Best of Philly 2012

We have been to Reading Terminal Market before, specifically to check out Flying Monkey Patisserie to see their 15 layer Pumpple cake.  Once we got there, we saw that every single stand in the market had been featured at some point in the 'Best of Philly'.  Which meant, of course, that a more in-depth review of the whole market was very necessary.

This past weekend, I made a trip back to Philly with Chocolate's Why I'm Fat's new official photographer to try a little of everything the market had to offer.  

We started back at Flying Monkey, since that was the place we loved so much the first time.  This time, we tried the cheesecake brownie, the smoreo, a whoopie pie, an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie sandwich, a red velvet cake ball, and a chocolate chip cookie.  All of the desserts looked amazing, and they have interesting spins on traditional treats.  Since we bought so much, and expressed our love for Flying Monkey, the lady even gave us the cake balls for free!

Market bakery, which carries a full line of LeBus breads (a famous Philly bakery featuring artisan breads since 1978), also had fantastic chocolate chip cookies.  They were fresh and warm and had giant chocolate chunks.  We brought half home and warmed it up in the toaster oven, and it proved to be just as good the next day (or at 5 in the morning when we tried this experiment).  The focaccia breads looked amazing, but we made the mistake of saving them for the next morning when they were slightly stale after sitting in the ice cold car all day.  Putting them in the toaster didn't help in this case, so we'll have to try them again next time.  LeBus also has a separate store where you can purchase their breads near Rittenhouse Square.

One of our favorites in the market was The Famous 4th Street Cookies.  They have a lot of different flavors, and initially we just bought a white chocolate chip and a chocolate chip walnut.  But then we saw there were traditional chocolate chip cookies with a fresh coat of chocolate fudge on top.  So back out came the wallets, and another cookie was purchased.  This was my favorite, although very sweet and I was only able to handle a couple of bites at a time.  The Famous 4th Street Cookies is located at the very front of the market, but you can also have them shipped off of their website.  Although to be honest, I would rather hold out until a return trip to Philly because spending the day at Reading Terminal Market is such an enjoyable experience.  There are other things besides food stalls here, such as beautiful flowers from Lancaster county, candles made naturally with bee pollen, and so many Amish people.  Especially for someone who's never been to Amish country, coming here will be a very unique experience.

At the back of the market we found an Amish bakery called Beiler's Bakery.  They are apparently known for their pies and sticky buns, but since neither of those have chocolate we were ready to keep walking.  They we saw a sign that said, 'try our chocolate covered whoopie pies'.  I've never had a chocolate covered whoopie pie before, so we asked if we could try them.  They were sold out of the packages, but they had one package left that they were willing to give us as samples.  I don't usually care for whoopie pies all that much, but these were smaller than a normal pie - probably 3-4 bites in total - and the chocolate covering did the trick.  It was delicious, and I was disappointed they didn't have more for us to bring home!

Reading Terminal Market is located at 51 N. 12th Street.  It's walking distance to the historic district, Rittenhouse Square, and the shopping along Walnut and Chestnut streets.  We parked the car next to the terminal for the day and were able to cover all of the major sites, so I would strongly recommend doing this.  Aside from the bakeries, there are a lot of places for real food too - from Cajun to seafood to Turkish to Italian.  Anything you want, you can find here.  Just make sure to come on an empty stomach!

We'd fly to Philly to go back to Flying Monkey Patisserie

While watching the Travel Channel recently, there was a feature on some of the country's best desserts.  Located in Reading Terminal market on 12th and Arch streets in Philly, this historic specialty Amish farmer's market since 1893 features some of Philly's most unique and mouth-watering merchants, ranging from Amish sweet shops to chocolatiers to Philly cheesesteaks.  On this particular episode of the Travel Channel dessert show, I watched as the Flying Monkey Patisserie baked the most interesting cake I've ever seen.

Called a Pumpple Cake, I watched as an apple pie was baked inside a vanilla cake.  Covered in a layer of buttercream, the cake was then placed on top of a SECOND cake - a pumpkin pie baked inside a chocolate cake.  The double-decker was then covered with a layer of buttercream, speckled with colorful spirnkle bits and pieces, and then ready to be sliced.  Not being a fan of pumpkin or apple pie, and discovering a single slice of the cake was estimated to be 1,800 calories, I wasn't going to try the cake, but I needed to see it up close. 

When we located Flying Monkey at the far end of Reading Terminal Market, there was a long line of people waiting to try the snacks.  Upon closer look, we saw that not just the Pumpple Cake looked amazing, but everything that was baked by scratch on the premises looked better than the next.  There were brownies with neverending chocolate chips, whoopie pies, cupcakes, smore bars...you name it, they had it.  The more unique desserts were the Arnold Palmer cake - a lemon and sweet tea vodka bundt cake with lemon/sweet tea vodka glaze, and the Elvis cake - a banana chocolate chip cake layered with peanut butter buttercream, adorned with mini chocolate chips.  There were also dozens of cupcakes, ranging from your traditional vanilla and chocolates, to the more interesting red velvet and spumoni.  There were also cake truffles (similar to what Momofoku now sells pre-packaged out of their midtown location) in chocolate covered dark chocolate cake and chocolate covered strawberry at only $1 a piece.

Since the Cjaps were determined to fit on the return bus back to NYC, we opted to try the brownie and the S'mores.  The brownie (priced at $3 a slice) was extremely fudgy, and filled with chocolate chips so that each bite was more chocolatey than the next.  The double chocolate brownie was made with two varieties of cocoa and dark chocolate, and each bite had enough sugar to ensure I was never going to sleep that night.  I placed this high in my brownie rankings.  Caryn liked it, but said it still didn't compare to Baked or Astor Bake Shop.  There were other brownies that looked like they would have been amazing as well; Cheesecake brownies with a cheesecake swirl throughout, white chocolate blondies, and Junk in the Trunk brownies - brownies with pretzels, white and dark chocolate, and oreos.
The Smores bar was good, but nothing in comparison to the brownie.  It was a homemade marshmallow, half covered in dark chocolate with a splash or Oreos on the side.  It was good for a lighter, less guiltful treat, but if you're going to Flying Monkey, I would stick with their cakes, brownies, cupcakes or whoopie pies.

Flying Monkey's website (http://www.flyingmonkeyphilly.com) has an online shop available to ship cookies and brownies only, however the site was down for now, so for the non-Philly chocolate fans, you're going to have to take the Bolt Bus for now.  But believe me, it's worth the trip!

Flying Monkey Patisserie

Reading Terminal Market
12th & Arch Streets
215-928-0340

Open Mon-Sat, 8-6; Sundays 9-5