Philadelphia (December 2017)

My spouse and I visited Philadelphia for a one-night stay on New Year’s Eve in late December 2017. We remitted Hilton HHonors points for a suite at the Doubletree Downtown, knowing that it was close to the Mummers parade route but not realizing how close! You could watch the parade from inside the hotel, and even from some of the tower rooms! Even though we planned to watch the Mummers, we intended to see their show at the Convention Center, where we had purchased advance tickets to see the Fancy Brigade family show (dress rehearsal). What we saw blew us away! We will try to attend every year that we can – the “skits” were so impressive! So that’s what we did on New Year’s Day, after enjoying the hotel buffet breakfast at balcony restaurant. The day previously, we arrived in town just as they were closing off streets for the parade; and unfortunately, they were streets we needed to drive on. But we finally reached the hotel and parked in the garage, then checked into our spacious suite. We then went to lunch at the Red Owl Tavern at the Kimpton Monaco, followed by a quick tour of the Philadelphia Visitor’s Center and Independence Hall. We made our own happy hour at Locust Rendezvous near the hotel, followed by dinner at the chef’s counter at Vernick Food and Drink, and a late-night, almost-midnight visit back to The ‘Vous to ring in the new year. Although the weather was bitterly cold, we had a great stay!

Hotel:

• Doubletree Philadelphia Center City Link to my review

Restaurants:

• Red Owl Tavern (at the Kimpton Monaco) Link to my review
• Locust Rendezvous (“The Vous”) Link to my review
• Vernick Food and Drink Link to my review
• balcony Link to my review

Activities:

• Independence Hall Link to my review
• Mummers Fancy Brigade Family Show at Convention Center Link to my review

Philadelphia: balcony (December 2017)

Balcony on Broad - Enjoy the Breakfast Buffet or Order a la Carte
My spouse and I dined at the Balcony on Broad at the Philadelphia Doubletree for breakfast on a Monday morning in early January 2018 (New Year’s Day, to be exact). The restaurant is open daily from 6:00 am until 10:00 am (extended until 11:00 am on weekends). The hotel generously extended breakfast time for an additional hour on the holiday.

Previously called the Academy Café, the Balcony opened in the summer of 2011. The restaurant is located on the second-floor mezzanine of the hotel, and many tables offer great views of the Avenue of the Arts and Academy of Music through the adjacent four-story glass atrium of the hotel. Seating is staggered on slightly different levels and in specially designed “nooks” in order to allow maximum views. As we entered the restaurant, a gentleman manning the drink service bar took our names and maintained a list until a table became available. At this service bar, samples of a mimosa and a bloody mary were visible, and the bloodies garnished with lemon, lime, and celery were tempting enough for us to order. (Initially, we tried to order two drinks as we waited for our table, but we were rebuffed and told that we had to be seated first.) Disappointingly, when the drinks arrived at our table, they contained absolutely no garnish! Talk about false advertising! My spouse thought that the drinks were included as part of the buffet, although I did not and expected to pay extra for the drinks. (I was right, and they were priced at about $12.00 each.)

Balcony serves both a breakfast buffet and an a la carte menu. A continental breakfast runs $12.95, or you can include hot options as well for $17.95. Note that the cost of a plated/delivered entrée costs nearly as much as the buffet. Various stations offered cold options like juices, yogurt, cereal, fruit, and pastries, as well as hot selections like scrambled eggs, breakfast meats, and oatmeal. A made-to-order omelet station is also available. We did not notice any pancakes, waffles, French toast, or other hot carb options on the buffet.

We enjoyed our breakfast on the Balcony.

 

Philadelphia: Doubletree Philadelphia Center City (December 2017)

Doubletree Downtown Philadelphia - Great Location to Watch the Mummers Parade!

My spouse and I stayed at the Doubletree Downtown Philadelphia for one night on a Sunday in late December 2017. We reserved our room online, and we remitted Hilton HHonors points for our stay. We checked in online the day prior to our stay, selecting the room that best suited our needs.

The Doubletree Downtown Philadelphia is located on the Avenue of the Arts, directly across from the Academy of Music and near the Kimmel Center. If you stand on Broad Street in front of the hotel, you can see the clock/bell tower at City Hall in the distance. The hotel occupies a corner location, and its unique design footprint provides most rooms with good views. In recent years, the hotel has expanded from its original tower to also include an annex building that offers all-suite units. Guests reach the annex internally by taking one of the four elevators in the main elevator bank to the fifth floor, passing by the fitness center and indoor pool, and using their keycard to access a hallway that leads to the secondary building. The annex is called “Suites on 5”, which has its own bank of two elevators. The hotel offers garage self-parking (no valet); although administered by an external vendor, you can add the parking fee to your hotel folio. (The charge was approximately $35 per night, although we kept our car parked there for a few grace hours after our checkout time. If we had parked in a non-affiliated garage around the corner on Locust Street, we would have had to pay for each hour over 24 hours, so parking in the hotel garage may have even saved money.

Hotel amenities include a fitness center, indoor pool (with attached seasonal outdoor deck), street-level Standing O Bar & Bistro/ restaurant, second-floor Balcony bar/restaurant, and meeting/banquet room space. Perhaps the best feature of this hotel is its four-story atrium lobby that provides a view of city life.

We reserved a King Suite, and during the online check-in process, we selected Room 882. There are two configurations for a King Suite, and we picked the version that provided a window in both the living room and in the bedroom because the rooms are wider and arranged side by side. (The alternate layout looked to have a “shotgun” style arrangement, where the rooms are narrower and arranged in a series one behind the other, with the living area not having a window because it is an interior room.) Our suite was large, with a combination living room/kitchenette area. The kitchenette contained a small apartment-size refrigerator/freezer (larger than a dorm cube and a bar fridge), microwave, dishwasher, sink, and plates/utensils/glasses but no stove or cooking surface. The kitchenette was open to the living room, although separated by a small table and two chairs. The living room contained a full-size sofa bed and two armchairs, fronted by a coffee table and a desk/TV console unit. The bathroom was “Jack-and Jill” style, which you could enter from either the foyer or the bedroom. The bathroom was extra-large, with a combination bathtub/shower, toilet, and single sink vanity, along with a lot of empty floor space. The bedroom contained a bed with a nightstand on either side, TV console, and large closet with mirrored sliding doors. Inside the closet was a luggage rack, iron, ironing board, and electronic safe, along with bedding for the sofa bed in the living room. Our suite was very comfortable and spacious, and we regretted having only one night to spend there.

We stayed at the Doubletree on New Year’s Eve, and the hotel offered some additional perks to its guests. In the afternoon, a staffed table dispensed festive hats to partygoers. In the morning, breakfast hours were extended to accommodate guests who had celebrated late into the night. In addition, hotel checkout time was extended until 4:00 pm, as was garage parking. The only drawback was that because part of the Mummers parade route ran down Broad Street away from City Hall, taxis and Uber drivers could not drive on Broad Street, sometimes forcing them to go many extra blocks to get reasonably close to the hotel.

We enjoyed our holiday stay at the Doubletree Downtown Philadelphia, and we plan to stay again at the same time next year!

Philadelphia: Locust Rendezvous (December 2017)

Locust Rendezvous (“The Vous”) - Neighborhood Dive Bar
My spouse and I visited Locust Rendezvous (nicknamed “The ‘Vous” twice on a Sunday in late December 2017. The first time we stopped by was for a self-created happy hour in the late afternoon, but we returned in the late evening in order to ring in the new year with our fellow patrons. The bar is open daily from late morning until 2:00 am, which is sometimes a rarity for the area.

Locust Rendezvous opened in fall 1989 on Locus Street Downtown, just down the block from the Academy of Music and the Doubletree Hotel. (In fact, we were guests at the Doubletree, looking for a nearby reasonably priced comfortable place for a drink.) The space previously held a bar called Bananas. Locust Rendezvous has won several awards including best sports bar, best bar, best dive bar, best fries, best buffalo wings, and best chili. It has a comfortable neighborhood bar feel, and prices are relatively low compared to elsewhere in the city.

The interior is narrow but long. A few small windows at the front allow for two larger booths/tables below, followed by high-top tables that stretch to the back of the space. A long bar provides additional seating. Wood-paneled walls, signs, and paper flyers provide the décor. Dark, loud, electronic juke-box music, and lots of TVs. Serves bar food, including fries, wings, nachos, burgers, cheesesteaks, French onion soup, and all-day breakfast. This bar doesn’t put on airs or try to be pretentious; for example, I tried to order a chocolate martini, but the somewhat surly bartender said that she didn’t have the ingredients. (I just wish that she could have suggested an alternative.) I ended up trying the poinsettia (flat champagne with some sort of red juice and garnished with an alcohol-marinated maraschino cherry [cherry bomb]), which wasn’t very tasty, and the (alcoholic) lemonade, which was a bit better. Service was quite slow at the tables, but a bit more attentive at the bar itself.

Locust Rendezvous is a fun neighborhood bar where you can drink and/or eat and without breaking the bank.

 

Philadelphia: Vernick Food and Drink (December 2017)

Vernick Food & Drink - Sit in the Back Room at the Chef’s Counter
My spouse and I dined at Vernick Food and Drink on a Sunday evening for New Year’s Eve dinner in late December 2017. We reserved our places at the chef’s counter/bar via telephone 30 days in advance; however, the restaurant also uses the online Open Table reservation system. Vernick is open for dinner only on Tuesdays through Sundays (closed on Mondays).
Vernick opened in May 2012 in a former bookstore on Rittenhouse Row. Owner Greg Vernick was once named “Best Chef in the Mid-Atlantic” by the James Beard Foundation, and he previously worked for renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Today, Vernick hold the distinction of being Philadelphia’s best overall restaurant.
The bustling Vernick space spans two levels. You enter through a front bar/lounge room, with spots to sit at the small L-shaped bar or at several tables positioned near the front window. In the rear dining room, you can sit at a table or at one of the six stools at the L-shaped chef’s bar. (When we reserved for this counter, the hostess warned us that the stools were backless yet comfortable, and we agree.) The main dining room is on the second level, reachable by a long staircase. Weathered wood tables and chairs, soft lighting, and nattily clad wait staff set the foundation for a great dining experience that is elevated by the restaurant’s delicious food.
Because we dined on New Year’s Eve, the regular a la carte menu was not available. We had a choice of two different menus: the 7 course chef’s tasting menu (which didn’t offer any choices) for $160 (wine pairing $85 additional), or the four-course prix-fixe menu (which offered about four options in each course category) for $75. We wanted to try as many dishes as possible, so we both ordered the more extensive tasting menu. (We aren’t sure whether we could have mixed-and-matched one of each menu.) Everything was awesome; our only regret is that we weren’t able to try any of the interesting toast dishes that the restaurant usually offers. Our courses follow:

• Amuse bouche (3) onion consumme, croquette, tuna tartare

1. Hiramasa (sashimi yellowtail with warm caviar sauce)
2. Lobster Bolognese (with saffron garganelli pasta and parmesan foam)
3. Veal sweetbreads (grilled with pear and radicchio)
4. Turbot (with salsify, soubise, and tomato dashi)
5. Beef strip loin (with maitake mushrooms and sesame vinaigrette)
6. Gruyere custard (served warm with green apple)
7. Olive oil cake (with white chocolate pudding and pomegranate)

We loved our dinner at Vernick Food and Drink – the service was excellent, the food was delicious, and the atmosphere was comfortable.

 

Philadelphia: Independence Hall (December 2017)

You Must Procure Complimentary Tickets to Tour This Important Site

My spouse and I visited Independence Hall on a Sunday afternoon in late December 2017. We reserved our complimentary tickets the day prior to our visit, selecting the 35-minute time slot that best fit our schedule. Independence Hall tours run daily (except for some holidays), departing every 15 – 20 minutes from about 9:00 am until 5:00 pm. Admission is free; however, you must pick up tickets from the national park rangers who staff the nearby Visitor’s Center. Allow at least 10 minutes to leisurely walk from the Visitor’s Center to the Independence Hall. You will need additional time to pass through the security checkpoint that consists of a metal detector and bags scanner. A small park (with walking paths and benches) adjoins the secure area of the Hall. Note that if you reserve tickets online, a handling fee of $1.50 per ticket is assessed for each free ticket; still, to us it was worth the small charge in order to be assured that we could visit exactly when we desired. Remember to set aside some additional time to view the numerous displays and the films in the Visitor’s Center itself.

Constructed between 1732 and 1756 as the Pennsylvania State House, this famous red brick building contains the most historic building in the United States. In it, the delegates from the Second Continental Congress met in the hall's Assembly Room after British troops fired on citizens in Concord, Massachusetts. Other historic events occurred there: George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence was signed, and the Constitution of the United States was adopted. An adjacent wing contains an exhibit of nation's founding documents, including the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, and the Declaration of Independence.

We enjoyed our brief refresher of history during our tour of Independence Hall.

Philadelphia: Red Owl Tavern at the Monaco (December 2017)

Red Owl Tavern (at the Kimpton Monaco) - Close to Independence Mall and the Liberty Bell
My spouse and I dined at the Red Owl Tavern for brunch on a Sunday afternoon in late December 2017. We had reserved tickets later that afternoon to visit neighboring Independence Hall, so we looked for a nearby restaurant where we could enjoy lunch first. We booked our table online using the Open Table reservation system; when we arrived 10 minutes prior to our reservation time, the hostess informed us that we were early and that she could not seat us until our appointed time despite empty tables (including the one that she eventually led us to) and even though she continued to seat walk-ins while we waited. We could accept her policy if the restaurant was full, and if she had not seated those without reservations, but it appeared that she penalized us for pre-booking a table. The Red Owl Tavern is open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, although it closes for a brief time between each meal. The Red Owl Tavern is associated with restaurant Square 1682 at the Kimpton Hotel Palomar.

The Red Owl Tavern opened in fall 2012 as the hotel restaurant for Old City’s Kimpton Monaco Philadelphia. The hotel occupies the former Lafayette Building at the intersection of Chestnut Street and South 5^th Street/Independence Mall East, directly across the mall from the Liberty Bell and diagonally from Independence Hall. The Tavern occupies the street level and mezzanine corner space of the building.

The Tavern enjoys high ceilings and large windows. Sadly, despite those architectural features, tables do not benefit from great views. On the street level, a long zinc-topped bar, semi-open rear kitchen, and exhibition cooking area/bar provide focal points among the table seating, some of which shares a banquette. A second-floor mezzanine (stair access only; no elevator) provides overflow seating at either tables or booths. Décor elements include exposed brick, reclaimed wood walls and floors, an interesting pulley system, and industrial lighting. Although there is no elevator to access the mezzanine tables, guests can use the main hotel elevators to reach the restaurant’s restrooms located on the basement level of the hotel. Reportedly, al fresco sidewalk dining is available in warmer months.

Red Owl Tavern serves modern American pub food. We had heard about the restaurant’s charcuterie, but unfortunately, it is not available on the brunch menu. Instead, we shared the deviled eggs, which we find impossible to resist. Next, we ordered a delicious cheesesteak (“when in Rome!”) and a burger, both of which were accompanied by a side order of fries. For dessert, we shared the sticky toffee pudding, which was disappointing. It arrived cold, presented as a sort of muffin topped with a small scoop of ice cream. (A few months previously, we had savored the amazing sticky toffee pudding dessert at Pittsburgh’s Kimpton Monaco hotel restaurant, The Commoner, so we had high hopes for this version, which could not compare.) We also ordered a Bloody Mary; the restaurant offers a make-your-own bar on weekends, but because we dined upstairs and the fixings were downstairs, we asked the bartender to prepare our drink rather than walk up and down the stairs. Although our waitress promised a fancy presentation, it was regrettably ordinary. (Our advice: If you want a Bloody Mary, make it yourself!) Although our experience with the food and drinks was subpar, the restaurant/bar has won awards from local magazines, including best burgers, best summer cocktails, and best martinis.

Our meal at the Red Owl Tavern was acceptable; however, with so many other nearby choices, we would not return for brunch.