Philly Phoodventure
As Katie wrote below, The Foodventure took our show on the road to Philadelphia this weekend. On paper, the trip was to visit friends, but with all due respect to those who we saw, the trip was really about food. As always, Philadelphia came through in a big way.
As you know, we’re two weeks away from Easter, and meat is still not on the menu. Philadelphia made the cheesesteak famous (or possibly the other way around), but for my money, the roast pork hoagie at Di Nic’s is the best sandwich in Philly, or anywhere for that matter. Sadly, because of Lent, there would be no roast pork or cheesesteaks, but in the name of good eating we went forward undeterred.
Charlie and Dana traveled from the north, Dan, Katie, and I from the south. Despite delays, everybody was at the designated meeting spot more or less on time, and according to plan, the designated time was lunch. Thankfully, our meeting place was near the Rittenhouse Square outpost of Di Bruno Brothers, a gourmet market and deli with beautiful meat, cheese, and produce counters downstairs and hot sandwiches, soups, salads and pizza upstairs.
Photo originally uploaded by miss_leslie.
Katie and I split a “half pizza” that was huge, topped with olives, artichokes, and roasted peppers. Dan also opted for pizza, and Charlie went for a grilled sandwich. Dana was by all accounts the lunch time winner with a salad composed of greens, white beans, and prosciutto. Simple, easy, and good.
Downtown Philadelphia is very compact and its easy to walk from place to place, so walk we did. A stop at the Academy of Natural Science yielded some entertainment, and from there we went to the Field House, located across from the Reading Terminal Market to meet the impeccably pengin-suited and coiffed Matt and Rachel, who strenuously defended Matt’s decision to comb his hair. This brief rendezvous was the perfect prelude to the main event: dinner at Villa di Roma.
Villa di Roma is proudly stuck in a different era. They only take cash, and one gets the sense that most of the staff has been there just as long as the classic cash register. Dinner started with the Villa’s homemade red wine, then the mussels marinara, which were spectacular. Six people devoured two orders of mussels and used at least three loaves of bread to soak up the tasty broth.
I kept it simple for the main course with eggplant parmesan, which was delicious. The eggplant was hot and crispy, with lots of cheese and the delicious sauce blanketing everything generously. Katie had spaghetti with shrimp and peppers, which she requested spicy. This prompted the late-joining Tony Orvivo, who is 110% Italian, to scold her for ordering as though she were in a Chinese restaurant, but the Villa complied and the plate came out with pickled hot peppers, which worked to provide a spicy, sweet tang. Charlie kicked it old school with veal parm, and Dan drew inspiration from the Foodventure and went with chicken piccata. Dana had a sausage pasta, and Tony had what I really wanted, the veal with eggplant special. Lent is hard.
Philly is a great food city, on par with any in my experience. I can’t wait to get back in a few months when meat is back in my life, and a trip to the Phillies game will probably be in order. You can bet that whatever I eat will be memorable, and that I’ll be sharing it with your right here.
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March 25, 2009 8:16 pm 
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By Dana, March 26, 2009 @ 10:20 am
Sweet, I’m the winner!