West Chester Restaurant Festival: Huge Poops, Here I Come!

A couple of weeks ago it was the 31st annual  West Chester Restaurant Festival in PA. All types of restaurants in the PA area come, put up tents and stands to sell their signature dishes and shamelessly promote their business. Everything from generic street fair food to gourmet specialty shoppes showed up with their best. Oh, and there was clothing vendors and hippy stores as well... but who cares about that?? Well, enough small talk, time to check out the goodies!

 The streets were ridiculously over crowded with massive amounts of people and their families, seriously... maybe it's time to stop procreating so much? Or at least practice procreating safely with preventive measures?!? . I really wanted to bulldoze over the moms with their huge strollers  wished that the streets were a little wider for more walking room. It was worse than being squashed on the L train during morning rush hour.

Fudge Delight Inc

 Fresh Fudge?! Well, I guess this will be my first stop!

 So many choices! I didn't want to fill up on fudge ( is this line "thats what she said" appropriate? And who is this "she" anyway? She sounds like a whore)

 Chocolate and Peanut Butter

I went with an old stand-by. Thick, creamy, intensely dense and sweet. After about 3 little bites I was already getting a sugar high.  Speaking of high.. so were the prices! They didn't price them by how much you wanted, but only sold 1/4 lbs and every increment heavier. I tried looking up their location, but apparently they only do food festivals and shows. 

Price: $5.00 for 1/4 lb

Mabels Barbeque

 A super happy rack of ribs slathering herself up for your consumption? Why not stop here?!

 Ribs... *sigh*, they give me such a moral dilemma. One one side, they come from pigs, which are super cute animals that can play fetch and are just plain adorable. On the other side.. they are fucking delicious.  And so were these babies ( sob...nom, nom, sob, sob..) Fall off the bone semi sweet and sticky sauce. Finger licking good!

Price: $5.00 for 3 ribs

Mabels Barbeque 

607 E Market Street

West Chester PA 19382

 Maggie Moo's

 Chocolate and Better Batter

ICE CREAM!!! I know Maggie Moo's is a chain, but wow, can they churn an utterly creamy ice cream. I gave a scoop to my boyfriend and he asked if this was from a gelato cart. It certainly did have the silky consistancy of gelato as well as the intense flavors. I would not hesitate to stop by a Maggie Moo's near you next time!

Price: $3.00 for 2 scoops

Capt'n Dick's BBQ

 I was going to just walk past this...but...look at those racks of ribs!!

 Um... and whole Turkey legs??!

 More ribs... these were a bit tougher than Mabels, and they also had more lean meat on the bone. They won with their sauce however. Tangy, spicy and left a lingering kick in your mouth. Pluse, they gave me 1 extra rib which I liked ;)

Price: $2.00 for 1 rib

Captn Dicks

www.captndicksbbq.com

Only for catering

Dippin Dots

 Strawberries n Cream

Com'on... who could I say no to these? They are just so freakin fun to eat!

Price: $3.00 for a small

Gadaleto's Seafood Market

Half Lobster Roll with a side of potato salad

This was ... mediocre at best. Buddy didn't even want to finish it! It was literally only about 3-4 inches and was stringy had too much mayo. and celery. The Lobster should be the star, not celery.

 Price: $6.00 for half a roll

Gadaleto's Seafood Market

929 South High Street

West Chester PA, 19382

 Numzees Tavern-n-Grille

 Mushroom and Brie Egg Roll

Mmm.mmm... what can you get for a dollar these days? Maybe a gross hamburger from McDonalds? Or a freaking delicious egg roll from Numzees? I have never heard of this tavern befor, but the egg roll was awesome. Chewy, crunchy and stuffed with ooey, gooey cheese.  

Price: $1.00

Numzees Tavern-n Grill

520 Lincoln Street

Oxford PA 19363

http://www.numzees.com/numz/html/index.html

The National Rifle also played!

Verdict: I thought the hours of 12-5 were a little short, but after about 1/2 trying to shuffle through the crowd, I was ready to leave. I was fun to taste all of the foods I would normally walk by at certain restaurants, but next year I would suggest getting there around 4, when some of the crowd has died off a bit

Grom: Well, I'm Satisfied

MMmm... gelato. My one weakness. Walking around the West Village and window shopping at stores you can't afford can make you depressed and hungry. So how does one drown out their sorrows you might ask? By indulging in a little gelato of course!

Waiting in line, the most antsy part... give me my gelato gosh darn it!!

Pesca i Crema di Menta

Peach and Mint Creme. The peach sorbet was tart, fresh and left a lingering bite of tang on my tongue. Not my favorite peach sorbet, but it definitely hits the spot when it is 20000 degrees out. The mint creme was also refreshing, no toothpaste analogy here. The mint hits you more so after the smooth creme dissolves on the tongue. Perfection on a humid day. Only dislike? They didn't fill the cone all the way down, so I ended up throwing it away, bummer.

Price: $4.75

Verdict: Satisfying, high quality ingredients, but pricey. Hey, what else do you expect? You are in the West Village after all!

Grom Gelato

233 Bleeker Street

New York, NY 10022

www.grom.it/eng

Cones: Drunk From Ice Cream?

After my scrumptious tuna melt from Murrays Cheese Shop, I wanted to top it off with a sweet treat. I had a groupon to Cones, and Argentinian gelato place only a couple of store down from Murray's and thought it was a perfect opportunity to use my coupon.

There was a bit of a line, but that was okay, it just gave me more time to pick a flavor!

Hmmm....all these underlined words make this ice cream seem hardcore...I'll take it!

Kumquat with Johnnie Walker Black label Ice Cream

Well... this tastes like....

Preserved Prunes with an intense after taste of alcohol. The ice cream was smooth, creamy and by the last bite of wafer I felt slightly tipsy. Yes, drunk by ice cream, possibly the best way to be. 

Price: $11.00

Verdict: Tasty, but 2 scoops of ice cream that cost more than my lunch? Not worth it. I will however, go back to try their other more standard flavors.

Cones

272 Bleeker Street

New York NY 10014

Capogiro: Memories of Italy In One Delicious Lick

Okay, 1 more post on Philadelphia, and I tomorrow I will post about New York again! I had to post this because this gelato place is so fantastic.

I went to the Sansom location ( yes after I got the cupcakes from yesterday's post) because who could resist a cool creamy treat after a day for walking around eating?

 Roomy, clean, and not only do they serve delicious gelato, they also have panini's, croissants and cookies too. Oh and get this; they also have H& H bagels from New York. I personally am not a fan of that particular bagel company, but it's nice to know.

 Bacio and Mora Gelato

Bruce ordered Bacio (which is chocolate and hazelnut gelato with bits of hazelnut in it) and Mora (which is blackberry gelato). I didn't have any, but it looked incredibly decadent.

Price: $4.50

 Thai Coconut Milk Gelato and Watermelon Sorbet

As usual, I had to get mine in a cone. Holy Cannoli, was this refreshing! The coconut milk gelato was ultra creamy, natural hints of coconut with an after taste of rum. This complimented the watermelon (which actually tasted exactly like watermelon without being overly sweet or fake tasting.) With every lick, I was one step closer to heaven until...

This! WTF?? A hollow cone is the saddest thing ever  :(

Price: $4.50 (+ .25 for a cone)

Verdict: Ah.... this small reminder of Italy is enough to subside my urge to buy a plane ticket there and want to order another serving! Great quality gelato when you don't feel like walking over to Reading Terminal for Bassett's Ice Cream.

Capogiro Gelato

119 S 13th St

Philadelphia, PA 19107

www.capogirogelato.com

Sweet Tooth: Vegan Ice Cream?!?

After dinner one night with Melissa and Nikoma, we all got the sweet tooth and wanted a little treat. Since Nikoma is a vegan we decided to stop by Stogo, an all vegan organic  ice cream shop!

Outside and right across the street from Urban Outfitters

Display of goodies! They also have vegan cupcakes and macarons for sale as well.

Also, just to let you know: There are 3 different types of "bases" for the ice cream:

soy based: I tried the pistacchio, dry as hell, almost powdery...egh

coconut based: Tried the blueberies and cream, very creamy; the most resembling traditional ice cream

hemp based: I tried the honey walnut; gritty and inconsistent in texture..again, egh

Ice Cream Sandwich

Nikoma got this and it was made with vegan chocolate chip cookies from Babycakes and vanilla ice cream (coconut based). Thank goodness I asked him to take a picture of it for me because by the time I paid and sat down with him, it was all gone!  He absolutely loved it.

Price:  $ 5.50

Blueberries and Cream

Well....the truth is, the only way for me to truly enjoy ice cream is if I eat it in a cone. Since stogo didn't sell their ice cream in cones, I bought a cone from a store and brought it into Stogo. Yes, I know I am a freak of nature. But a girls gotta do whatever it takes to enjoy ice cream at its fullest potential right??

Finally done making my ice cream cone!

I had tried handing my cone to the girl behind to counter so she could fill it, but she looked at the cone as if it had Herpes or something " Umm... its our POLICY that we don't have our equipment touch anything from the OUTSIDE." She said almost snobbishly. Fine, I will my own cone after you wasted a perfectly good plastic cup for nothing. Organic and vegan they may be, but not eco-conscious! ( I guess you can have it all?)

Anyway, on to the ice cream.... it was insanely creamy, generously drizzled with blueberries throughout and an after taste if coconut, which complimented the blueberries very nicely. If someone hadn't told me this was vegan, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference! Downside? My teeth looked like it had gotten a horrible case of blackheads. They were completely covered in bits of blueberries which took about 5-10 minutes of unattractive tongue licking in front of a mirror to get off. The ice cream was worth it though!

Price: $5.50

Verdict: Delicious? Yes. A nice beating to your wallet? Yep. Think of this as the "Godiva" of ice creams, ( and get a flavor that is coconut based it has the most resemblance to real ice cream!) but if you are just looking for a quick cool fix, a "Hershey's" (a.k.a Mister Softee) would do just the trick!

Stogo

159 2nd Ave

New York, NY 10003

www.stogonyc.com