Reading TerminalMarket

What does your mind illustrate when you think about pizza?
-Pizza Hut
-Domino's

How about burgers?
-Burger King
-McDonald's

Now let's try something a little more exotic. Let's try a falafel, or a gyro, or maybe just a juicy, artery clogging good cheese steak.

Nothing come to mind yet?That's because no one restaurant has culminated these various tastes,flavors, and dishes. Except of course, if you were to go to the ultimate melting pot of food heaven —Reading Terminal Market in downtown Philadelphia. Here where culture mixes with culinary, you'll find that there is at least one dish that pertains to any one unique person on this planet because of the multiple tastes, dietary foods, and styles of food.

When i mentioned dietary foods, i meant those who would prefer food based on their calories, and health causes. For example, the market has vegetarian cuisine for those who abstain from meat. Serving only vegetarian dishes, Basic Four Vegetarian Snack Bar attracts those who like something green in their diet. On the flip side, others who cannot stand the taste of vegetables and would rather go with some basic meat-and-taters eats, would maybe try out Rib Stand's specialty of Baby back ribs, rib sandwiches or roasted potatoes. There, they offer something for those who are feeling a little more carnivorous.

Market restaurants don't stop there. Multiple restaurants are multi culture themed with flavors ranging from domestic to the exotic that cater to all types of people. Kamal's Middle Eastern Specialties says it all in the name, offering customer's dishes such as falafel, a fried ball or patty made from spiced chickpeas. They also do fresh fruit drinks, deserts and imported groceries. (I had a razberry, banana,blackberry smoothie here, it was amazing!!)
Other multicultural restaurants include Thai, Greek, Chinese, foods as well.

What's exceptionally amazing about the dynamic aspect of the restaurants at Market, is that customer's have the option to compare and contrast different style of food. For example, one is able to compare prices of cheese steaks between Spataro's Cheese Steaks, Carmen's Famous Italian Hoagies and Cheese Steaks, and By George! Pizza, Pasta & Cheese Steaks, to find the best price. Or one could compare taste preferences between the Chinese restaurants Sang Kee Peking Duck and Shanghai Gourmet.
Overall, in the varieties of dishes, original, classic,multicultural, vegetarian, or deep fried,one can always find something to eat at Reading terminal market.

Saturday 09/12
Dinner:

-Spaghetti and meatballs
-garlic bread
-corn
-spinach
-mozerella chicken

An all athentic Italian meal, this dish comes complete with plump juicy meatball andbuttery garlic bread. This dish will have you begginning for more in no time.

The prefrozen meatballs will be making you think twice that they're actually home made.
Buttery noodles culminates with the sauce to give it a rich original flavor.
Hot vegetables fills in the corners of your stomach and provides a a well balanced meal complete with all the vitamines and nutrients.
All is amazing, execpt for the breadsticks. They really didn't have that much of a garlic flavor, and left me wanting. If i could improve upon this meal i would add just alittle more garlic in the bread sticks.

To eat or not to eat? That is the question

(09/07/09)
Dinner:
-Honey Mustard Dijon Chicken
-Vegetarian Paella
-Broccoli
-Spaghetti Noodles with dried red peppers
-Muttan Paneer with Tofu
-Mashed potatoes with gravy

Starting off with the main dish, the chicken. Once biting in a the succulent piece of poultry, i took notice of how well done the meat was, compared to others I've had in the past. The meat was juicy, not dried out, allowing the seasoning to culminate with the juices of the meat further allowing an easy passage from mouth to gut. Adding to the appetizing manner of the dish was the broccoli, this was a good compliment to the chicken as it added fresh green taste, mirroring that of the saltiness of the chicken. Both balanced out and were made for each other, like peanut butter and Jelly.
Moving on to the Muttar Paneer with Tofu. This dish consisted of tofu, peas, carrots, onions, and chopped tomatoes all culminating together in a cumin coriander sauce. In general this dish wasn't the most flavorful; however, health wise, it was a euphoria compared to all the other junk in the cafeteria (pizza, fries, desserts). Specifically, i felt this dish could be spiced up a little more -even if that just means adding more salt.
similarly to the Paneer dish, was the Vegetarian Paella. This consisted of rice and assorted vegetables such as sliced red and green pepper, green olives, and sliced onions. This dish was similar to that of the Paneer in the theme of vegetables, but differed when it came to the amount of flavor it possessed. The dish created a mix of zing and freshness with the tart olives and the fresh green and red peppers. This was a great dish, i loved the the flavor the olives brought to make a unique flavor.
Continuing are the mashed potatoes. Good ol' taters. It just so happened however that these potatoes didn't mesh well with me. Mash is supposed to served without any additives, except butter and salt. This mash contained a strong taste of Italian spices and for a lack of a better term, an HERBY taste. The gravy made for a good masking taste, but overall i wasn't too into this dish.
Onto the noodles. This dish possessed a lot of kick in that it was too spicy for a mild tongue consumer. I could also taste garlic added to the dish which added to it's exotic taste. Overall though, i did not find this helping of noodles to be that good especially in view of the comprehensive scale of the whole meal. Put more simply, the spicy garlic pasta didn't go together with dishes such as mash potatoes.

Overall in the whole view of the dish i give this dinner a passing grade.