Kitchen Adventures

Well a bit late but here is a recap of our culinary adventure to the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. We left Charles Town around 8am and I think we arrived back home around 2am. It was a long, hot and muggy trip but we had a blast. We started at the Reading Terminal Market, http://www.readingterminalmarket.org/ ,
which was an overwhelming taste bud sensation with all the various food vendors.The place was packed with lunch business so the lines where long. We decided on pizza, Philly cheese steak, chicken sandwich, brownie, chocolate espresso cupcake, raspberry jam bar, coffee and beer. We chowed down, listened to some folk music and even had a Micheal Jackson sighting. Then we piled into my hot, no air conditioning, Jeep and drove cross town to the Italian Market. The foodie pictures above are taken there. The top pic is in front of Bistro 7 with Amy, Josh and my best friend Lee. Lee is an outrageous cook, food connoisseur, and a very fun gal. We took our time and went from store to deli gazing at so many food ingredients.

Next on our list was Old City, off we went.....oh yeah a quarter gets you 7 minutes on the parking meter, Ken was in charge of feeding the meter. We walked around my old hood checking out all the different restaurants and bars. We visited Buddakon, http://www.stevenstarrrestaurant.com/ , one of many Starr restaurants. He is a restaurant concept genius. We then went and had afternoon cocktails at Postiano Coast. We sat on the second floor in an all white lounge where they slide open all the doors so you feel like your in heaven, but really hot. Anyway it was very enjoyable and I sipped on a refreshing Thyme martini and was thinking how hard it must be to keep everything clean!

Onward...we arrived at Fork restaurant for our 6pm dinner reservation. Sadly we had missed our kitchen tour earlier in the morning but ended up getting one with the owner, Ellen Yin. She was gracious and explained all the different aspects of their operation. Fork has been promoting farm to table for many years and has had success. Ms. Yin was interested in what we our doing with our restaurant and gave us encouraging words. The kitchen staff where busy getting ready for the night but took time to talk with us and show us around. I talked with their Sous Chef and plan on keeping in touch with him. Recently Fork has brought on a new Chef, Terence Feury, whom we didn't get to meet, he was on vacation. He comes with a great resume and will bring his abilities to Fork. Hopefully Amy is going to go on her days off and work in the kitchen for experience of working with Chef Feury and his staff.

Dinner was hours long with drinks, laughter and beautiful food. I was sad to leave Philadelphia, my old faithful tasty home, but I was excited to get back to Dish and share with our staff the adventures of the day. Ken drove and we all dozed with our bellies full and contented minds.

All in all....mission accomplished. We will be heading off soon for more dining!

http://www.forkrestaurant.com/ well worth the drive!