When I travel, I believe that food is part of the trip. I would rather experience a new restaurant at higher cost than buy fast food and a souvenir remembering the trip. Not to mention the more pricey food is better for you. The trip to Philadelphia wasn’t any different.
Our hotel was beside 4 franchise restaurants, so that was really convenient. The restaurants were Red Lobster, TGI Friday’s, Lonestar Steakhouse, Olive Garden, and Famous Dave’s. I won’t bore you with detail on them because they are the same everywhere! At Red Lobster I recommend a fresh fish selection and normally I choose the rainbow trout. At Olive Garden you can never go wrong with pasta and I really like the Jack Daniel’s pulled pork sandwich at TGI Friday’s.
Normally, Lonestar has a decent steak, but we were disappointed. All of our steaks were overcooked. If we ordered it medium-rare, it was medium. If we ordered it well-done, you received a hockey puck that they claimed was a steak. Famous Dave’s is also disappointing mainly because the north and south have different views of “barbecue.” They did have good sweet tea though!
I think the most disappointing meal was Joe’s Crab Shack. I have never eaten there before, but wanted to try it because of their advertising…it looks fun! We gave it a shot at the Wilmington, DE riverfront. I tried the redfish because it’s pretty hard to screw up baking fresh fish (or so I thought). I’m hoping it was fish, but really all I could taste was the Old Bay seasoning. It was overwhelming! My loaded potato even tasted like they seasoned it with Old Bay! I tried eating garlic bread to get that awful taste out of my mouth, but it didn’t help. I will never be eating at a Joe’s Crab Shack ever again. There are just much better alternatives available. I guess it’s an okay place to have a beer, watch a game, and snack on shrimp or crab, but if you’re looking for a real meal, go somewhere else.
The disappointment didn’t last long though because I had my favorite meal of the entire trip that night. It was actually at Delaware Park (the casino and race track) in their restaurant, Legends. I ordered a crab cake with mashed sweet potatoes and cheesy garlic bread. You know it’s a good meal when it has been a month since I ate it and I can remember everything about it!
The crab cake used only lump crab meat that was barely stuck together. Sometimes with crab cakes you end up getting mostly dough or whatever they use to make the “cake” and no crab. This one reminded me of the crab cakes you can find in the restaurants of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, which are the best! Baltimore is famous for their crab and I highly recommend Legal Seafood if you are ever in the area. Last time I was there, some members of the Houston Astros sat beside us, so obviously their reputation for good food travels a long way.
For dessert, I had a vanilla bean cheesecake that was so good it would bring tears to your eyes! It was absolutely perfect. It wasn’t frozen and it was very light, so the fork just slid right through. I have seen cheesecakes that were so hard my fork got stuck in them! The dessert was garnished with a raspberry sauce, but it wasn’t needed. It was great by itself. It truly upped my standards concerning cheesecake. So if you are ever in Delaware Park, bet on some horses, win a little money, then go upstairs and invest it in some great food!
I have an exam to study for next week, so in 2 weeks I’ll finish the series with the hockey part of my trip.
