Jimmy in Philly

The Trip - Part 2

We hopped the Acela Express from NYC to Philadelphia at 1pm. Train travel is just so dang civilized: You get to the station 10 minutes before departure. You climb on, find a seat. The train leaves with a minimum of fuss - no seat belts, no emergency exit declarations. Lots of legroom, a big space to open up the laptop (and with my 3G wireless card, I had network the whole trip too). 1 hour later, we pull into Pennsylvania 30th St Station, and were in our new hotel within 2 hours of having left our hotel in NYC. Compare to air travel, we would probably only be halfway there by the 2 hour mark! Why can't we have more better trains? It just makes sense.

The hotel in Philly was another Marriott, with a decent workout room that I took advantage of to help work off that second lunch entree (was it really the same day???) listening to Belgian Heartbreak Techno by Milk Inc: The ellipse machine kept yelling at me to reduce speed for heartrate, and I kept saying "But the beat is 135bpm and the drums are KICKING!!! Don't you tell me to slow down!!!)

A nap was also achieved.

We met in the hotel bar, where a nosy bartender had to butt in with his opinions about the Spitzer case, and we had amusing half-conversations with completely plastered conventioneers of some sort. Then we were off to dinner... at Morimoto's.

Pamela actually gets credit on this one: She heard that Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto had opened a restaurant in Philly, and said we should check it out. So we did, we got reservations, and we sat down for the tasting menu. 8 courses with paired alcohol, and every single bite was amazing - I can't recall them all, but there was Toro Tartare, shaved sweet scallop in hot oil, broiled lobsters, seared kobe beef medallions, nigiri sushi, all paired with amazing champagne, white, red, and sake. It was a good 3 hour event and we stumbled home completely satisfied.

I decided to go for a pay-per-view: The Golden Compass. Full disclosure, I loved the books, and felt there must have been some conspiracy that made the movie not do very well. Little did I know the conspiracy was actually inside the movie crew: It was a very stilted movie that barreled at breakneck speed, but did very little in the way of telling the story with any artfulness - it felt rushed and superficial. I did love Ian McKellan as Iorek Byrnson, but little else. I actually turned it off right before the end, because I just didn't see the point. Sigh.

The morning was an adventure: I had left the menu card outside my door for 7:30 breakfast delivery. At 745 I called down and they assured me the food was on the way up. At 8:05 I called and they said the knock should be at my door within a minute. At 8:10 they called ME and said that I had forgotten to put my room number on my menu card, and so they had NOT sent me my food, and did I still want it? I said no.

I headed out to the Reading St Market - a large indoor food mall (restaurants and grocery) inside of the old Reading Station, and 1 block from my hotel. I stopped into a diner in there, and had an omelet with grilled onions and peppers and bbq pork, with american fries and stewed apples. Got completely full for less than $10 and 20 minutes.

Our meeting this morning was with a physician practice affiliated with a large university: Honestly, we had very low expectations for the meeting, but they had visited the booth and seemed interested in talking, so here we were. The cab took us through a terrible neighborhood and we got quite a show as an angry bum in a wheelchair was crossing a 4 lane highway against the light, flipping people off, spinning his chair, and generally daring the universe to strike him down. He made it safely, and I swear he shook his fist to heaven.

At the meeting, we were pleased to discover an actual OPPORTUNITY almost of the level of our first NYC one: Major implementation starting early summer with our favorite software, we're giving good advice right before they go out to sign the paperwork, and we're at the top of their call list for followup. It was an amazing result. Mike put the credit on his "lucky tie" which he had not worn for almost a year, since the lucky tie drummed up some business in Texas (which is now 1/4 of our total business). I can't argue with that.

We had a little time before our flight out today, so we made the pilgrimage to Jim's Steaks - one of the ORIGINAL homes of the Philly Cheesesteak. And it was quite good... but... we both came to the realization that as a sandwich, the Cheesesteak is not quite on the level as a Chicago Dog, or an Italian Beef.... there just isn't as much flavor going on. Coming off of all of the amazing flavors we'd had in the past 2 days, the Cheesesteak was more than adequate, but not really in the same league.

That said, if you do like cheesesteak in general, Jim's is the best you will ever have.

Caught the 2:20 flight home and thanks to the way time flows across the globe, I walked into my house at 5pm. Bella loved her gifts, Isaac was thrilled to see daddo (and took some time to settle down), and Pamela was happy to have backup again! It was a great homecoming, and I'm happy to be home.

It seems crazy that it really was just 2.5 days and we fit so much in... but I missed so much of what NYC has to offer, and I'm looking forward to my re-visits in the months to come. I loved that dang town! (Philly - not quite so much. Still nice though).