The Philadelphia CHOP is probably a bit of a misnomer, because the acronym CHOP itself contains the word Philadelphia. Specifically, it stands for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the target of today’s…well it’s not exactly an adventure. Let’s call it a “meandering away from home.” Today is one of those work days, or rather, make-the-most-of-work days, that end up in the travel blog. My boss was flying in from Chicago, taking an Uber to my house, then the plan was to drive down together for the demo. After it was done, we would then grab some dinner, and drive back home.
Tommy got to the house just after noon, and I fired up the steamer and made some XLB, otherwise known as xiaolongbao, or what are simply known as soup buns to most of us. Inside each soup bun is a small amount of liquid you can drink (carefully) before you eat the dumpling itself. Done right, these are amazing little buggers. I realized today that we’ve been steaming them too long. Just a notch over 10 minutes seems best.
After lunch we hopped in the car and put 100 East Penn Street into the GPS and set sail. Oddly, it was taking us to the west side of Philly, which seemed wrong, but at this stage of life I don’t question the Google Borg any longer. Sure enough, it got us where we needed to go, which was pretty much a scene straight out of The Wire. With .3 miles to go, I figured that we absolutely were not where we were supposed to be.
Turns out that 100 East Penn Street and 100 East Penn Square are completely different locations.
Eventually we made it to the demo, albeit a tad late, and it went just fine. In the end we had lots of time to spare, which makes this trip just about as short as it gets, barely 70 minutes in all with the client. I’m not going to get into the specifics of what we’re doing here, as that’s beyond the scope of this blog.
After the demo, we congregated outside the Macy’s building across from City Hall, while 3 of our coworkers waited for their Uber. Once their ride showed, we walked to a coffee shop I’d been to before, just a few blocks away. The last time we were here, the family was in the car circling the block while I ran inside for an espresso and a pound of coffee. I think the kids these days call that “squad goals” but I may be mistaken.
Elixir Coffee Roasters still makes a sensational double, and once again I picked up a pound of beans while I was there. This is one of the few shops that still gives you a free shot when you buy a pound, which is mostly unheard of these days. Much respect for that. I’m not a huge fan of Philly in general, but this place could help change my mind in that regard. I will also admit that maybe I’m coming around a little on this city.
We had parked around the corner from city hall, so after the coffee we walked back to the circle-square to get the car and drive to get some dinner. I do like this part of town a bit better than the Independence Hall area because I find it both nicer and more lively.
The original idea was to try Zahav for dinner but we got there and the wait was an hour. Not interested in this sort of down time, we went back to Chinatown and picked a hot pot place somewhat randomly. If nothing else, it has a great name in Chubby Cattle.
We hung out and talked a bunch at dinner, which is far cooler when your boss/coworker is also your friend. The meal was good, not great, mostly because the broth wasn’t anything special. I was going to go with the miso broth but the waitress kind of hesitated when we asked about it. In the end, I should have just gone with my original idea, as the spicy wasn’t very well-balanced, and had almost no Szechuan peppercorns in it.
The ingredients were as good as any other hot pot, by and large. Like Tommy said, hot pot is hot pot. I think the broth is pretty much everything in a meal like this, which is also true for ramen shops. As always, it was cool to hang out with Tommy for a bit, which doesn’t really happen that often as he lives, like I said, 750 miles away.
The drive home was uneventful, which is the way I like it. We didn’t end up in any slums, nor hit any traffic. My future will likely be more work trips like this one, where I show up to be somewhere for a few hours or at most, a day or two. The days of 3-5 day workshops are probably at an end for now, at least with this company.
In all it was a pretty good day with some good perks that I wouldn’t normally get on a working Thursday. For sure, I’ve had more taxing work trips than this. That I was able to turn it around from start to finish in just under 9 hours was another bonus. Some days, work is filled with endless hours and thankless tasks, other days it has great coffee and meat piles. You take them all as they come.
Traveling Normandy 