Philadelphia. Day 4. Monday. Where do the donuts fit in?
We woke up this morning and went upstairs for a last breakfast at Jean Georges. We got there around 9AM and were practically the only other people there. Really amazing how this hotel seems to clear out during the week.
We got a great table and ordered too much food. We shared brioche french toast, which was crispy on the outside but so soft and buttery on the inside, and was served with delicious caramelized apple slices. I had eggs and toast and all of the jam. Tzvi had a dosa, which is an Indian buckwheat and lentil crepe that had eggs and cheese inside, which were basically baked into the crepe. It was huge, and Tzvi said very good.
After breakfast we changed and then went to spend our last couple of hours lounging at the pool. Again it was pretty empty. We read and relaxed and swam a little before going back to the room to finish packing up. We checked out around 1 PM and then embarked on our Michael Solomonov food tour.
We had the house car, a small Tesla SUV, drive us to Sansom street, where Solomonov has four restaurants. The Tesla was cool and had doors that opened up instead of out. Tzvi asked the drive whether there was any practical reason you needed doors to open up. He didn’t have an answer. He did say he enjoyed driving the car though.
We started our tour at Merkaz, the newest restaurant, which serves sandwiches, but no falafel or humus. Tzvi got a sabich sandwich and a side of sweet potato babaganush (which had no eggplant and didnt taste like babaganush).
Next we walked a few blocks to Goldie, which serves just falafel and salads and fries, but no humus. We also got a tehina coffee milkshake, which was outrageous. Goldie is the only one of the restaurants that is kosher.
We walked another block to Dizengoff, where they serve humus, but no falafel. We had humus with braised kale. I sat in the restaurant sneaking falafel balls out of the Goldie bag to dip in my humus.
Finally we crossed the street to Federal Donuts, which is the only restaurant that doesn’t fit the Israeli theme, but serves fantastic donuts. At Federal Donuts, they saw us with our bags and said, “you look like you’re on a tour.” We asked where the donuts fit into Solomonov’s Israeli food empire, and they basically said, “they don’t. They’re just good donuts.” We ordered a coffee cardamom donut and a salted caramel, as well as a cookies and cream donut that was fried to order. They also gave us a cinnamon sugar fried-to-order donut on the house. Not much else to say except that everything we had was really good, and all of the restaurants are really nice and well designed.
We walked back to the hotel, picked up our car and luggage, and then we were off. We drove straight home and made it two and a half hours.
It was a great babymoon and exactly what we wanted and needed. We were really able to relax and with the indoor pool we didn’t need to worry about the weather. A big thank you to my parents for watching Hallie. And now the blog goes on hiatus as we have our second child and never travel again.