Brett and Kate's Adventures

I admit, it’s been much more than a week since the first round-up was posted and here’s my rationale: now that we’re pretty settled in, things have slowed down a bit and I wanted to wait until there were enough news-worthy items to share…so there. Overall, Philly is treating us mighty well…we’ve already found some great restaurants, have finally figured out the grocery and alcohol buying(sort of), have visited several neighborhoods around the city, and are looking forward to checking out some of the touristy things soon. So far, working from home is going well for Brett, once we really turned the office into an office, although he might start going down to the co-working space once I start classes. Speaking of classes – I can’t wait! I’m doing my best to take advantage of this free time, but am very anxious to truly be a student again…just three weeks to go! Aside from that, here are the highlights from the past 2 weeks:

• We officially had our first visitor – Mike D! Mike happened to be coming to the East coast for a business mtg in Jersey, so he decided to fly into Philly and hang out with us for a few days. If you happened to catch the review for Hikari, Mike joined us for that amazing meal as well as venturing downtown with us for our first set of cheese steaks. Not only was it great to see him, but was tons of fun hosting in our new house!
• We traveled via bus for the first time, and to anyone in Chicago reading this: you are never allowed to complain about the CTA again…ever. We couldn’t help but compare the 2 systems and between terrible signage regarding our buses detoured route to not having screens inside the bus displaying the upcoming stops and especially a bus-tracking system that is still in an early test phase(2 routes), the buses here just aren’t the same. Luckily, Brett and I will be able to take the same bus to work/school that pretty much takes us both door-to-door during the cold months, but other than that, I’m glad I decided to get a bike!
• One of the things we were most looking forward to about Philly was how quickly we could leave it. Case in point, last weekend after driving about 40 minutes from our house we were in the middle of Valley Forge where we spent the afternoon hiking and checking out what used to be General Washington’s Headquarters during the Revolutionary War. The half-day trip was awesome and we’re really looking forward to trying out the several other hiking spots around…and in the winter, it’ll be all about skiing since we’re only 2 hours from the mountains – take that Midwest!

Of course we’re missing Chicago a little, and our friends a LOT, but this city is turning out to be a great place for us and we couldn’t be happier with the decision to move here. We’re having a blast and so glad to share it with you…but be on the look-out, we’ll be back to our respective hometowns and Chicago in no time!

Your urban explorers,
Brett and Kate

Moving to a city with less-congested streets than Chicago was incentive enough for Kate to get a new bike for the first time since childhood…yay! Besides, with campus only about a 15-minute ride from the house it’ll be a great way to save on bus fare. AND just a few minutes from us is the river that has some amazing bike paths/trails all along it…a great new way for us to get out and exercise together.

For our first ride Monday night, we took one of the riverside paths up to Manayunk and back, about 10 miles total, in about an hour. Tthe path is pretty nice the whole way, just a little narrow at a few points, but still easily navigable. Hopefully we can keep this up and get a ride in at least every other day:)

Rolling right along,
Brett and Kate

Saturday night, our quest to visit each neighborhood in the city took us to Manayunk and our day of hiking around Valley Forge sent us in search of a good patio to sit back, relax, and enjoy the nice evening with some new beers. A semi-quick but painful Metromix search pointed us to Manayunk Brewery, where we were both almost turned away for our IDs. After winding through an unnecessary maze to approach the “outdoor hostess” we got a table on the gigantic patio nestled right on the bank of the Schuylkill. Once our waitress finally came to give us a beer menu, we were excited about the selection of hometown brews to try. All-in-all we had: Thai Chicken Bites(good basic bar snack) & White Pizza(nice ‘n lite) and drank: Manayunk Lager(good standard crisp ale), Krook’s Mill(not-so-smooth pale ale), Yunkers’ Gold(lager with a bite), and Peach Wheat(a little sweet but not too sissy). The whole evening was decent enough, but I don’t see us rushing back there anytime soon…I was hoping for MB to be the awesome local brewery we can’t get enough of but we’ll have to keep looking(and drinking)!

Rating: 3.5 forks
Location: 4120 Main St
Price: food $5-$20, beer $5

Unfortunately, it wasn’t rave reviews that brought us to Hikari (though it should have been). Once we decided we wanted to check out the Northern Liberties area and that we were hungry for sushi, Hikari was our only choice. Luckily for us, there were plenty of seats(we were even able to get a table outside on such a gorgeous night), and our waitress promptly greeted us and took care of our bottle of wine. The menu was pretty standard, although quite extensive including a section of Korean entrees and a long list of specialty rolls. We decided to go with the Polar Bear Maki(salmon & avocado topped w/ white tuna), Palm Spring Maki(tuna, salmon, mango wrapped in cucumber), and a Spicy Yellowtail Maki. When the rolls came out they were not only beautiful but plentiful – and they certainly tasted as good as they looked! So good, in fact, that we ordered a second plate of the Polar Bear & Spicy Yellowtail (left of photo). This place has already beat out some of our Chicago favorites so needless to say, we’ll be making the drive back to Hikari for the mouth-watering Miso and scrumptious sushi, not to mention the wonderful hospitality.

Rating: 5 forks
Location: 1040 N American St
Price: $7-$15

When one of our favorite musician’s (Ernie Halter) tour was passing through Philly last week, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check out a new part of town – the neighborhood of Penn’s Landing. Not knowing what to expect we arrived early and were pleasantly surprised with the amount of other bars/restaurants on the surrounding blocks. For this show, we opted out of having dinner downstairs beforehand at Serrano, with the notion that the dinner/show combo at most venues isn’t worth it. However, the high plate prices might be outweighed by the reserved table seating for the show since the only other seats are a single row of stools along one side wall and a few standing places way in the back at the bar. Nonetheless, it was a pretty neat (albeit awkward) space that had amazing sound. I plan on paying attention to upcoming shows at Tin Angel, but will likely shell out for dinner in order to get a front row seat.

4 cups zucchini, sliced 1/8 inch thick
1 cup slivered onion
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
3/4 teaspoon red pepper flake
3/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

Combine zucchini, onion, and garlic – place in glass jar.
In small sauce pan, bring vinegar, sugar, & spices to a boil.
Pour liquid over zucchini mixture, cover, & refrigerate for 24 hours.

*I made these earlier this week, and they’re amazing!! Great combo of sweet/spicy…thanks to Cooking Light magazine for the suggestion!

Here it is – our new home! So far it’s treating us well (despite not having A/C for a few days) and we’re about 96% settled into the place. We definitely still have some updates to make to the bathroom and office, mostly cosmetic things to organize a bit and make it feel a little cozier, but the downstairs is pretty much done. We love, love, love our kitchen!! I mean, the whole house is great, but the kitchen is just perfect for us – lots of counter space (we both get to use our own knife sets) and tons of storage…what that means  is that we’ve been all-out cooking every meal since we’ve been here. It’s pretty awesome Next up, besides the bathroom and office, will be getting some paintings made to help with the several big, blank walls we have.

Making a house a home,

Brett and Kate

As the home of our favorite slogan thus far, “Coffee in the A.M. Sushi in the P.M.”, this little spot was a great neighborhood find on our first day here. We’ve been twice for coffee and were finally able to try the sushi last night. Without a terribly extensive menu, they certainly cover all of the basics and their specials menu has some pretty unique rolls (Shaggy Dog, anyone?) We only wanted a little bite, so we decided to go with the Tiger Eye Roll (special) and a simple Spicy Tuna, for easy comparison’s sake. In the 15 minutes it took to wait for our order to be ready, we were able to run down the street & pick up some wine, getting back just in time to pick up the sushi and head home. After trying each of the rolls, we were oddly enough more impressed by the Spicy Tuna. Though nothing was extra-ordinary about it, the generous portions of fish made it more than worth the $6 and oh-so-yummy! As for the Tiger Eye, it was quite frankly one of the best rolls we’ve had, but $12 for 6 pieces is a bit on the excessive side. We will most definitely be returning (for both the coffee and the sushi), but are looking forward to seeing how this new corner shop matures over the coming months.

Rating: 3.5 forks

Location: 735 N 26th St

Price: $5-$15

If you love or at least enjoy chocolate and don’t mind spending a premium on some one-of-a-kind menu items, Max Brenner is the place for you. We found ourselves wanting to see what the crazy chocolate fuss was about when we saw Max Brenner’s restaurant on the list of participating Center City Sips venues. It definitely gave us a good glimpse of downtown, was just a touch on the touristy side, but let’s face it – it was fun. After a round of some local Phil. Brewing Co. Kenzinger beers, we stepped it up a notch and tried both CCS cocktails. The Psychedelic Punch was your typical summer rum mix (albeit not overly sweet, which was nice) and the Mocha Madness martini was quite luxurious, however, I’m pretty sure we never would have ordered them at their regular price of $11.95 a piece. Similarly, our app of Spinach Dip was pretty tasty with its chili-dusted tortilla chips, but also not worth it’s full price. We had a great time and will most likely be visiting again when we have out-of-town guests to sample some good old Hot Chocolate, which at $5-7 is a price I can live with!

Rating: 3 forks

Location: 1500 Walnut St

Price: food – $10-18, drinks – $5-15

Now that we, and our stuff, have been living here for a full week, we thought we’d share some of the key things we’ve learned:

1) Neighborhoods here change even quicker than in Chicago. We were told not to park on the cross-street north of our house because it’s not so great, but at the cross-street to the south, there are kids playing outside at 9pm with their parents completely care-free! Needless to say, we’re learning our boundaries quickly and are tremendously grateful for the built-in GPS navigation on our phones

2) Not everyone in Philly is rude. Within 30 minutes of arriving the first day, while we were brining in the few items we had in the car with us, both our next door neighbors (a young married couple), and a woman from across the street came outside to introduce themselves to us and welcome us to the neighborhood – I never even got that in Chicago! Since then we’ve met several other people on our block, and one guy (whose family has owned his house for 3 generations) is trying to put together a block party for later in the fall, which we love!

3) You have to plan ahead to buy alcohol. Liquor laws here in PA are a bit tricky because there is no private enterprise within the alcohol industry. In other words, there are no Mom ‘n Pop stores nor can grocery stores (e.g.) have any part in selling alcohol. That means that to get beer, you must buy it directly from a distributor, which are of course few and far between and keep regular business hours for the most part. (There are a FEW bars which hold a special license allowing them to sell 6-packs to go, but it’s a little strange) Wine and hard liquor, on the other hand, are only sold at state-run facilities (also not greatly accessible), with hours of 9am-9pm and security guards all around. So, to sum it up, it’s not impossible, but will definitely take some getting used to!

Much more to come – now that we’re pretty settled into the house, we’ll be venturing out some more and will be sharing all the fun stuff we’re doing!

Loving Philly so far,

Brett and Kate