Philly - Need restaurant ideas
Posted by mom2blu on Jun 08, 2010 · Member since Apr 2010 · 1 posts
Hi!
My hubby and I are going to Philly for a weekend. Our hotel is near the convention center. Can anyone give me good ideas for place to eat? I am a ovo-vegetarian, and my whole family does not eat dairy. So I need dairy free, and meat free/dairy free options.
Also any generally awesome things that we HAVE to check out are appreciated. So far I demand to see the Mutter Museum, and we are planning to check out O'Doodles, and I'm going to allow a break in our low sugar intake to vistor the really old candy store (shays, or shanes, or something liek that. I have it written down elsewhere lol)
Thanks!!!!
ive been to govindas cafe and had a really good philly style cheese-chicken sandwich, they also sell a few Vegan Treats items which are amazing. if you have a car, venture out to the Vegan Treats bakery in bethlehem, it's awesome and cute. i always search on yelp.com for vegan foods and theres also happy cow, im partial to yelp though.
I knew somewhere I had written up where I ate when I was at a conference in Philadelphia.
Here it is: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=23338.msg216217#msg216217
If I recall correctly, Reading Market is very near the convention center. I'm pretty sure Basic 4 is closed for the Sabbath on Saturday.
And here are a couple of other threads on Philly:
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=26756.0
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=15849.0
Your going to have so much fun! I absolutely love Philly :)>>> In fact I'm driving up tomorrow to see two of my favorite bands ( Defiance Ohio and Mischief Brew). I really like Giannas when I'm there. It has an entire part of the menu dedicated to vegetarians and all can be made vegan. Items range from pizza to cheese steaks (of course!) and now they even have a vegan bakery and its freakin awesome! It is a bit um... punk rockish so be prepared for some mohawks but the food is great and people are nice, here is their website:[urlwww.giannasgrille.com Also, www.vegpa.net will let you know where any and all veg restarants are in the entire state of PA.
As for awesome places in Philly I really like South Street. It is pretty Veg friendly and has neat little eclectic shops and gallerys. Just be careful not to go really late on South Street when the bars get out because there can be alot of drunk bro idiots. My favorite bar Tattoo Moms is also on south street and is really the coolest bar ever with cool people, good music, delicious veg food for cheap and sheer awesomeness. Tattoo Moms is also a little rockerish but it is also one of the coolest I've ever been to and feel like you should check it out if you have time/ are into that sort of thing.
Family friendly stuff would be the historic part where you can see the liberty bell and tour historic sights of Ben Frankin and the founding fathers. The Franklin Institute of science museum is also worth checking out if you have the time (www.Fi.edu). The please touch museum is awesome for little kids in the under 5 range. Theres also Philadelphia museum of art that throws pretty cool events, Academy of natural sciences is good for nature lover. Theres even an Edgar Allen Poe museum although I'm not sure why their always trying to take that away from us (Baltimore). Whatever you guys decide to do I'm sure it will be fun! Have a blast and let me know how it went for you guys!
When I was in Philly I ate at New Harmony (http://www.happycow.net/reviews.php?id=2469) and it was really good. I loved the Mutter Museum, I would also recommend Eastern State Penitentiary.
You know, I am sure you already had your weekend in Philly but I was just there this week and wrote a review of Govinda's Gourmet to go.
Marty's Flying Vegetarian Review can be found at:
www.martysnycveggiereview.blogspot.com
There are a few pics there too.
Hope you had a good time!!
Marty
For a nicer meal go to Govindas (not the to go place)
for dessert go to sweet freedom (just up the block from Govindas)
Giannas for cheesesteak and cannollis!
I used to live just outside philly ( and hated every minute of it) There's a restaurant in Warminster called Blue Sage, which is a vegetarian restaurant, I believe they have vegan options- we only went there once, because our waitress was RUDE, and the experience was horrible. Why am I telling you about this? because the food was ah-mazing. Maybe we were there on an off night, or they don't like heavily inked patrons...who knows.