July- Dinning on Vacation

We just got back from our east coast vacation, and because we are now to poor to go out to eat we will count our vacation as our in restaurant in July :) On this vacation we knew we had to try cheese steak in Philly and pizza in New York City to see what the big deal is. I think we choose the right places, however it was proven to us that Brian and I are true mid-westerners

We had two cheese steaks while in Philly. The first one was on a food cart and the other was at Geno's, which is a popular, historic, cheese steak place that a co-worker told me about before we left on our trip. Brian actually preferred the food cart sandwich.  At Geno's I got whiz on my sandwich which is the way to go. It made the sandwich more moist. You have to get whiz and onions to do it right.  Geno's was a neat place. It was in a small neighborhood and if you want to eat there you need to hunt for it. It is not something that you are just going to bump into if you are on vacation. You could tell just by being near the building that this place has a lot of history. I would definitely seek out Geno's if you are going on vacation in Philly. Having said that, Brian and I both agree that we prefer the Italian beef sandwiches of Chicago over the Philly cheese steak.

Our New York City pizza was the exact same experience as the cheese steak. We made the right choice, but we prefer the thicker saucier pizza we get in our area. We went to John's pizza which is just west of Time Square. The building was neat with a huge mural on the wall, and they made the pizzas in brick oven that you could see from your tables. When we got there the place was crowded, so we knew this was the place to be. Once again, the pizza was good New York pizza and this is the place I would recommend if you are on vacation, however he both prefer the more saucy pizza found in our hometown.

We ate at many good places on vacation. My number one recommendation would be the Reading Terminal Market which is within walking distance from all of the historic attraction in Philly. This place is rows and rows of food vendors. They had a fruit/fish market where you could buy stuff to cook at home, but they also had food vendors selling everything under the sun.  We took part in a German place, a grilled cheese place, and a cupcake/pie place.  The one warning about this place is to go early in the day.  We got there about two hours before closing and a couple of places ran out of stuff we wanted to try.  The Reading Market was kind of like a giant food court at a mall without any pesky stores to get in the way. Oh and none of the restaurants where chains which we enjoyed.

After our great vacation I will leave you with this little bit of useful information, if you find yourself in a hotel in Exton, Pennsylvania at 10pm and they point you in the direction of the 24 hour diner in town, run in the OPPOOSITE direction ;)  Happy Eating and Happy Summer!