Pershore plum festival

The Worcestershire town of Pershore champions its plums throughout August with a month-long festival, concluding with a plum fayre on August Bank Holiday.

The festival starts today with a market and the crowning of a plum princess. There’s also a touring heritage exhibition tracing the history of plums in the area and a plenty of plum varieties to savour, including Pershore Purples, Yellow Eggs and Emblems, as well as trees to grow your own.
Pershore began its association with plums in 1833 when a pub landlord found wild plums growing in a nearby wood. The Pershore Egg variety was developed and, because of its high pectin content, soon became the basis of much commercially sold jam in the UK.

Homegrown seasonal plums are a prize worth relishing fresh from the tree but local butchers also use their famous fruit to make the Pershore “plum” sausage using pork, spring onion, ginger and plum puree.

The town’s Abbey Tea Rooms has a range of plum-themed dishes on the menu such as homemade plum charlotte and a savoury roasted plum tart made with courgettes, peppers and topped with stilton all available with a plum flavoured black loose leaf tea.

Finally, eyes peeled for Churchfield Farmhouse plum ice cream at the farmers’ market on the August bank holiday. It’s a regional rival to the country’s only asparagus ice cream made by Spot Loggins on a nearby Evesham dairy farm.

Hot Dog Island

Some places sound too good to be true. Take Hot Dog Island, for example, a place heavily promoted by Delaware River Tubing, a company that offers to put you in an innertube, put you upstream in the Delaware River, and pick you up later. Midway through your happy float, you arrive on Hot Dog Island, a floating oasis of hot dogs, barbecue, veggie burgers and floating picnic tables. As I planned for this excursion, I began to think of HDI as a special, mythical place. Which is of course what it turned out to be.

When we arrived at Delaware River Tubing, we were warned that due to the high level of the water, HDI was closed. We were still, however, charged for the full price, which would otherwise have included a meal there. In fact, all of the prices at the tubing company say that the meal was included. But wait! One lost lunch was not the extent of the problems.

Cognizant of the weather forecast, I asked what the procedure was if there was a thunderstorm. We were told that boats would come by and pick us up. Armed with this protection, we happily floated for two hours before the clouds rolled in. No boats appeared. No boats appeared when it started to really pour. Oh and no boats appeared when lightning hit the hill across from us. Scrambling out of the water and up the embankment, things got even worse when one of my more outdoorsey friends noted, yes, that is poison ivy. When we flagged down the Delaware River Tubing school bus, we were immediately asked by the driver where all of the innertubes were. Survivalists that we were, we dutifully hauled up the tubes through the poison ivy. My conversation with the owner next day went equally badly, as he relayed his lack of sympathy in light of the business he lost due to the weather.

Hot Dog Island will remain a myth for me, and perhaps for you, if you take my advice and avoid Delaware River Tubing company altogether.

Photo credit to the Delaware River Tubing company website.

Blue Smoke

Part of the beauty of Philadelphia is being able to travel easily through the northeast. So easily, in fact, that I have come to regularly enjoy the day trip to New York. An hour and a half on Amtrak, and you can be in the middle of one of the most awesome cities in the world. It's still nice to come home, however, but it doesn't hurt to enjoy the trip.

On this particular trip, after some time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park, my omelette rival and I headed to Blue Smoke, a self-described "urban barbecue." I chose this among MOR's proffered options because, well, it looked fun. It looked like a place where you could comfortably unwind after negotiating your way through a city that simultaneously drains and feeds your energy.

And it was fun. As is the case in all of New York City, I am constantly amazed at how great the service usually is, followed up shortly by a revelation that most of the servers in the city are, in fact, auditioning for their next acting gig. Hey, I'll take it. I don't care.

After ordering a dark rum mojito (an interesting twist but still quite good) and a Peak Organic beer (reportedly very tasty), we started with the calamari, which was about 50% fried batter and 50% calamari. I like fried batter as much as the next girl, so it wasn't the worst thing, but it was a little strange for a dish called "calamari." From there, MOR ordered the "Rhapsody in 'Cue," a pun-ny twist on the all-we-make-on-a-plate concept featuring Kansas City spareribs, pulled pork, smoked chicken, and sausage. The spareribs were too spicy for me, but the pulled pork and chicken were delicious, offering a good mix of moisture and smokiness. Blue Smoke offers a lazy susan of sauces at each table with which to dress everything, making me think that perhaps I, too, should get a lazy susan of sauces for my dining room. Everything's a little better with barbecue sauce, you know?

I opted for the sliced Texas beef brisket, with a 50/50 mix of marbled and lean. The ability to mix (or choose one) was ingenious, in my opinion, and I'm glad I got the mix. The marbled was delicious and rich, but an entire plate would have been too much. The lean was -- you guessed it -- a bit more dry, but still very good, especially with the Kansas City barbecue sauce. Accompaniments of fried onions and mashed potatoes were appropriate and delicious, if not more than a little rich.

Which made dessert all the better. I opted for a refreshing key lime pie, which was just that. MOR got a peach and blackberry cobbler, interestingly topped with small drop biscuits. The fruit was fresh, but dessert after that meal was a little much for both of us.

In addition to bubbly wait staff, Blue Smoke also offers live jazz downstairs, lots of seating and a handsome bar. All in all, a fun place to stop and eat -- and within walking distance of Penn Station. What's not to like about a place with its own handi-wipes?

Blue Smoke is located at 116 E. 27th Street, New York, http://www.bluesmoke.com/.

Apricot

In these climate-changing times, the home-grown English fruit bowl gets more exotic each year. Apricots join grapes, walnuts and blueberries as the latest hot-weather crop cultivated on these shores.

The majority of apricots are still imported to the UK from the US and Europe, but there are a number of small producers in Southern England.

A member of the peach family, the apricot is a small golden-orange fruit with velvety skin and juicy flesh. They are at their peak in July so catch them why you can – although you’ll be hard pushed to find English ’cots, the lack of steady sunshine and February frosts when the plants flower have all but zapped this year’s yield.

The longer the fruit is allowed to ripen on the tree the more sweet its flavour. Note, contrary to the supermarket trend of selling “ripen-at-home” punnets of bullet-hard fruit, apricots don’t mature once picked. But you can always halve and poach under-ripe fruits in a little dessert wine and vanilla or bake with a splash of orange juice, zest and a drizzle of honey.

Apricots are delicious hot and gooey in pastries and custard tarts, and are a good match with chocolate and almonds or served alongside roast pork with the ripe fruit and spicy notes of a 2006 Heartland Viognier Pinot Gris from Oz available in Selfridges (£20.50; 0207 318 2375; selfridges.co.uk).

Cherry aid for Britain

Saturday (July 19) is the first British Cherry Day, a rallying cry to get the cherry out of a jam and back on top. In the past 50 years England has lost 90 per cent of its cherry orchards and now imports about 95 per cent of its cherries.

Organised cherry orchards were a Tudor invention, but the Romans brought the first cherry trees to Britain from Persia. It is said that you can trace old Roman roads by the wild cherry trees that grew up from the stones spat out by legions as the marched across the country.

Backed by chefs such as Raymond Blanc and Mark Hix, Cherry Aid - the campaign not the medicinal coloured pop – aims to get everyone to bite into at least one home-grown cherry this year and help save traditional orchards.

Cherries are delicious eaten fresh or dipped in melted chocolate. Kent’s Simply Ice Cream makes an ice cream from local cherries (01233 720922) and Mrs Huddleston sells a luxury black cherry and cranberry preserve with kirsch (01296 712005). Carr Taylor’s rose-red cherry wine (£4.95; carr-taylor.co.uk) mixes well with brandy or vodka and can be added to desserts or gravy when serving duck.

At Borough Market in London, try specially-made Cherry Down Cheese from the Kent Cheese Co and Sillfield Farm’s wild boar and cherry pie.
The Ludlow Food Centre in Shropshire will be selling traditional variety cherries and cherry ice cream.
Several cherry orchards are open this weekend in Kent, including the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale which will be hosting cookery demonstrations, tastings and walks. For information on cherry-themed events around the country and a guide to where to pick and buy fresh cherries visit foodloversbritain.com.

Fennel for beginners

People are puzzled by fennel. It’s the mystery guest of organic boxes and the vegetable about which we most commonly cry: “How on earth do I use this?”.

Bulbous Florence fennel has a distinctive aniseed flavour and can be eaten cooked (trimmed, cut into quarters and braised or roasted) or raw when its flavour is more pronounced.

Shave it thinly into salads or as a contrasting crunch added to fish in ceviche. Soak strips in lemon juice and olive oil and serve with roasted fish or simply tossed with orange segments.

The folk at Riverford organic vegetable boxes (riverford.co.uk) suggest tips on how to use fennel for its consumers. Recipes from its new book and website include aniseedy cabbage soup, fennel baked with Parmesan and pork with braised fennel.

Fennel’s fresh bite teams up well with dry Italian wines such as a Lugana Soraighe 2005 (£9.35; purplewine.co.uk), made from Trebbiano grapes in the area between Lombardy and Veneto. It’s a delicate white with fresh but not overpowering acidity, great with fish.

The Perfect Omelette

It only seems fitting that now, mere weeks before my 35th birthday, I have finally mastered the art of making an omelette. It came to me suddenly -- I no longer had to push in the cooked egg on the periphery, creating a swirling maze of overdone and done egg. Rather, I could use patience, let everything cook evenly, and, with a little bit of confidence, flip the whole omelette straight to perfection.

I share these tips with you, with some trepidation that maybe you, and everyone else, already knows these things. Nevertheless, here goes. Start with three eggs. De-shell (you knew that one, I know). Beat them in a bowl, with a fork, until they achieve a uniform consistency. In the meantime, melt a slab of butter in a non-stick pan, being careful to make sure the butter covers all of the pan and as much of the sides as possible.

Like so. When the butter is melted and is covering the entire pan, dump the three egg mixture into the pan. Turn the heat from high to medium. Let the eggs start to set a bit and then -- this was my revelation, so brace yourself -- start swirling. Initially, this will look a lot like the first picture, above. The idea is to get everything evenly cooked. Swirling the uncooked portion on the sides, around the cooked, will help this along. Don't be panicked by air pockets; they work themselves out. When you get to something that looks a little like this (in the course of less than a minute),

start swirling enough to loosen the entire omelette from the pan. Here, you're judging whether or not it's solid enough to flip, to finish off that last little uncooked portion. Try to have as much cooked as possible before your flip. The trick to flipping is to, while holding the pan handle, push forward very quickly, so that the omelette starts to lift, then immediately jerk your hand back, so the omelette flips back on to the plate. Practice with sauteing vegetables if it's easier. Confidence is key. As are two cups of coffee.

You may want to ignore what appears to be, but no one has yet to definitively confirm is, the spattering of raw egg around the pan post-flip. I have no idea where that could have originated, and am sure has nothing to do with prematurely flipping the omelette before it was cooked enough. Nothing to do with that. The important thing is, what remains of my flipped three eggs look very pretty in the pan (and, for the record, did land in the pan).

The next part is all up to you and is all, mercifully, downhill from here. I wimped out and used my pre-grated bag o' cheese from the store, and ended up with a straightforward cheese omelette. I enjoy putting some freshly cut chives on top, with a little salt. Variations on the theme can include yesterday's roasted vegetables, or mixing in fried onions into the initial egg omelette and adding lox as the filling, or whatever sounds good to you.

Okay, it looks a little overdone to me, too. I've got a couple of weeks until my birthday, I'll work on it.

Chinese food, British ingredients

Chinese food gets a bit of a boost this month as an appetiser for the Beijing Olympics with two new TV series and books.

Ching-He Huang, a delicate new face among the grizzled mugs of celebrity chefs, has recast Chinese food as an msg-free blend of the traditional and modern. She uses seasonal pak choi grown in the Fenlands, fresh chillies from Chorley and even soy sauce brewed in Wales.

Gold-medal TV dinners she recommends for the Games (for viewers not athletes) include steamed sea bass in hot beer and ginger lime, refreshingly chilled drunken chicken soaked in Mijiu rice wine or gin or vodka, and the gloriously named and alcohol-free Empress Dowager Cixi’s longevity peach pudding. Chinese Food Made Easy is on Mondays on BBC2; watch exclusive videos at timesonline.co.uk/realfood.

Later in the month Gary Rhodes packs his wok for China where he guzzles snake bladders as he masters regional dishes, including pockmarked grandmother’s bean curd, to cook for a banquet back home (UKTV Food 28 July).

Twenty Manning

This is not a restaurant review, but a short rant about one restaurant's rather unbelievable practice of spraying water on passers-by. First, I do love that thanks to some politicos' realizing what a benefit sidewalk tables would be to the city, restaurants are now allowed to offer al fresco dining, allowing me to enjoy people-watching, one of my favorite things to do. Second, I admit one of Philadelphia's shortcomings is rather narrow sidewalks. There's no Parisian expanse of concrete on which to place a flurry of tables in the summer months. So I trudge by places like Rouge and Devon, trying to walk in such a way to avoid tipping someone's glass over. I tolerate these minor inconveniences because I enjoy sitting outside, too, when I've managed to get off work early enough to snag a table.

However, I draw the line at Twenty Manning. I suppose that the "mist" is intended to cool off its own dining patrons. The water is aimed away from the tables; perhaps it's at a particular angle so that the tables will merely feel the sense of cool water. Instead, the water is aimed toward the rest of us, walking by, already crammed in on what portion of sidewalk on the already narrowed 20th Street is left. It is a mist, but you do feel the water on you. In other words, short of stepping out onto a fairly busy street, you can't avoid getting a little wet. Now I like a good slip and slide as much as the next girl, but more so when I'm in waterproof clothing and can actually elect to get wet. Unlike here.

Twenty Manning, what are you thinking?

Twenty Manning is located at 259 S. 20th Street, Philadelphia.

Petal power blooms in kitchens

Petal power is blooming in British restaurant kitchens. For a splash of vivid colour, silky texture and exotic aroma, flowers are hard to beat. And they’re seasonal and often local to boot.

At a recent Slow Food workshop, held at Petersham Nurseries in Richmond, Surrey, head chef Skye Gyngell arranged a three-course floral menu featuring figs with goats’ cheese, ricotta, Parma ham and rose syrup; grilled quail with sour cherries, toasted walnuts and ras el-hanout (a, North African blend of crushed dried Damask rose petals and spices), and violet meringues with English strawberries and cream.

At this week’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (rhs.org.uk/hamptoncourt), the Growing Tastes kitchen garden, designed by Michael Balston, features three types of edible flowers: Asian hemerocallis, or day lilies, which add a sweet crunch to stir fries or can be steamed like French beans; British nasturtiums which, like marigolds and violets, can be scattered in salads or used to garnish dishes and, from the Mediterranean, the intense blue flower of borage, which is popular in Pimm’s and cocktails. Look out for more floral cuisine in the Growing Tastes cookery theatre.

As a general rule the flowers of vegetables and herbs are safe to eat but some flowers are toxic. In Britain, nasturtiums, marigolds and violets are scattered in salads or used to garnish dishes. Avoid petals that have been sprayed with chemical pesticides and discard the petal’s white base which has a bitter taste.

Dried rose petals mixed with cumin seeds and nutmeg can be rubbed into game or lamb and added to couscous for a fragrant flavour.

Spoon sweet violet confit or rose petal jam into Greek yoghurt or rice pudding and drizzle rose syrup over cakes and pastries.

Petals can also be added to blended teas. Try delicate white tea with rose as a palate cleanser, or black Ceylon tea with violets.

If the back garden fails you, Secretts Farm in Surrey has a range of edible flowers (01483 520500; secretts.co.uk).

While most regions pick a weekend to celebrate their local food, Hampshire settles on a whole month. Highlights for this weekend include Lavender Lust, a chance to see this pale violet plant more commonly associated with the bathroom distilled at Hartley Park and indulge in the farm’s lavender biscuits and cup cakes decorated with lavender water ice.

At home try apricot and lavender compote with crème brulee or Greek yoghurt. The lavender adds a perfumed twist to the sharp sweetness of apricots.

10 Arts

For foodies, and perhaps anyone who has watched Top Chef, Eric Ripert's name goes a long way. Pal of Anthony Bourdain, Ripert's quietly stylish reputation as a successful chef precedes him. Given the branded full name of 10 Arts "by Eric Ripert," the restaurant is clearly banking on this reputation. And reputation alone -- as my friend eagerly asked when we were seated, "is the chef here tonight?" she was firmly told, "yes, Chef Jennifer Carroll is in tonight." Which is of course not suprising, but nonetheless disappointing. Although the hostess, in response to my friend's smooth save, "oh good, I'm glad she's here," suggested that she might visit us, Chef Carroll instead made the rounds to other tables, patiently answering questions but looking very, very young and a bit awkward.

Equally suggestive of a restaurant banking on name alone, 10 Arts' menu is missing from any website or public forum. Perhaps given its recent opening, the restaurant hopes to continue to tweak the menu, but again, I found this disappointing. Also disappointing were the "Perfect 10" drinks, named after famous Philadelphia sites and people. My Eakins Elixer mix of blood orange juice, orange vodka and a third ingredient with a sugar rim tasted disappointingly like orange juice. The "Perfect 10" drink was a rather imperfect $12.
Onto better things. My tuna carpaccio, recommended by our server, was delicious, served with olive oil, chives, shallot and lemon. It was thin to the point of translucence with a delicate, fresh flavor. Less successful was the salmon rillette, a fairly bland taste of salmon and cream. The grilled shrimp with quinoa and herb salad featured three large shrimp and was described as "very good" by VBF.

My salmon entree was helpfully described as "wild," a fairly important distinction these days. Served with "savoy cabbage, red wine bearnaise," it was fairly raw and tasty. I missed any "bearnaise" part of the red wine sauce, which was a thin, salty, vaguely wine-like topping for my cabbage. The effect was a bit strong for the delicate salmon. Similarly, VBF's "Striped Bass 'Grand Mere,'" served with pearl onions, fingerling potatoes and wild mushrooms was done well, but included an overpowering savory sauce that I normally associate with red meats that became too much. The mini-hamburgers were good, served with a spicy mustard and ketchup on a brioche bun.

The desserts were excellent, however. All trendily named with flavors, I ordered "Chocolate Peanut Butter," and was treated to a chocolate peanut butter tart with a malted chocolate "Tastycake" ice cream. I have no idea where the ambiguous "Tastycake" flavor entered, however.

The decor remains that of a hotel lobby, albeit a fashionable one. This might explain the Philadelphia names sprinkled through the menu. We also perused the bar lounge menu, which may be superior to the restaurant offerings and included warm soft pretzel bites and other appetizer-size plates.

Perhaps I've grown too spoiled by the multitude of excellent options in Philadelphia for a bargain, but I found this straightforward, American eclectic menu to be overpriced. With a single drink, our bill came to $90/person, reinforcing my idea that 10 Arts is more about the brand. That being said, the tuna carpaccio was transcendant and the service extraordinary. On a return visit, I might stick with the lounge area.

10 Arts is located in the Ritz Carlton Hotel, at Broad and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia, www.10arts.com.

How to eat an artichoke

The globe artichoke appears exotic but is actually harvested in England from late June.

The fist-sized thistle-like heads of the vegetable are best prepared raw and then cooked, but speedy supper this isn’t.

The freshest artichokes, like flowers, are the more tightly closed, bud-shaped ones that are heavy for their size.

The leaves have a subtle flavour and the heart is a just reward for all the patient preparation - trimming spiky leaves, removing the fibrous choke at its core and boiling until tender (20 to 45 minutes).

Once done, pull off the leaves while still warm and dip in hollandaise, lemon butter, mayonnaise, or vinaigrette.

Jamie Oliver makes a vibrant artichoke, pink grapefruit, frisee and pecorino salad; the River Café, in west London, may well have spaghetti with artichoke pesto on the menu at this time of year, and the Roux brothers go to town and serve upside crowns with chopped smoked salmon, crème fraiche and caviar in the hollow.

Can’t be bothered? Carluccio’s (carluccios.com) sells jars of chargrilled artichokes in olive oil which add instant class to an antipasto of deli meats, pasta or salad.

It’s been said that artichokes have a way of making wines taste sweeter. So choose very dry wines with high acidity. Go British with Ridgeview Bloomsbury Merret 2004, from West Sussex (£19.99, Waitrose). It’s a pared down, dry fizz with lively citrus fruit and a toasty note.

Castroville, in California, is the self-proclaimed world, hmm, heart of artichokes. The small town hosts an annual artichoke festival and has a restaurant, the Giant Artichoke, shaped like an oversized artichoke that serves the local speciality steamed, sautéed, french-fried, pickled, poached, and so on.

Lebanese Food in London

photo by austinevan

Just one elderflower cornetto

The current chilly spell will suit the first tasting of a ‘canal flavoured’ ice cream tomorrow made with foraged ingredients in honour of London’s first gelato vendor, Carlo Gatti.

Gatti is credited with being Britain’s first ice cream man, cutting ice from the Regent’s Canal to make the Italian dessert available to all classes of Londoners in his café, which he opened in Holborn in 1849.

As part of the London Festival of Architecture, British Waterways has teamed up with award-winning eco-restaurant The Waterhouse, run by green chef Arthur Potts Dawson, to serve an elderflower ice from within a 19th-century ice well, a series of which were built along the canal to store ice transported from Norway, keeping it in its frozen form before the invention of the freezer.

Potts Dawson says: “It’s a great chance to celebrate the history of a British culinary phenomenon that has its roots on the canal. Foraging for a local ingredient to base an ice cream flavour on was an enjoyable challenge for us."

The elderflower flavour ice has been added to the menu at the Waterhouse and will also be available to taste on the canal as part of a series of events inviting visitors to gain a fresh outlook on the canal’s environment, and discover new aspects of the 200 year-old transport network.

On Sunday 6 July, an actor impersonating Carlo Gatti will be walking the towpath telling visitors all about his business ventures, which included bringing 400 tons of Norwegian ice by canal to New Wharf Road. The London Canal Museum, that is open for free on the day, will have talks on the ice trade and ice wells.

For more information about the event, including timings, ticket details and prices, visit http://www.waterscape.com/ or http://www.refreshregentscanal.co.uk/

For further information on the London Festival of Architecture visit http://www.lfa2008.org/

A Foodie's Food Court

When I first visited the new Comcast Center, I stood in awe. Together with a friend, I had wandered in to see if the food court had opened. What a scene we discovered - four stories of sculpted people walking on beams above your head, with a two story television in front of you. Not to mention the playful fountain out front, adjacent to Table 31's outdoor seating. It is to an office lobby what Cirque du Soleil is to a street performer. And when a Godiva employee circulating amidst the crowd with free chocolate, I knew I had died and gone to corporate heaven.

I will, with no small measure of embarrassment, admit that I have been so smitten with the Center and its lobby that I dragged my mother, visiting from out-of-town, in to see the tv. Here's the interesting part -- at 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday when we visited, there were just as many people standing in the lobby watching the tv as at noon on a weekday. It's that good.

Because this does purport to be a food blog, I will move from the tv topic to the food court itself, which, to describe as impressive, would be an understatement. DiBruno's has opened an outpost here, in a creatively designed space that takes up the equivalent of three food court store fronts. It offers its best -- sandwiches, hot and other prepared foods, interesting beverages, and some of its gourmet pantry products, too. Like its 18th street store, though, ordering is a bit of a free-for-all, a process that I wonder will survive in the lunch rush. I still maintain that the DiBruno's "Napoleon" sandwich, featuring turkey, brie, caramelized onions and mango chutney, remains one of the best sandwich creations out there, even if they did switch the roll to something strange with caraway seeds.

The sushi stand isn't bad, although it suffers from many fast food sushi's problems of rice that tastes like it was molded long ago. The fish itself is tasty and the roll offerings are relatively varied and unique. The seafood place, Under the C, has a lot of promise. Eating shrimp cocktail in a food court for $5 was a fun novelty, as was being able to pick up fresh fish to prepare at home here. The produce stand looks good, too, as does the juice bar. Still to come (or perhaps already arrived): Mexican Post take-out and Susanna Foo's Dumpling stand. There's a bit of a basement feel to the area, compounded by oddly cacophonous metal chairs, but the food remains extraordinary for a food court.

LaScala's seems to attract the longest lines in the food court. Which may have a lot to do with their choppy service. Known for their brick-oven pizza, which they offer in at least eight varieties that I could immediately count, LaScala's also offers salads and pastas. Although all of the food is prominently displayed, a menu is missing. As is a system for handling customers. And recently, its registers were down, forcing cashiers that had not been forced to do math in a while do a lot of math, including calculate tax. I got the Mediterranean salad, with crabmeat, lobster, shrimp and grape tomatoes served with a citrus dressing. I liked it; the crabmeat was generously portioned and the lobster, while a little tough, was still tasty. I may not brave the chaos again, however, given the different options here.

Looking for dessert? Try Termini Brothers' ridiculously-expensive-but-well-worth-it cannoli offerings. At $4 each, it's worth savoring every bite. Don't forget Buck's County Coffee for the post-lunch coma you've induced.

The Comcast Center is located at 17th and Arch Streets, with its main entrance facing JFK Boulevard. The food court is open from 8 am to 7 pm, Monday through Friday and 10-5 on Saturday. The lobby is open 24 hours.