Did you know there was a riverboat that cruises the Delaware and you can eat and drink on it? Yeah, me either! I got invited to take a ride on the Philadelphia Belle and sample its cuisine! Who’s going to refuse a ride on a boat, with food? There’s multiple floors, and each has tables and a dance floor. It’s a big boat, and a smooth ride, so don’t worry about getting seasick. I felt great!
It was a beautiful and romantic table setting. Much less romantic is the live band. Ok, basically, it’s a party boat. But not a booze cruise or anything. It’s more like a wedding reception on the water.
And there’s tons to drink! And folks, these drinks are no joke. Despite being on water, nothing is watered down at all. In fact, their drinks are extra strong! Knock back a few of these and you might think there’s waves undulating in that river.
The starter plate was a sampler of sorts. The italian market sampler was a little skewer of roasted tomatoes, mozzarella with basil, olives, and dry sausage. The best part was definitely the mozzarella. The red pepper hummus was good, but the pita it came with was hard and crunchy, and not in a good way. The cute and adorable philly cheesesteak spring roll was good! It was served with a spicy ketchup.Here is the crisp oysters rockefeller with a touch of cream spinach and topped with chipotle cream. These were big and tasty.
The lobster bisque! It was served with a light swirl of tarragon creme fraiche. This was a very respectable bisque.
Let’s move on to the entrees! Here’s the atlantic salmon with roasted vegetable orzo and a tomato-coriander vinaigrette. The salmon was cooked nicely and was a nice and fresh piece of fish, but the sauce was a bit too sweet. And I’m someone that loves sweet!
This is the center-cut filet of beef with asparagus, potato gratin, and a red wine demi-glace. Ooh y’all, this was really good. I mean, I rarely ever just eat a big hunt of steak, but this was so good! The meat was super tender and the sauce went with it perfectly. I could have eaten another one!
Dessert was a little piece of cheesecake and a brownie. So the cheesecake was pretty soft and so-so, but the brownie was great! And you know, I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate or brownies. There’s a live band that plays throughout the evening and you are free to go out and take a look at the view from the boat. On a clear night, the views are quite tremendous. And you’re on a boat! The night I was there, there were a couple of sweet sixteen birthday parties as well as an older birthday. Towards the end, people started dancing, and that’s when it got a little surreal for me. I felt like I was crashing some sweet sixteen parties! But it was a great time and I feel very lucky to have been invited for the ride. Special thanks to H/A for being my event photographer.

I’ve been wanting to go to Hoof + Fin for awhile, but when I found out about their non-weekend multiple course specials, I was absolutely sold! So from Sunday through Thursday, they are offering 2 courses for $19, 3 courses for $26, 4 courses for $36, etc. There’s also a 2 courses for $13 brunch deal. It’s too good to pass up! It’s an argentinian byob right off of South Street. It’s pretty small and intimate. Other than some daily specials, everything on the menu is fair game for the multi-course deal. Oh, we were going to get our eat on!
While we waited for our appetizers, our adorable hippie server brought over some breadsticks and some delicious dipping sauce.
E got the ceviche de pulpo, aka octupos ceviche. It was filled with slices of octopus, avocado, onions, carrots, tomatoes, celery, and cilantro. This was so fresh and yum! It also had a mysterious slightly sweet taste, but we couldn’t put our finger on it. Was it passion fruit? Who the hell cares, all we know is that it was great.
I got the corn and cheese empanadas, per our server’s recommendation. These were so delicious and not greasy at all. Does that mean these were baked? The filling was also only lukewarm in the middle, and I wasn’t sure if that’s how it was supposed to be. Even if it wasn’t supposed to be like that, I didn’t mind because it did not burn my mouth when I ate it. The dough was hot and flaky and not in the least greasy. Seriously, it was like amazing how grease-free these were. And the filling was great.
For her entree, E got the most ginormous hunk of mahi mahi I’ve ever seen in my life! It was delicious and perfectly cooked. Also, there was some coconut rice, sweet plantains, and a side salad. Everything was served on top of banana leaves, a nice touch.
My entree was the Arroz a la Gallega – yellow rice, shrimp, scallops, mussels, clams, calamari, fish, chorizo, and veggies in a tomato based sauce. I don’t know what’s in this but all I know is that it was amazing! The seafood was so fresh and tasty and the flavor was just awesome. It was mostly seafood with some rice, instead of the other way around, so they totally do not skimp on the seafood! E and I both agreed that this was definitely the winner of the evening. And there’s so much of this dish too, it was crazy.
Here are the panqueques with dulce de leche on the inside. Basically, these are like crepes, that are filled and then rolled. Oh man, these are extremely rich due to the dulce de leche. It was basically eating forkfuls of dulce de leche with a little bit of crepe thrown in. This is not for the weak!
And we couldn’t say no to the churros with melted chocolate. Oh my word, these were some tasty ass churros. Who doesn’t like fried dough? Who doesn’t like melted chocolate? Put them together, and you can’t go wrong! We were both beyond stuffed with this meal. In fact, I was beyond stuffed way before dessert, but I couldn’t pass up this deal, so I forged on! It was a frigid weekday evening when we went, and there weren’t too many other diners there, which made me a bit sad. This is a gem of a restaurant with excellent food at a beyond excellent value. And don’t forget it’s byob! I can’t wait to stop in again!

I hadn’t been to downtown Phoenixville in eons, and I knew it was all souped up these days, but I had no idea how cute it would be! It’s seriously cute. And there’s tons of shops and restaurants, including Majolica, a BYOB. This place is adorable. It’s warm and inviting, except for their metal table tops which are disturbingly frigid! It’s considered New American cuisine and it even made the Philadelphia magazine’s 50 Best Places to Eat Right Now list.
The meal started off with a complimentary amuse bouche of homemade potato chip with tuna ceviche and fennel. Delicious! This was definitely not a greasy chip from a bag! The salty and crispity chip went nicely with the soft tuna.
The menu is not large. As far as starters go, there are a few snacks, boards, salads, and flatbreads to choose from. We got one of the boards – pastrami cured salmon with cornichon, pickled mustard seeds, red onions, capers, and hard-boiled egg, with toasted pumpernickle slices. This dish was super cute and came out on this long wooden board. It’s definitely a DIY dish as you have to assemble your own little open faced sandwich. The salmon was quite good but we didn’t taste much pastrami in it. I really liked that instead of boring mustard there were whole pickled mustard seeds which popped in your mouth. This was a cute and tasty dish.
We also tried one of the flatbreads – scallop, sweet corn, smoked bacon, parmesan, and thyme. These are like long skinny pizzas. This also had lovely soft pieces of roasted garlic that just melted in your mouth. This was definitely good, but it wasn’t particularly exciting. None of the flavors were really wow, they were all just sort of good. Perhaps I just expected something a bit more interesting.
While we waited for our pasta entrees, they brought us a palate cleanser of cucumber sorbet. Mmm, this straight up just tasted like cucumbers. And I love cucumbers, so I thought this was totally awesome.
One of our pasta dishes was the fazzoletti pasta with duck confit ragout, parmesan, arugula . I don’t know what fazzoletti means, but from the looks of it, it’s just big wide sheets of pasta. This was super good and you could totally taste the duck fat, lots and lots of duck fat! It wasn’t gamey at all and the flavor worked well with the plainness of the pasta.
The winner of the night was the parisian style gnocchi with brussel sprout leaves, pancetta, apples, and truffle butter. This was unlike any gnocchi we’ve ever had. It’s not thick or chewy or doughy. It was crunchy-ish on the outside and the inside was just melt in your mouth. Turns out that these aren’t the potato based gnocchi that you might be thinking of. Parisian gnocchi is made with flour and specifically uses cream puff dough. Yes, while this is the same dough used to make eclairs and profiteroles, it can also be used to make a delicious pasta. This was so different and delicious! Service was good and everyone was friendly and accommodating. One odd thing was when we tried to get a reservation, they wouldn’t give us the time we wanted. Then when we got there, there were plenty of empty tables available. So what was that about? Do you not give reservations on the half hour? Other than that and the icy tables, it was a lovely dinner.