Monday, May 11, 2015

Philadelphia aka Tour de Cheesesteak

After we left New York City and Coney Island, we spent a couple of nights in Philadelphia. I'm not sure why this picture of us with the Liberty Bell has black lines on it. We saw the bell, crack and all.

 While we went to Philadelphia under the cover of "education" and "historic landmarks", but visiting the birthplace of cheesesteaks was a real plus. HOWEVER...we didn't like any of them. Seriously. We tried four (FOUR!) different places. We went to the three most famous, and one that wasn't as well known. Talk about a let down!

The first place we went was Pat's. Eh...
 
 Then we went (literally) right across the street to Geno's. Both of these are very well-known.
 And again, eh... (this on was a tiny, tiny bit better than Pat's)

 In between all of our cheesesteak eating, we managed to tour the city and see more historic places. The Betsy Ross house was really interesting. It was a paid tour, but the kids really wanted to do it. I'm glad we did.
 We also took a tour of the Mint to learn about and see money being made.
 Now back to the food...

Brian wanted to try the Roast Pork sandwich from another famous place called Dinic's. It was in Reading Terminal Market. Wow! That market was a crazy place full of vendor after vendor. I wish we had more time in there! Brian thought this sandwich was pretty good.
 In the meantime, Parker and I shared a cheesesteak from a place in Reading Terminal Market called Spataro's. It was the least well known place, but it was the best. Not great...but better than the rest.
 We took a tour of Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed.
 Of course, we had to go by and visit the Rocky steps and take our picture with the Rocky statue.


 
 Then one last cheesesteak hurrah at Tony Luke's. Better than the other two famous ones, but still just ok.
So as you can tell, the cheesesteak situation was a real disappointment. The meat is just very bland, and there was never enough cheese. The bread wasn't that great either. I'm sorry to be so negative, but I want to save you all the heartache that we have endured. I'm a little bit dramatic.

The moral of the story is this: Go to Philadelphia for the history, but not the food. The end.

(Disclaimer: I feel like I need to tell you that none of us ate whole sandwiches at all of these places. We shared them all except for the roast pork. It was all in the name of research. So don't judge!)


1 comment:

Comlete Exclusive said...

I always look forward to going out. A good tip would be to look out for those places with interesting concepts. This place is pretty amazing. I came up here with a friend to rent a space for an event. The place was spacious and food was great.