Endless Road Trip -

by BS

The Endless Road Trip, Philly: A Thousand Layers of Joy

At Rangoon, a Burmese restaurant in Philly’s Chinatown (one of only a few longstanding Burmese spots on the East Coast), there are curries and skewers and tea leaf salads (all delicious), but the star of the show is a not-so-humble slice of bread.

Their thousand-layer bread is similar to an Indian paratha — a buttery, crispy fried pancake of dough — except here the hot and greasy bread achieves such a flaky, pull-apart consistency that it’s only a slight exaggeration to bill it as having a thousand layers. Each time you tear into this thing it comes apart with such soft and gooey satisfaction, offering all the joy of pulling apart those endless Pillsbury biscuits (pretty much one of my favorite things to do as a fat little kid), albeit with a thousand times more flavor. It comes with curry or a thick white “vantana” bean sauce for spreading/dipping, but really nothing else is needed but this hot and heavenly roll of carb-y wonder.

by BS

The Endless Road Trip, Philly: Breakfast Sandwich of the Year

A couple years back Endless Simmer took you to Philadelphia for an epic foodie road trip, taste testing everything from soup dumplings to Tastycakes. This week we’re returning to the city of brotherly love to find out what new foods Philly has on offer — and we were quite taken with several of Philadelphia’s newest restaurants.

Our follow-up on Philly’s five best new food items kicks off today with a breakfast sandwich that will make you forget it’s some ungodly low temperature outside.

Served at High Street on Market — a great farm-to-table find in the otherwise chain-y area near Independence Mall — the pastrami and has breakfast sandwich piles everything there is to love on breakfast onto one fresh-baked poppy seed roll: including a thick, extra-crispy square of hash browns (love that carb-on-carb action), a mound cheesy scrambled eggs, grilled red peppers, tender shaved pastrami and just a little Russian dressing, for a little Rueben-y kick to your morning, along with a tart house-made hot sauce on the side.

I know it’s only February, but I’m confident saying this is the breakfast sandwich of the year.

by snebbu

Endless Road Trip Boston: Sam Adams Pumpkin Ale

If you’ve never been to a brewery before, you may be expecting some mechanical experience where you are watching them brew on the other side of a glass window. Maybe you expect to see a bunch of hoses shooting beer from one place to another, leading to a huge bottling machine. Maybe, if you’re lucky—you’ll get a free sample of beer. Not the case at Sam Adams…and that’s a good thing.

The tour starts out in a small tunnel shaped like a keg. From there, you show them your “ticket” which is a Sam Adams label. Then, you literally walk right through the brewery. You’ll see some dudes with kick-ass beards working on the freshest brew. Oh, and you’ll be smacked in the face with the delicious smell of grains and can go touch the huge vats that brew “America’s World Class Beer”.

*Impress your friends*: One piece of info that many of you may not know – Sam Adams is one of the breweries around that makes sure their beer is like no other – they harvest their own yeast. So, no – you can not completely replicate any of their brews. Impressed? (with me, obviously…) You should be.

On to the best part of the tour: the bar.

Endless Road Trip Boston: Mike’s City Diner

We’ve made a bit of a tradition out of seeking out restaurants featured on the show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. Cheesy and touristy? Sure, but we haven’t been disappointed so far. The quest continued with Mike’s City Diner in Boston. You’d think it’d be well known in the entire Boston area, so I asked the folks at Sam Adams what the best means to get to the diner is. They had no idea of where it even was, so either my perspective on the size of Boston was horribly off, or maybe they just never make it out to that side of town. Either way—they are missing out. Mike’s City Diner does not disappoint, and there’s a reason why Guy Fieri was “Rollin’ Out” to Mike’s City Diner in Boston. Here are the highlights:

The Endless Road Trip — Philadelphia’s Top 10 Eats 1. There Will Be Blood…and Beets

Endless Simmer is expanding our food travel coverage to bring you reports from cities around the country. First stop: Philly. Enjoy Part 1 in our series of 10 incredible edibles the ES team found while stuffing our faces through the city of brotherly love.

I’ll admit…it’s hard for me to get excited about beets. They are nice in a simple salad and I certainly get why vegetarians hold them in high esteem, since they add heft and substance to a meatless dish. Still, they’ve never been something I would go out of my way to order.

But how could I resist when the menu promised Bloody Beet Steak?

This appetizer, available at The Farm and Fisherman, has been generating buzz on the local Philly restaurant scene, and for good reason. It’s not your everyday beet salad. The Bloody Beet Steak, shown above, is about the diameter of a CD and comes accompanied by homemade yogurt and a pan jus, under a layer of (probably unnecessary) amaranth. But it’s the preparation of the beet itself that really makes the dish really unique.