The Food of Philadelphia and New Jersey

Ever since I met my friend Megan a couple years ago, she's been telling me how great the food is in her hometown in New Jersey. Her hometown is just outside of Philadelphia, so she's also been telling me how great the food in Philly is. Naturally, as a big lover of food, I've always wanted to try out these things Megan has been telling me about. And this past week I was in luck; I finally managed to make it out to Philadelphia for a visit and try out all of the delicious food the city has to offer. As I'm sure you can imagine, a Philly cheesesteak was the first on my list:

1. Philly Cheesesteak: I'm told that there are 2 places in the city to get the best cheesesteaks (Geno's and Pat's). I had a lot of other things to accomplish on my trip, so I didn't manage to make it to one of the 2 "top" places. But I did still manage to get a cheesesteak. I got mine at the Reading Terminal Market at Carmen's Famous Italian Hoagies and Cheesesteaks and it was delicious. The classic cheesesteak is with cheese whiz and onions. But these days you can get provolone cheese, peppers, and sometimes more on yours too. I opted to get provolone and peppers (both sweet and hot) on mine. Unfortunately, I was too excited to eat it and I forgot to take a picture. You'll have to take my word for it that mine looked something like the picture here that I found on google images ;)


2. Chickie's and Pete's Crab Fries: While in Philly, I also took the opportunity to go see a Phillies game. It was an awesome night with perfect weather and the Phillies won (always a plus). One food that's really popular at the stadium are Chickie's and Pete's crab fries. They were a tad too salty for me, but still tasted really great, especially with a beer.

Watching the game

3. Tommy Dinic's Pork and Beef: For part of my time in Philly I stayed downtown right by the Reading Terminal Market which is an indoor market full of lots and lots of different food options. One of those options is Tommy Dinic's. A coworker of mine (who is from Philly) told me that I had to try the pulled pork sandwich there. So I waited 20 minutes in line to get the delicious sandwich you see below. I only got provolone on mine but you can also get greens (i.e. spinach or broccoli rabe) or peppers. I thought the wait was definitely worth it.

4. Water Ice: The concept of water ice was perplexing to me when Megan told me about it. At first I thought she was describing a snow cone or a slurpee, but she assured me that that's not what it was. It's actually more like Italian ice or sorbet but it comes out of a soft serve ice cream machine. In either case, it was really good. I got halfway through eating it before realizing I forgot to take a picture (so forgive me for the poor quality). I got mango flavored, but they have other kinds like blue raspberry and root beer. You can also mix the water ice with ice cream. Megan ended up getting root beer water ice with vanilla ice cream. Hers was also delicious and tasted like a root beer float. Apparently there are different types of water ice, but Megan recommended Polish water ice, so that's what we had.

5. Manco & Manco's Pizza: Being from New Jersey, Megan naturally wanted to dispel my misconceptions about what is really the Jersey Shore. The prospect of a day at the beach sounded wonderful to me, so of course I agreed to go. We spent a few hours on the beach and then went to walk the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ. On the boardwalk we got a slice of pizza at Megan's favorite place, Manco & Manco's. I always like a good slice of pizza, and I definitely enjoyed this one. I just went for their generic plain (i.e. cheese) pizza. But they have other options like broccoli (which is apparently really good), venetian, sicilian, and more.

On the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ

6. Yuengling: If you ever make it out to Philly and try out all this delicious food, a great beer to pair with your food is a Yuengling. It's a lighter beer but has more flavor than something like Bud Light or Miller Lite. I'd never heard of Yuengling until I came out east and Megan told me to try it. It's by no means a craft beer, but this Philly beer is definitely a great choice.





So that concludes by Philly and New Jersey food/traveling experience. Philly sometimes gets a bad rap for being a dirty city, but I truly enjoyed myself. And it helped that I had a great travel guide (thanks Meg!). There are a bunch of things to do in Philly and I just gave you a lot of good food options above :)

Chicken and Pasta Salad

This is kind of a new take on chicken salad and pasta salad, but it's really good and really easy. I can make it at the beginning of the week and then eat the leftovers for lunch throughout the week. 

Ingredients

2 cooked and diced chicken breasts

1 box of penne pasta

1 1/2 cups chopped celery

1 1/2 cups red grapes

3/4 cup mayo

1 Tbsp Dijon mustard

2-3 dashes lemon juice

Directions

1. Bake chicken at 350 for 40 to 50 minutes. After the chicken is done, cut it into diced pieces.

2. While chicken is cooking, cook the pasta. After you drain the pasta, run cold water over it cool it down.

3. Chop the celery and pick grapes off of the stems.

4. Combine chicken, pasta, celery, and grapes in a large bowl. Add the mayo, Dijon mustard, and lemon juice and mix everything together. 

You can easily adjust the quantities of each of the ingredients. If you want it to be more "saucy" just add a little more mayo and mustard. Or add more grapes if you like. The recipe is so easy, you can adjust it how you like or make it exactly how I did :)