the journeys & musings of Bill Edelman

It turns out that I’ve never visited Philadelphia, so I decided to take a spontaneous trip to America’s birthplace. Philly is a fairly short drive from my home on Long Island (it took a leisurely three hours leaving at 2:30pm on a weekday). Not that I need another terrific reason to have a GPS navigation device, but the ability to simply enter the address of the Marriott Courtyard in downtown Philadelphia and allow my mind to wander as I drove, proved quite relaxing.

I nailed a great deal online for a room in the heart of downtown Philly. It included a VIP ticket to the visiting exhibit of artifacts from King Tuts tomb. After checking into the hotel, I felt responsible to visit a pub where locals might find themselves after work. The desk clerk suggested the Independence Brew Pub at the Reading Terminal Market – about a two block walk. Its a really nice place – although a bit more spacious than I expected. Opposite much of its lengthy bar is half-wall counter which creates more bar stool seating room and doubles as a border between the bar and dining areas. The highlight was their $3 bar menu with choice of fried shrimp, buffalo wings, chile, burger and a few other decent offerings. I ordered the shrimp, which was very good. Patrons appeared mainly to be corporate staff, and were all upbeat, courteous, and friendly to be around.

Before leaving Long Island, I had jumped onto Google to find a hotel and dinner spot for my night in town. I stumbled across Roys which features Hawaiian cuisine with a menu that heavily favors seafood lovers. At 7:30pm I was able to be seated immediately. The lakanilau roll appetizer was generous in size and nothing short of amazing. It is seared beef wrapped around snow crab, asparagus and avocado. It was clearly the highlight of my dinner experience.

For the main course, I ordered the Roys Classic Trio which includes a sampling of grilled salmon, blackened ahi tuna, and misoyaki butterfish, each in its own unique and flavorful sauce. The trio is served on a rectangular wooden tray with three 5″ square ceramic plates. Although quite tasty, the portions of fish were so small that any of the three, if wrapped in foil, could masquerade as a pillow mint. If it were not for the fried shrimp at Independence Brew Pub, and the lakanilau roll appetizer, I would have needed to stop for an early midnight snack on my way back to the hotel. I tend to be someone who often feels the portions served at most restaurants are too large (and potentially a contributing cause of our National plague of obesity), but this bordered on stingy. I suppose guests who partake in one of Roys calorie laden desserts might feel less impact from the petite serving size. On my next visit to a Roys (they have locations in several major cities) I will opt for any one of the single entrees over the trio.

A brief conversation with the bus-girl Stephanie forced me to believe that she wandered out of a love-in hosted by The Mamas and The Papas straight into a time machine set for 2007. She is a self-admitted product of hippy love children. Her forearm is graced with a tatoo intended to remind her to be a bad-ass [sic] in order to overcome her tendency for unbridled kindness. If I had spent just a few more minutes chatting with Stephanie, this 3rd generation stoner could have easily been a blog entry all her own.

The streets of downtown Philly were remarkably clean – even the street beggar who approached me was personable and briskly convinced me to mirthfully surrender my spare change. The region of downtown Philadelphia that I sampled included the Museum District, the northern edge of the Rittenhouse District near the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and Chinatown, plus the Washington Square and Historic Districts. They are, of course, the areas that the Philadelphia tourism folks want visitors to see, so they are appropriately maintained. Unfortunately, I didnt get over to the waterfront area.

Philadelphia’s City Hall is the largest municipal building in the U.S. containing 700 rooms within 8 floors. It was completed in 1901 after 30-years of construction. Since its supporting structure is entirely made of stone, exterior walls on the ground level are 22 feet thick (yes, that’s 22 FEET). The ornately grandiose exterior was designed to make the building appear only to have 3 floors, each with enormously high ceilings. In fact, each floor enjoys an impressive 16-feet height in their own right. City Hall is comprised of a four sided building with a center courtyard accessible to the surrounding streets through four arched entryways.The photo on the right, taken at nite, shows only the upper most portion of the south (rear) section.

- more tomorrow…