They're hosting a farm-to-table dinner party November 14 at Bartram's Garden, the 18th century home of botanist & explorer, John Bartram. If you haven't been out to this strange section of West Philly on the Schuylkill, just below University City, then this is the time to at least try - you'd never believe they were hiding such glorious history over there. One lucky reader will get to be my guest at this one-time event (chauffeured in a new Chevy diesel) by yours truly!
That being said, even though it's close, it's still a drive away - a 'road trip' if you will.
I love road trips because it means I get to try new and different (and sometimes weird) regional cuisines. Lord knows I love my food!
What's your best memory of a food destination/out of the way trip for getting your food fix?
Leave your answer in the comments section by midnight on Wednesday, November 6 and be sure to have contact information accessible... winner will be announced November 7.
9 comments:
not quite a "road trip" but right before going to Spain to visit my younger brother I saw the oldest restauarant in the world on Bizzarre Foods Madrid, called Casa Botin. So we got to madrid, with no idea where it was, and wandered for at least a couple hours, asking random people, stopping for tapas along the way, and of course, my favorite way to see a new city, searching for a certain leafy substance to take the edge off. you really get to know the ins and outs of a city that way and have found some of my favorite randon holes in the wall in cities like Oporto, Grenada, Salamanca, and even London (brixton is COOOLLL the rastas are great!) So yea, anyway, back to the point, we met some somewhat shady characters who finally satiated our fix, and sent us along our way to casa botin practically foaming at the mouth for some baby pig. and OMG it was worth it, whole suckling baby pigs, snails, garlic soup! amazing.
Waiting for HOURS to eat at Cha Cha Cha in San Francisco. Luckily there is some good people watching on Haight Street to keep us entertained! Well worth the wait!
While opening my companies new office in Utrecht Netherlands in 2011 I had a weekend in the country to kill. I was training an inside sales staff and one of them offered to take me out for the day that Saturday. I had already visited Amsterdam on a previous vacation so that was not a priority. This tour was to be one out to Amersfoort a tiny town in the east of the country where my colleague was raised. There was a street market that day and he was taking me to try some local cookies and licorice...OK??? Little did I know how important licorice is to the Dutch. I tried so many types that day that I could not count. All more interesting than the next and all in the traditional black style but varied in that medium. Some of the highlights were the honey style, another very mild that had root beer notes, a tiny tic tac sized piece that was so strong it could not have been enjoyed as a large piece and a salty savory one that I thought was a joke on me but the locals LOVE. After that the cookies. Not just any cookie but stroopwafels cooked right on the street. Crispy waffle wafers served warm and still dripping with caramel sauce in between. All of this at a small street market in the shadow of a church and homes built in 1579, 'The Tower of Our Lady'. It was a crazy good day for foodie me.
This is no fancy pants epic food destination tale. This is a story of two men, hungry and dirty from many days spent in the backwoods of Maine, in search of breakfast at a worthy "shit shack". A shit shack you ask? That's our term for a local, non-chain dump that looks terrible on the outside, but on the inside, serves delicious food, whether its a hearty breakfast or a big pile of Qed meats. Back in 2003, after about 5 nights spent camping and fishing in Maine's vast Northwestern logging territory, we were hungry and ready for a hot meal to keep us full for the 15 hour drive home. Driving through the unpopulated rural expanse of Maine, we were desperate for a shit shack. This was well before iphones and shit shack locator app (patent pending), so we had to rely on instinct. Eventually, we came across this place - The Purple Cow. It looked the part, was kind of run down on the outside and had a number of cars in the lot. Our instincts kicked in and we went inside. While most of the breakfast was full of your basic staples, we ordered a side of the best corn beef hash I have ever tasted. Chunks of potatoes, carrots, onion and peppers, and delicious salty, smoky meat. The best part was that this hash had been perfectly seared to crispy perfection on both sides. It was like corn-beef hash scrapple. Since this breakfast, I've only eaten corn beef hash a few times. Once you tasted Purple Cow's hash, every other rendition of hash is utter failure in comparison. Shit shacks will always be where its at.
So funny you should ask. hahaha. I was road-trippin out westlol and got a hankering for a Shamrock Shake from MCDs after seeing a billboard advertising that green delicious. We drove and drove and drove, finally a Mcdittys... Literally RUN in. Lol order the Shamrock shake. " We won't have those until tomorrow." I WAS A DAY EARLY!!!! Hahah. Keep on our trip....NEXT DAY, Find another mCDonalds. SO STOKED. Go in, order that green yum. "Sorry, sir. Our milkshake mcachine is broken" WTF! Of course I finally got one like 10 miles later but what a crazy 24 hours that was for me.
My favorite road trip food was the time I went to Hot Doug's in Chicago. We borrowed our hostess's bikes and saw the line was wrapped around the block, so we continued on to McDonald's for our first lunch, where we shared a cheeseburger. Then we waited in line for over 1.5 hours and our hunger had returned. Encased meat and duck fat fries never tasted so good!
OK, so we're at this little league game and we're about ready to go. So, I say, "Let's go to Kelly's," and Charles is like, "I'm not going to Kelly's just cause you like the take-out there, it's like 15 minutes out of our way." Anyway, I convince him and we go and we're driving. So, I'm like "Double burger." But nobody answers. So, I kinda like sing, "Charles I had a double burger..." And he starts talking all, "How much money you got on you?" This gets me real mad because I said I had change when I got the snow cone. So, he has the nerve to be like, "I'll put your burger on layaway. Every day, you come in with your six cents and at the end of the week you get your sandwich." I see what he's doing, you know? Everybody's laughing. So, I'm like, "Can I have my food, please?" And Charles THROWS the burger back at me! Anyway, I ate some of it before we got out and fought Carmine Scarpagli, which got us all arrested, but my one friend is like a genius so he started seeing Robin Williams to figure out what was wrong with him, because he chose the pipe because "f*%$ him, that's why."
2 am drive with Philly Phoodie to McDonalds on Girard for McChickens and McDoubles... Spiced up with some of his finest fixings... homemade peppers and hot sauce.
Almost missed the deadline. Here goes:
We woke up pretty early at about 6 oclock and already packed and left at about 6:30. The temperature at the time was about 91 degrees. It's a tough realization cause the temperature never goes down during the summer. However, since it was low humidity, it actually didn't feel too bad. As long as you are not out in the open sun, it's tollerable. We drove for a couple of hours and decided to stop and get some breakfast. The place we stumbled upon was called Apple Farm. Some independent diner. We took a few pictures outside for documentation purposes, and walked inside.When we did, the waitress was already calling us to our table. Apparently, she saw us outside and prepared our table already. We looked through the menu and both ordered the same thing, something called the breakfast muffin. I asked the waitress why it's called the muffin and she said that the eggs, ham, etc are on top of a muffin. I imagined a blueberry muffin (or something to that effect), split in half and on top are eggs and stuff. Much to my relief (and weird dissapointment), it turned out to be an english muffin.We ate our breakfast and then decided to order their apple pie (after all, the place was called the Apple Farm). The waitress suggested instead an apple crumb with ice cream. The thing was incredibly good. It had diced apples in like a pie crust with some sweet sauce. Combined with ice cream, it was perfect. She mentioned that someone actually makes those at home and brings them to the restaurant. We paid our check, got some gas at a neighboring gas station and left.
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