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taco Thursday in Philadelphia
Thursday, February 18 2016
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
To celebrate our upcoming 15th anniversary, Gretchen had arranged for another vegan dining vacation in Philadelphia, and this time it wouldn't just be a stop along the way but would instead be the destination itself. That's how good the food is there. Again Gretchen had booked us a room at the dog-friendly Palomar Hotel, meaning we could bring the dogs. Since the dogs are the main reason for arranging a house sitter, this time we could just have friends drop in once each day to feed the cats. That also meant we wouldn't need to clean the house as thoroughly before departure.
We loaded up the car and left fairly early, driving down the Thruway and then to near the southern end of I-287. From there, it seems theories differ about the best route to Philadelphia. Google Maps sent us on a complicated series of small roads through the McMansion-filled countryside of New Jersey. Somewhere along US 202 we needed a place to run the dogs, and in looking for one we came perilously close to being trapped in a Jersey vortex. Eventually we found a place called Nortlandz, which has a seasonal light-gauge recreational train track complete with station (overgrown though it was with thick Poison Ivy vines). Around the station proved to be an ideal place for running the dogs.
Our first destination in Philadelphia was Blackbird Pizzeria, where some of the greatest seitan known to man can be had. Unfortunately, it was closed for the day for repairs. So, after a long search for parking on the street, we went to a new Latin vegan place near Rittenhouse Square called Bar Bombon. It was expensive, but the "fish" tacos were amazing. After that, we took the dogs in a cold and entirely fruitless walk in Rittenhouse Square. There were a pair of cops there at the time who appeared out of nowhere when someone's off-leash Pit Bull attacked a big poofy white dog, but the fight was soon broken up and the dog's owner didn't appear to get in any trouble. Perhaps a white privilege card had been produced from a jacket pocket.
When we checked in to the Palomar, we were congratulated on our anniversary (Gretchen had been sure to mention it) and told our room had been upgraded. Amusingly, though, our room (2008) turned out to be smaller than the one we'd had on our last stay. This time, though, Palomar gave us a couple dog beds, which was great because Eleanor doesn't have the knees to jump up on a bed but requires something soft to lie on.
Before long, it was time for the Palomar's one hour of free wine down in the lobby. We took our dogs and did our best to keep them from getting under people's feet while strangers gushed over how cute they were. Occasionally a piece of popcorn would fall nearby and one or the other of the dogs would eat it. The pattern on the carpet had apparently been selected so that popcorn would appear to be invisible on it, and several times Eleanor tried to eat one of the stray white spots that were part of its pattern.
For dinner, we went to our favorite restaurant in perhaps the entire world: VStreet. We ordered all the usual things we get here: the Peruvian fries and the langos. I also had the mulligatawny soup, which was kind of meh by the standards of this place. For the main course, I had Korean fried tempeh tacos (a new thing) and they were sublime. My beverages was a Blizkreig Hops Double IPA, which proved better than expected (we don't come to Philadelphia for the beer, and this one is from a local brewery).
After another mixed-results walk of the dogs in Rittenhouse Square (Ramona finally urinated!), we watched a bunch of teevee. For some reason Gretchen was in the mood for watching HGTV, mostly for the view it gave us into houses in other places. There was a show called Five Day Flip about an Australian woman who reworks houses in five days and then flips them for a tidy profit. In today's case, the house was in Minnesota and the required work took eight days, but the increase in value (over the house itself and the price of improvements) came to $50,000. Later we watched House Hunters International about a housing search in the Faroe Islands (a Danish-ruled set of islands between Scotland and Iceland). HGTV has a way of hooking the viewer and compelling binge watching by immediately launching into the next show without any break for advertising after the last show comes to an end. Unfortunately, there are lots and lots of ads in the commercial breaks. But we see so few of these on our DVR that they're something of a novelty.
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