Where Phila and Rachel Lorn Eat in Philadelphia

We get the burger. It’s all they have. We consistently get that, it’s a quick fix, and we get a light beer each. People leave us alone there.

We go to Palizzi for their cutlet and the company. We also get their Caesar salad. I don’t know what they see in me, but they always send me the lamb chops. We also get the stromboli and we drink. Rachel gets two DiCicco martinis and an espresso martini.

It’s the only place I go where I feel like I’m on a movie set. I say, I’ll have a whiskey, and never the name of the whiskey,” said Phila

It’s down the street from us. We go to Le Virtù a lot. We get the prawns and their pasta. We bring Otis, our son, and he loves their buttered noodles, which they make for kids. We eat their buttered noodles too. They’re really good.

We go to Parc a lot, but part of our problem is that we don’t eat until a weird hour, and there aren’t a lot of places open in Philly on a Monday. But Parc is always open. We always get the escargot and share the burger and the shrimp salad.

We go here way too much, as often as five times in a week. It’s fast, it’s consistent, it’s nice. It’s always empty, and we can talk about whatever we want, so it’s like our meeting spot. We order the pho deluxe or the vermicelli with tofu and Bò Lúc Lắc.

We eat to survive, and we eat good food. We don’t go places to be inspired. The inspiration we get from restaurants is longevity. We like to go places that have been there a long time, like Oyster House.

Reading Terminal is dirty, but we love it. And we really love Herschel’s. Rachel’s dad was a photographer, and his color photo lab—where he got his photos developed—was across from Reading Terminal Market. He knew every vendor. We’d go after school.