City Food Tour - Philly Edition

With one day to spare in a busy weekend I decided a food tour would be a great way to try a lot of food, see a lot of sites and familiarize myself with the city in just a few hours.  We saw some pretty interesting things, hope you like!

I'll spare you all the charming history of Joe's Pizza, but if you've ever used a garlic roll to scoop up the last bit of sauce on your plate you'll appreciate this.  It's like a Sicilian slice minus the cheese.  The sauce was really spicy and tart, and the dough was thick with a really nice crispy outside.

The name Tomato Pie had me worried, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Stop #2 was at one of Philly's famous soft pretzel factories, which wouldn't allow me to take any pictures but it was a pretty neat assembly line going in there.  This turned out to be one "carb-y" day, but the pretzel was good, not like a NY pretzel, much more chewy and softer outside.  I hate mustard, but they offered three options ranging in spice, I opted for the medium, it wasn't completely gross.

Philadelphia natives are said to consume soft pretzels for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and this shop alone makes over 5,000 a day which was a shock to me. 

The third stop on the tour suggested one of Philly's best cheese steaks, but I'm not sure I agree...

Apparently an authentic cheese steak has to have Cheez Whiz, not happy about that, but I tried it.  I still prefer provolone on a cheese steak.  Sissy had a chicken cheese steak, too dry for my taste and they don't really season the meat on cheese steaks so...

Oh yea, the bottom right pic is a plate of huge zepollis they had in the window at Zio's, I knew we were on our way to dessert so I didn't indulge, plus I've never had zepollis that weren't fresh out of the oil, but they looked GOOD!

We stopped in at Del Frisco's Double Eagle  to snap a couple shots, this is the bank vault in the basement that guests can actually dine in, it was cool, like being in the vault in Ocean's Eleven LOL

This wine room is right in the middle of the restaurant with a huge spiral staircase inside, holds up to 

2,000 bottles ; )

This was the stop that I was most anticipating, its really a huge indoor market where local vendors sell all kinds of cool things, like homemade soaps and lotions, baked goods, fresh produce, and raw seafood.  

The first booth was a chocolatier who specializes in making some odd shaped chocolates, the anatomically correct organs were some of the weirdest I saw.

The chocolate covered pretzels were yummy, but by this time the carbs were catching up to me lol

Final Vendor

This cake truffle from the Flying Monkey was the perfect ending to the tour.  The owner utilizes the top portion of fresh cakes (usually gets cut off to make it flat) mixes it with butter and sugar and forms little cake balls, then dips them in dark or white chocolate.

Imagine the most moist brownie you've ever had, this is 10 times better HA!!