Weekend Trip Series: Philly and Delaware in one weekend!

This past weekend I went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I’ve loved Philly for a long time now, I love their pride and attitude there. It’s only about 1.5 hours from home but I don’t go as often. I’ve done all of the usual tourist stuff when I was younger but came back this past weekend and wanted to do something fun and different. I’ve seen people do their own pizza or food tours and always wanted to do one of those on my own, instead of one of the guided food tours. I decided that the DIY food tour would be perfect as we didn’t have much time in Philly. I just searched for food neighborhoods in Philly and East Passyunk came up as a great neighborhood for an international food tour. I chose restaurants with cuisines from different places in the world and made sure we didn’t eat a few hours previously. My idea was to get an appetizer at each place to try and make it a food tour.

We got to Philly around 2 pm on Saturday and went straight to East Passyunk. Our first stop was Pistolas Del Sur which is a quaint Mexican restaurant. I got a glass of wine and Mike got a strawberry margarita which was pretty strong. I had the lobster tacos which were amazing. They were $18 for two but definitely worth it. It was a sweet, citrus taco with corn and lobster in each bite- one of my favorite tacos I’ve ever had because it was so unique.

The next stop was Italian Lascala’s Birra which had fun options like Mac and cheese pizza, cheese steak egg rolls, and stuffed long hots. We decided to go with the truffle Mac and cheese appetizer to split. It was super rich filled with prosciutto and peas but it was delicious.

We were really starting to slow down and get full at this point and had two more stops a Malaysian restaurant and a Spanish wine bar. We decided to go for a walk and went shopping to digest what we ate before. We then decided to skip the Malaysian restaurant and just go with the Wine bar

Third and final stop was the Barcelona Wine Bar. The ambiance in there is rustic with old pictures of places like la boqueria hanging on the wall, made me feel like I was in the Spain. They had a huge choice of wine and tapas. We went the wine flight which was a tasting of three different wines. We got two tapas- the marinated burrata and the beef empanadas, both of which were absolutely delicious.

After our food tour, it was time to check into our hotel. which was Sonesta Hotel. Sonesta Philadelphia is a fresh, contemporary hotel located in downtown Rittenhouse Square – the heart of downtown. I got there early and the kind staff was able to check me into my room early. I did a walk through of the hotel before going up to my room and my first reaction was noticing how sleek everything was. Art from local artists lined the walls and there were splashes of red, white, and black throughout the lobby.

We went up to the 21st floor to our room, a breathtaking corner suite. There were cow hide chairs, a dreamy king bed, and the most perfect bathroom lighting. The suite was the perfect mix of modern, artsy and comfortably. The hotel room was so perfect that we decided to stay in for the night instead of going back out!

The hotel has both a full gym and breathtaking rooftop pool, which I will have to come back in the summer and check out! There are two restaurants on site Ruth Chris steakhouse and the Art Bar. I stopped at the Art Bar for breakfast on my way out and it was delicious! If you are in Philly and looking for a hotel I highly recommend you check out Sonesta – you will not be disappointed!

Once we left Philly on Sunday morning we headed to Dover, Delaware for the NASCAR race. I partnered with Sugarlands Distilling Company for the race. Sugarlands is a distillery in Tennessee and they are the official moonshine of NASCAR. We had hot passes for the event which means you have access to the garage and pits where all of the drivers are. During the race you even get to stand in the pit where all the action is. We happen to be standing in Kyle Larson’s pit as he won and got to be apart of the celebration. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience which I am so grateful I got to attend. Thank you, Sugarlands Distillery Co!