Twilight Diner: No Vampires Here

Dating a musician has its sacrifices....many, many of them. For example, instead of spending an awesome Friday night in NYC, I am stuck on a chinatown van crammed with valley girl college students for 7 hours in traffic( Yes 7. Left at 4pm, got there at 11) to Penn State to meet him at a show. It was my first time at Penn State, and I can't ever imagine anyone ever wanting to go to school here, it is in the middle of NOWHERE. Anyway, I digress... The day after, we were headed to East Stroudsburg PA for another show and stopped off yet again (can you guess?) in the middle of know where to grab breakfast. Only food place? Twilight Diner.  A single creepy looking restaurant with its only surroundings being the forest.

Grilled Chicken Sandwich

Buddy got this, and of course, I stole a bite. It was actually really good! The chicken breast juicy, the lettuce and tomato's fresh. The kaiser roll also tasted fresh baked. Only downer was the the pickles were sweet. Ugh, I hate bread and butter pickles... some things are just not meant to taste sweet.

Price: $5.50

Grilled Cheese

Not much to report here...like simple home made grilled cheese.

Price: $4.00

Pizza

Aaron, their manager got this. It looks like an neglected child very simple, but he claimed it kicked Pizza Huts ass.  To each his own. I guess the sausage turds are what is really off putting to me.

Price: $6.00

Turkey Club

Hmm.... somehow I feel like I am the one that picked the tastiest lunch...? I ordered it with sweet potato fries. My club was actually delicious. Ample bacon, fresh turkey and perfectly portioned. The sweet potato fries were actually some of the best I've ever had! They were crisp flavorful and hit the spot.

Price: $6.50

Teaberry Ice Cream

They also had a bunch of Hershey's ice cream flavors on their dessert menu. Never one to pass up dessert, (or ice cream for that matter) I went with Teaberry. It was okay, great as a gum flavor, a bit too much as an ice cream flavor

Price: Free! Waitresses treat

I hope the waitress appreciates our present.  I always wished that people left me food art when I used to wait tables.

Verdict: This place might be in the middle of know where, but is fresh, fast, and cheap! I guess a good thing about going on the road is finding all these little fun places to eat. Next time any of you happen to find yourself outside of Happy Valley and are starving and on the road (hey never say never) This place will fill your stomach, but not empty your wallet.

Twilight Diner

603 N Mill St
Loganton, PA 17747

(570) 725-3911

Brunch: Toilet Water + Giant Condiment Basket= ?

Buddy and I ventured into the center of West Chester in search of the ultimate brunch....and we stumbled upon the Market Street Grille. Walking in it was surprisingly crowded, which is always a sign of good food.

The specials are written on the black board in the back.. .Don't forget to take a look because chances are, your waiter/ waitress is not going to bother telling you!

Toilet Water

 The worst possible water I have had ever in my life. I know this isn't superior New York tap, but this was barely drinkable. So was the coffee we ordered, which was essentially coffee flavored toilet water. I never ask for bottled but I was very close to purchasing one.

Giant Condiment Basket

This took up half of our table. Why did we need 30 creamers, 40 butter pats or 35 grape jellies? I have know idea, but at least it was there in case of a unbuttered toast emergency.

Stuffed French Toast

In the description it was supposedly made with Cinnamon swirl french toast stuffed with caramelized strawberries, walnuts and cream cheese. Well... WTF happened to the "stuffed" part? 

Moving past that, there was WAY too much strawberry syrup on the toast, it made the toast soggy and overly sweet. Though it was a nice alternative to maple syrup. I did appreciate how they actually cooked the strawberries into the sauce, which made the berries soft and fun to eat. But what saved this dish with the nice giant piece of cream cheese they added. It was a cool, tart and creamy break from the starchy bread and insane sweetness of the sauce. I would get this again, but ask for the strawberry syrup on the side

Price: $7.50

Corn Bennie

This was an egg benedict, but made with cornbread, avocado, two poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and hash browns on the side. Holy flavor explosions in my mouth. The cornbread was crunchy, sweet and who new avocado would taste so awesome with it?? Creamy earthy goodness and perfectly ripened. The eggs were poached just right, but the winner was the hollandaise sauce. Velvety, and with a touch of garlic thrown into the flavor mix. Recommended.

Price: $ 9.50

Verdict: You must look at the menu board in the back for specials! I didn't get a chance to see what else they had to offer until after I ordered, and I had spotted smoked apple with fioe gras benedict....wha???! I would have ordered that if I knew it was the special! Beverages are not their forte, but other than that this is a solid pick if you are looking for inventive and fun brunch food in West Chester.

Market Street Grille

6 West Market Street
West Chester, PA 19382

(610) 429-5328

Dinner: Limerick Diner's Menu Tells Lies

Buddy and I had planned on seeing Toy Story 3 in IMAX 3D (which was AMAZINGGGGG) last Friday, and so we wanted to go to a place to eat on a budget. Seeing how Limerick Diner was re-done and now serving alcohol, we figured to give it a shot.

Ample Parking....high school memories anyone? This was the place to come after school and pig out on their massive omelette's, milkshakes, and pancakes.

An enticing display of petite desserts. You know I was going to come back for some after dinner!

Yeungling on Tap and  a Dirty Martini

First, the drinks took FOREVER to get to the table. Second I suspect.... that they didn't put any alcohol in my drink!! Sure I asked for a dirty martini, but it was definitely all olive juice. After finishing the drink, I didn't feel a nice buzz....I felt like I wanted 7 glasses of water because I just drank pure salt juice. Plus this gave me indigestion. If you do wish for alcohol with your meal, stick with the beer (which came out icy cold) 

Yuegling: $3.50

Olive Juice: $5.50

Vegetable Minestrone

This came with free with Buddy's meal. Overly salty but the vegetables were plentiful and melted in your mouth. The noodle in this were overdone.

Clam Chowder

This came free with my meal. Sure this soup looks like someone vomited in my bowl, but it was still pretty tasty. I'm not sure why I like this soup, there a few clam chunks, and the potatoes are well done, but it has an unusual gummy texture, overly salted and I'm pretty sure it's a couple of days old. Yet for some reason I continue to eat it. 

Corned Beef Sandwich

Buddy ordered this one. The beef was dry, cold and the dressing was purely coleslaw, not even a hint of russian dressing. The best part of the sandwich? The rye bread. He ended up only eating half the sandwich and stealing my dinner instead.

Price: $ 6.75

Chicken Carbonara with Linguine

So I don't know about everyone else out there, but when I think of pasta carbonara, I think linguine, scrambled eggs, pancetta, olive oil, and lotsa fresh cracked pepper. 

On the Limerick diners menu they subbed the pancetta with bacon, and no pepper or olive oil. Im fine with that, its a diner after all. They do say eggs. If you look at the picture, there is clearly hard-boiled eggs in my dish... for the love of all things Italian, why?! Were they too lazy scramble eggs into my pasta? This was very off putting. To top it off they added a massive amount of  tasteless cheese sauce. If I wanted cheese sauce,  would have gotten chicken alfredo. Instead of tiny bits of bacon, they literally took stripes of bacon, cut them in half, and threw it in the pasta. On the plus side, this thing was big enough to feed a village, with 4 large pieces of chicken breast hidden in the folds of the sauce. The chicken was surprisingly moist and perfectly cooked. The pasta was also perfectly cooked al dente- just the way I like it. This monster lasted me 4 separate meals after I brought the leftovers home.

Price: $13.95

Key Lime Pie Cheesecake

Before we left for dinner, I was watching a special on Food Network about cheesecakes. This got me craving one. After finishing my meal, I wanted to top it off with something tart and small. I opted for their key lime pie cheesecake. It had a lemon filling in the center, which was more sweet than tart. I was surprised by how much more cakey than dense this was. It was bordering almost to the point of angel food cake. The custard on top was also sickeningly sweet. I would get something else next time.

Price: $ 3.75

Verdict: Get the beer, not their mixed drinks. Want pasta? go for it, but maybe get one of their more traditional choices than a fancy one.  I would also  stick to my Kosher restaurants for corned beef or pastrami. However this place is still a vast improvement then what it used to be. Would I come back? Of course, there is still about a million things to try on their menu one is bound to be a jackpot. It's Limerick Diner after all!

Limerick Diner

411 W Ridge Pike

Limerick, Pa 19468

Brunch: West Chester Diner

Sunday mornings are always lazy, and this past Sunday morning was no exception. Instead of heading out anywhere fancy, Buddy and I decided to grab brunch at a diner close to his apartment, and within a 5 minute drive, we were there. It has been quite a while since I ate at a diner, but I was looking forward to the cheap fast food.

View from the road

We walked into this, a decent sized breakfast buffet!

And a separate sweets section! Since I am always torn between something sweet ( like pancakes) or something salty (like eggs) for breakfast, the buffet was my savour, because then I could get a little of everything! After letting the waitress know about my decision, I flew over to the buffet table.

My first Plate: French Toast, Waffle, Veggie and Cheese Frittata

The French toast was the best part of this plate (even though it looks like the saddest). It was chewy and dense and soaked up the syrup beautifully. The waffles lost its crisp outer coating and was soft and soggy, probably from sitting under the heat lamps. The frittata's consistency was odd; the texture was as if they mixed bread into the eggs. The cheese in the frittata also looked and tasted like plastic.

My Second Plate: Apple Cinnamon Pastry, Coffee Cake, Zucchini Muffin, Poppyseed Muffin, Fruit

I was really excited about the pastry, but it was boring and kind of stale. Not worth filling my tummy for, especially when I wanted to try a bunch of things still from the buffet. The Coffee cake was extremely dry and crumbly- a huge disappointment as well.The two muffins however, were moist and quiet tasty, and the fruit was very fresh and ripe.

My Third Plate: Egg, Cheese, Veggie Omelette, Pancake, Biscuit, French Toast Stick

I decided to try the other eggs that they had out, it had more cheese, but it too was rubbery and jelly like.. wow, I can't believe I actually ate it.  The pancake was dry and crumbly...I was starting to wish I didn't get the buffet by then and with low expectations, I tried the biscuit. What a surprise, it too was dry and tasteless.  The winner here was the sad looking french toast stick! It was deep fried, so it was very crunchy and fun to dip into the syrup.

Bacon

As part of our buffet we get bacon, but we had to order it from the kitchen first. This is how much they gave us.  I guess you cant really screw up cooking bacon, so...here it is....bacon.

Chocolate Pudding

At this point, I thought the chocolate pudding would show some promise. Nope. Can you guess what it tasted like? If you guessed plastic, you would be right! Watery, plasticly, fake chocolate.

Price: (for buffet) $10.00

Verdict: Looks ( and price) can be deceiving, so if you decided to go to West Chester diner...DON'T get the buffet! Just order something fresh from the kitchen. Even getting there fairly early (it was around 10am) the food tasted like it had been sitting out for a bit. I am usually a fan of buffets, but maybe keeping eggs out in a massive pile isn't such a good idea ( to eat). They had sausage, scrapple, and grits with bacon in it as well, but I didn't try any because I didn't want to die from disgust. The only reason I would come back is because I had remembered a long time ago, I got a piece of blueberry pie from here and it was amazing. Next time I will get the same and see if its still worth giving this place another shot.

West Chester Diner

1147 West Chester Pike

West Chester, PA 19382-5000

www.thewestchesterdiner.com