Philadelphia

Philadelphia was really, really cold. I met Hector in Dallas on Thursday and we flew in to Philly together. He gave me his first class upgrade which was very sweet. Since he worked all day Friday I just wandered around looking at everything. Our Downtown Marriott was directly across the street from Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia's answer to Quincy Market-Fisherman's Wharf-Pike's Market. You know, an old historic building they've turned into a tourist trap, with cafes and T-shirts and worthless crap. Anyway, I ate at one of the little cafes run by adorable Quakers, then shopped among the few attractive stalls that sell gorgeous fruit, cookbooks, homemade desserts, etc.

There was a time when Philadelphia was known as the fattest city in America and maybe officially it's not anymore but I must say they still have a lot of fat people there. Huge people. Monstrous. Even now it's a really Northeast America kind of city, with blue collar Archie Bunkers all over the place. It has that industrial feel, still. We didn't really do much of the Independence-y stuff because we'd seen it twice before and once was sufficient.

We had dinner at Oceanaire on Friday. I had Shrimps de Jonghe and a Dover Sole. Both great. We got the celebrity treatment from the staff because we were about the only ones in the whole crowded place NOT there for Philadelphia Restaurant Week, hence we were paying full price for everything. The other diners were mostly enjoying the standard "eat-pay-get out!" class of service. On Saturday night we asked the concierge about a good family-style Italian place. I guess she thought we meant cheap, because she started describing places that sounded like tourist hangouts, but then she got it that we wanted a nice place where locals go for good Italian so she steered us to La Famiglia, near Penn's Landing in the Old City. It's a beautiful place, very family, a place the Mafia probably loves. I had an arugula & pear salad and a butternut squash ravioli.