Philadelphia! Reading Terminal Market: Dutch Eating Place

A couple of weeks ago, Greeshma invited me to her sweet new residence in Philadelphia, a lovely 2 hour bus ride away from NYC. We scheduled a killer weekend eat-inerary, so my next few posts will feature her new town!

Saturday breakfast included a visit to the Reading Terminal Market.  I had read about the Dutch Eating Place's apple dumplings, and as my life mission involves eating all the types of dumplings the world has to offer, I had to cross these off the list.

The Dutch Eating Place has a weaving stretch of counters with worn round stools.  Customers wait in a single file line and wait patiently for seats.

The staff are all dressed in traditional Amish garb.  The dinner-plate sized pancakes are cooked on flat, cast-iron griddles.

The blueberry pancakes were a breakfast special that day - the plate comes with two slices of turkey bacon, two large pancakes and a very (un)healthy slab of butter for $5.99!

The turkey bacon looked like actual pieces of turkey.

The blueberry pancakes drowning with maple syrup.  If I ever had to drown...it'd be by maple syrup.  Most likely it will be in the ocean somewhere though since I don't know how to swim. :(  The pancakes were delicious though - soft, fluffy and full of large, plump blueberries that Greeshma couldn't stop swooning about.  She made me look at her blueberry filled bites like a million times.

Regular breakfast plate of scrambled eggs (which resemble more of a flat yellow omelet), bacon, homefries and toast.

All of this was average.  The homefries were slivers of crushed potatoes charred from the cast iron pans, a bit flavorless and needing salt and pepper.

We saved the best for last and ordered the apple dumpling with whipped cream that was added on top via an aerosol can.  I assured Greeshma that it was still fresh (maybe!).  There is also an option to elect heavy cream as your topping instead of the canned whip cream.  I can tell you that it does not matter which you pick for your topping.  It's all about the "bottom" on this one!

The apple dumplings look like this (naked).  This is a shot of our second snack of apple dumplings that came three to an aluminum tray *filled* with this amazing apple-cinnamon gooey compote.  When you take some home (and you will take some home), I would definitely recommend buying the tray of three for the bonus compote.  It only costs $7!

I cannot stop looking at this apple dumpling.  Or dreaming about this apple dumpling. The whole dumpling is a peeled, cored whole apple enveloped in a buttery, flaky pie crust and baked in a bed of cinnamony sweet apple compote.  Greeshma kept calling it compost, which does not make it sound good at all, but we knew what she was saying.  She could have called it manure, and it still wouldn't have mattered.  It tasted so good as it was served ridiculously hot and melted in our mouths.

A bite of the apple dumpling, complete with apple-cinnamon compote.  I think about these everyday. ( Sigh. )

A cute chocolate shop in the Reading Terminal Market displayed some creative treats.

The Flying Monkey is located in the Reading Market Terminal and had some attractive cupcakes in their display case.  Greeshma and I were more drawn to their pumpkin chai whoopie pies though so we snagged one for a later snack.  The pie looked so rich with the sugar-crusted frosting on the outside.

Slicing the pie in half revealed that it had practically no frosting inside!  This is a great example of "do not judge a book by its cover," because the cover said "Eat me, I am so creamy!" but the contents said, "Sucker, I am a dry, crumby cookie cake thing that does not taste like pumpkin or chai."  Gah! 

If you make it out to the Reading Terminal Market, definitely stick with the apple dumplings.  Guaranteed bliss.  Seriously.

Dutch Eating Place

1200 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107

Flying Monkey Patisserie

12th And Arch & Arch St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107