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Philadelphia - Part 1
A modern-history tour
Written by: Carl Corry
The City of Brotherly Love has grown to become a center of modern living, complete with skyscrapers, trendy restaurants and even a growing number of multimedia firms.
Newlyweds Lars and Judy Rusins came to Philadelphia over President's Day weekend for one simple reason: to eat.
The self-proclaimed food enthusiasts had heard good things about the plethora of new restaurants in the city, so they packed up for a weekend-long tour to find out if the restaurants lived up to the hype.
"It's known as a restaurant town now," Larce Rudins said in between meals at the funky housewares section of Anthropologie in Rittenhouse Square.
The Rudins, who live in Baltimore and often review restaurants for Zagat's, the night before sampled the cuisine at "Iron Chef" Massaharu Morimoto's restaurant on 723 Chestnut Street. They said the food rivaled that of the celebrated Jules Verne Restaurant located at the top of the Eiffel Tower. The Rudins spent their honeymoon in Paris last May.
It's compliments like these, largely through word-of-mouth, that are drawing tourists in droves to the City of Brotherly Love, which also boasts a new contingent of trendy art galleries and retail outlets.
Philadelphia's history is also a big attraction. Millions of people from around the world each year come to tour the sites where our Founding Fathers took the United States from conception to reality. The city's history is a significant part of its modern identity.
Sounds like a great place to visit? It is, but first you have to get there. And for my wife Angela and I, it wasn't easy.
February 15, 2002, 5 p.m.
The car ride from Long Island, which should have taken two and a half hours, turned out to be a mind numbing and painfully protracted five hours through non-stop holiday weekend traffic.
The Belt Parkway, a dependably insufferable stretch of roadway, was in rare form. Traffic didn't let up for more than an hour and continued over the Verrazano Bridge, the Goethal's Bridge and down the "cars only" side of the New Jersey Turnpike.
At 7 p.m., two hours into our ride and not even halfway to Philly, we called to move our 9 p.m. reservation at Toto, a popular Italian restaurant at 1407 Locust St., to 9:30 p.m. With dinner now a distant dream hidden behind miles of virtually parked cars, we did the only proper thing and began loading up on candy. I never truly understood the incredible stress relieving power of Milk Duds until that moment. Angela popped opened a bag of popcorn to observe my frustration as if I were entertainment.
At 9 p.m., on the third Exit 7 (after Exit 7A and 7B, which are miles apart), Angela put in another call to Toto to push the reservation as far back as possible.
"The kitchen closes at 10," said a welcoming voice from the other end of the phone.
"Then I'm going to have to cancel the reservation," Angela said, updating him on our situation with obvious disappointment.
"If you get here before 10, we'd be happy to serve you," he said reassuringly.
But we knew we wouldn't make it and after devouring the box of Milk Duds, I began to nervously bite off my fingernails and spit them at various lug heads unfortunate enough to pull alongside me on route to the Betsy Ross Bridge. Angela says I also started an entirely new dialect of English/Italians curses. These were directed at many New Jersey drivers on their way to Atlantic City. The combination of nail spitting and bellows forced my wife to lodge herself in the passenger side wheel well in embarrassment and out of fear for her safety.
By the time we reached Philadelphia at 10 p.m. - the exact moment at which the kitchen closed at Toto -- we had given up about $15 in tolls and gone over so many bridges that we half expected to be forced back onto the Betsy Ross at least twice more just for kicks.
Greeted by the last known dot-com billboard advertisement anywhere and a small host of brightly lit skyscrapers, Philadelphia was a welcome site.
We arrived at the luxurious Loews Philadelphia hotel and headed upstairs. We were happily surprised to find a spacious room with amazing views of the city, a big living room with a couch that could sit at least 10, a king-sized bed and a great bathroom with a huge pool-sized tub and separate shower stall. We quickly unpacked and rushed down for a bite to eat at the hotel's lounge/bar/restaurant.
The concierge informed us earlier that the restaurant would be open until 11. Once we got there, though, a snooty bartender informed us that it had already closed at 10. We could get a sandwich or some "finger foods," he said.
Fine. We were starving and the place overall was warm and inviting, if a little highbrow. We sat in the lounge area and watched the waiter pass us by several times over five minutes before we up and left. (We were also put off by the prices. A simple chicken Caesar's salad cost $13.) We walked around the corner to McCormick & Schmick's (One South Broad Street), an elegant seafood place across from City Hall, which suited us better overall. McCormick & Schmick's is a chain of 35 restaurants across the country, but nothing like the pre-packaged fast food chains that have littered the suburbs. Menus are printed daily and feature many freshly prepared items.
We were surprised that the restaurant wasn't packed. Our waiter, Dominick, explained that everyone had spent plenty the night before for Valentine's Day, when the restaurant was jammed with more than 600 guests. The staff, which left at 3 a.m. after the onslaught, returned at 11 a.m. to start all over again. They were still recovering.
"We like it like this," Dominick said half-kidding but obviously appreciative of the time to recuperate. Dominick's been in the business for more than 15 years, starting back when he was 16. He also did stints at casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas.
The calamari, bruschetta, blue crab Louis salad and seafood cob salad were outstanding and relatively inexpensive. Including two glasses of pinot grigio, the bill came to $64.
After our long awaited and enjoyable dinner, we headed back to the Loews.
Read part 2 | Read part 3
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