Hello Philadelphia

We sat in a lot of traffic heading into the big city. It was completely worth it. Why? Because Penang was on the horizon. Penang, or as I like to call it, “Pe-DANG that Essord is delicious”, is an incredible Malaysian restaurant about a block from where I lived for a few years. It’s right inside these hilarious gates:

I used to live right outside of Chinatown. Literally, seventeen steps outside of it. Somehow, I made it through those few years without getting hit by a car or doing early morning calisthenics.

At any rate, I parked the car in slow moving accident-town and Amanda and I headed to 10th and Cherry to meet up with a couple of friends, Greg and Mary Lugones. They were late. Crap. We waited outside of the restaurant and got hungrier and hungrier:

When they finally rolled up, we went inside and ate some extra super mega delicious food. First up, Appetizers. Roti Canai:

Basically, it’s a delicious chewy/crispy pancake from India that you slather in incredible curry sauce.

After that, Chicken Satay:

Chicken on a skewer with peanut sauce. Also delicious.

Finally, the main courses.

1. Pad Thai:

2. Nasi Lemak (I think):

3. Chicken Curry:

4. The greatest thing Asia has ever done, ever. Beef Rendang. DANG:

Holy crapoli, it’s super delicious. It looks like a pile of dog food on a banana leaf, but it is, in fact, the second best tasting thing ever (the best thing ever, is further down).

Despite their lateness, we enjoyed the dinner with Greg and Mary:

After dinner, we headed onto Route 76 and sat there for awhile, as 76 is the worst road in the world. We finally made it to my friend Dan’s house, in Conshohocken, PA and were greeted by a nice note on the door:

After ridding the neighborhood of said drifters, we went to bed. On couches.

After an OK night’s sleep, Amanda and I took the train back into Philadelphia and hopped off of it at 15th and Market. What’s at 15th and Market? This:

Reading Terminal Market. It’s basically an old railway terminal that is now a giant food distributer. Inside, there are tens of different places to eat, from fruit stands to cheese steaks to sandwiches to etc. See?

Above are two pictures. I could have taken/posted about 30 of them. The place is huge. Since I lived about 13 steps from this place also (I should be much fatter than I am), I along with Amanda, knew exactly where to go. The Dutch weirdo breakfast place:

After ordering and lugging our food back to some plastic tables, we got down to business. Breakfast sandwich for me, eggs, bacon, toast and a big blueberry pancake for Amanda:

Super great food from the Pennsylvania Dutch folks. They hate them some technology, but they love serving them some extra fresh (straight from their farms hours away) food. It’s home-made cheese, fresh eggs and bacon, squeezed orange juice (which is meh for me) in not so fresh styrofoam. Also, they think cameras take their souls in photos. Weirdoes.

Jealous?

Once we finished up, and more importantly, wiped the grease from our hands using roughly 37 napkins, we headed out into the city.

One of my favorite things about Philadelphia is the random street performers. I have two favorites: the first is this crazy bucket drummer who calls himself '”Pots and Pans”. He’s really very good at banging on everything but pots and or pans.

The second performer changes year to year. They’re elementary school kids who play on their schools drum line. Basically, it’s ten or so kids with huge drums strapped to their chest who are really good at drumming. Luckily, today, we saw a troop of kids marching down Market Street. I filmed the heck out of them:

Once I had handed over about 10 dollars in singles into their small white money collecting bucket, Amanda and I started walking to world famous Love Park and then to Rittenhouse Square.

After the show, we headed to world famous LOVE Park. On the way? A fantastic Christian band at City Hall:

Three singers. All tone deaf. I wonder if their god dislikes flat singing as much as human people. I bet it does. That essowrd is grating.

After a quick stop in LOVE Park and photographing the over-photographed statue there…

…we headed into Macy’s. yes, Macy’s. The department store. Amanda wanted to get a rain coat for the trip. It turned out to not be terrible, because I was reminded that the Macy’s near City Hall not only sells clothing, but also houses a pretty great gothic looking pipe organ:

That’s inside of a department store. Providence really sucks.

After the Macy’s organist performance (yes, they pay a person to play the thing), we headed for a rest stop in Rittenhouse Square. We watched 300 rich women take laps pushing their 600 dollar strollers around. Rich people love Rittenhouse Square. So do I.

Once we were sick of sitting on hard wooden benches and making fun of people looking for a place to do yoga in public, we headed to the best museum ever:

There is no picture taking allowed in the museum, so I will describe it as best as I can: It’s basically a two story room filled with medical oddities. Conjoined twin fetuses in formaldehyde, old medical implements, a six foot long colon, three pound urinary tract stones, etc. It is awesome. Read all about it here.

Needless to say, looking at hilarious midget skeletons and babies in jars makes one pretty hungry. We walked the 20 blocks to the greatest place ever:

Philadelphia is known for cheesesteaks. I have eaten hundreds of them from tens of restaurants in the city. Abner’s Cheesesteaks, in University City, is easily the best Cheesesteak in the city/country. The irony is, in the basement of the same building is the worst strip club in the history of history, recoded or otherwise:

Amanda, Dan and I fought the urge to go watch the JV team in the basement and headed into Abner’s. Yum:

The steak is from Australia, the cheese is from America and the bread is freshly baked. It is just the most perfect meal I can think of.

I ate one and a half, along with some fries and two orange sodas. This is what you have to beat every other restaurant in America. The above is the bar. Good luck Memphis Bar-B-Que, LA Fish Tacos, Arizona Tex-Mex and everyone else.

I really do love those damn things. Holy crap.

Once everyone was satiated, we did the tourist thing and had someone snap a picture:

What a bunch of lame-o’s.

After that, our time in Philadelphia was pretty much finished. We headed back to Dan’s apartment and sat around. Another mediocre nights sleep and today we’re off to Pittsburgh for the night.

Once we leave Pittsburgh, the real trip starts. We won’t know anyone at all until we hit northern Nevada. It’s going to probably be better than a lot of other thing I can think of. Most involve working.

Lastly, and finally, Providence has minimal homeless folks, so Philadelphia crushes Rhode Island in the weirdo homeless folks department. Case in point: