to check class schedules. They took pics of the whole group while we learned and posted there which was nice--no one had to have their floury hands on their phones trying to take pics.
We spent Saturday afternoon at the (very crowded) Mutter Museum.
http://muttermuseum.org/
I wanted to go after reading Dr. Mutter's Marvels which was fascinating nonfiction. The museum was busy (they have a sign out saying that Saturdays are their busiest). It was small and interesting.
Sunday we had no plans but my brother went to Philadelphia last spring and said we should go to Talula's Garden for brunch. He was right. It was incredible. We over ordered because everything looked wonderful. The portions were huge and we had to take quite a bit home with us.
http://www.talulasgarden.com/
We stayed in an AirBnB in Chinatown. The location was great. The apartment was ok the first night but the second night the next-door restaurant had a party with loud music and smoking. The smoke managed to seep into the apartment (not overwhelming but certainly unpleasant). Happily, the party ended around 10 PM so we did not have to endure the annoyance until the wee hours.
The reason for the trip was that I heard an interview with the chefs behind Vedge and wanted to go try it out.
Philly is driving distance so it seemed like a reasonable plan and my mom was up for it. I made a reservation back in Sept. for our trip dates to ensure we got a table. It was amazing! Well worth the trip! I am vegetarian (and my mom has recently gone that direction almost exclusively) so I was excited by the prospect of fine dining where I could truly try anything from the menu. It's a small plates style restaurant so we had 6 total plates plus dessert. It was too much food but it was all incredible.
https://www.npr.org/2016/10/13/49780...iece-of-a-meal
http://vedgerestaurant.com/
I wish I had made reservations at V Street, too but we already had lunch plans for Saturday (cooking class) and didn't want to pin ourselves down for Saturday dinner but in retrospect, we should have. Our uber driver said the chefs also have a restaurant called Wiz Kid, which is vegan Philly Cheesesteaks. Normally I would think that sounds terrible but after eating at Vedge I would have liked to try them (again, didn't work out with out plans).
Since my mom had not been to Philly before we also went to Independence Hall (reserved our time tix ahead of time) and the Liberty Bell. Our Independence Hall tix were at 3:20 which put us back out of the tour by 4, at which time the security line for the Bell was short and we got in within a few minutes. This was on Friday, Veteran's Day.
We also took a cooking class at La Cucina at the Market.
http://www.lacucinaatthemarket.com/
Anna taught a group of about 12 to make pasta. The class began at 10:30 so by the time we made it through three different pasta shapes and sauces our meal was ready for lunch. It was delicious. The class is a real class, not a demo, so we got to do everything. She gives solid and clear feedback as you go and by the time we finished we both felt we were going to be confident enough to make pasta at home. In fact, it's what we are going to do four our Thanksgiving this year. The classes are not on a regular schedule, you have to check for them, and she does a lot of corporate/private events. I think it is probably best to use their Facebook to check class schedules. They took pics of the whole group while we learned and posted there which was nice--no one had to have their floury hands on their phones trying to take pics.
We spent Saturday afternoon at the (very crowded) Mutter Museum.
http://muttermuseum.org/
I wanted to go after reading Dr. Mutter's Marvels which was fascinating nonfiction. The museum was busy (they have a sign out saying that Saturdays are their busiest). It was small and interesting.
Sunday we had no plans but my brother went to Philadelphia last spring and said we should go to Talula's Garden for brunch. He was right. It was incredible. We over ordered because everything looked wonderful. The portions were huge and we had to take quite a bit home with us.
http://www.talulasgarden.com/
We stayed in an AirBnB in Chinatown. The location was great. The apartment was ok the first night but the second night the next-door restaurant had a party with loud music and smoking. The smoke managed to seep into the apartment (not overwhelming but certainly unpleasant). Happily, the party ended around 10 PM so we did not have to endure the annoyance until the wee hours.
Nov 13th, 2017, 10:37 AM
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Glad you had a good time. Last summer I thought of making the trip from NYC (by train)to eat at Zahav, but the restaurant was just about fully booked for almost the entire summer. Have to give it another try this year and make a weekend out of it.
Nov 13th, 2017, 10:51 AM
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It's funny, when I travel to experience a completely new place food is a fun but incidental part of it. It was fun to make food the central part of the experience. We also tried rolled ice cream in Chinatown, which is a trendy food item now.
Zahav looks delicious!
Zahav looks delicious!
Nov 17th, 2017, 02:18 PM
#5
I want to try this sister restaurant of Zahav's. All of their profits go to charity to help the most vulnerable in the city.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bon...iladelphia/amp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bon...iladelphia/amp
