Penn Brewery

Since Adam and Leslie were without water last night, we decided to venture over to Penn Brewery for dinner and drinks. This was the first trip to Penn for all three of us, and we had high hopes after a couple of bad experiences at PGH's other main brewpub - Church Brew Works. Luckily, Penn came through.

The brewery's building is pretty cool, with a cobblestone outdoor seating area in a back corner of the lot. It reminded me of Schnitzel's Tavern in Bellefonte, which burned down last year and happened to be one of my favorites. Inside, we found mostly older folk partying with a Dixieland jazz band. A large sign reminded us that Oktoberfest is only 22 days away.

Adam and I started off with the Tomato Bisque soup, which was pretty good but nothing spectacular. As for the beer: Adam went for the Dark and Leslie had the Weizen. Unfortunately their Oktoberfest beer is not quite ready, so I tried the Kaizer Pils, which was light, crisp, and refreshing. Other beer on tap includes their "standard" Pilsner as well as their Gold.

For the main course, I had the Chicken Cordon Brew, and I'm still not sure where the "brew" comes from since I didn't see anything about it containing beer on the menu. Nonetheless, it was delicious. Crispy chicken breasts stuffed with ham and swiss cheese, a creamy wine sauce on top, with mini baked potatoes and mixed veggies on the side. At $16 it sounds pricey, but it is a big meal and I ate half of it for lunch today. This is a key Snacky D strategy, because I am often too lazy to prepare lunch ahead of time, and I feel too guilty if I eat out for lunch all the time.

Penn has good food, good beer, and a warm atmosphere that makes me really want to go back for their Oktoberfest celebration. Great place overall, I highly recommend it. Too bad it isn't within easier riding distance from where I live, but I guess beggars can't be choosers...

Northwest PA

I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and most of Thursday in Edinboro, PA for training at my company's manufacturing facility. We stayed overnight in Erie (20 minutes away), and we ate out for every single meal. Keep in mind - just a few days ago my stomach was working off of nothing but veggie broth and ginger ale; now I was eating breakfast buffets and pub grub non-stop - what a huge difference! Luckily my stomach adjusted quite well, so here are some of the highlights:

• $2 Yuengling pints at Quaker Steak & Lube. This place was a hop, skip, and jump away from our hotel, and we spent the better part of both nights here. Not exactly my favorite bar, but this deal can't be beat because your other choices at Quaker Steak are Coors Light, Miller Lite, Keystone Light (yuk!) and maybe Sam Adams or Blue Moon. The latter two are probably twice as expensive, and the first three just plain suck. Yuengling carves a niche for people who want a good value but don't believe in drinking shitty beer.
• Good beer at Molly Brannigan's in downtown Erie. We visited this Irish pub/restaurant Wednesday night and enjoyed some good food and some Snake Bites - a half pint of Strongbow cider topped with a half pint of Guinness - mmmm! As far as mixed beers go, stout and cider is my favorite combo. They also had both Boddington's Pub Ale and Smithwick's (one of my favorites) on tap.
• More good beer at Plymouth Tavern, just a few blocks down State Street from our dinner venue. While the selection was fairly respectable, they did not have Young's Double Chocolate Stout (instead, only their Oatmeal Stout). I have been trying to share this beer with my co-workers for awhile now but have had trouble finding it other than at D's Six Pax & Dogs in PGH. It is a really tasty chocolate stout that can be appreciated by both hardcore beer drinkers and non-beer drinkers alike, and *should* be easy to find at a place like Plymouth. Instead, we settled for one of my old standbys: Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout.
  

While my stomach has been working overtime this week, the food (and beer) was good, so I think I could enjoy traveling for work more often...

B&J's

Monday night I went over to the Ben & Jerry's scoop shop in Squirrel Hill with Adam and Leslie. This one shares a storefront with the Bagel Factory, which was closed, but had a huge tray full of wrapped up pastries. Leslie, being a tad more curious than myself, asked the man behind the counter if they were giving them away. After all, they were next to a trash bag full of bagels and it looked like they were all going to get tossed (Justin would have grabbed all of these in a blink of an eye). The man told her yes, we could have some, and our eyes lit up. Since I was traveling to Erie for work the following morning, I knew these pastries would become a key part of my trip, so I grabbed a blueberry scone and a frosted cinnamon roll (for the record, both were delicious).

Now for Ben & Jerry's... I ordered a Jamaican Me Bananas smoothie for $5. I love going to ice cream shops, but I rarely get just a simple bowl or cone of ice cream. Usually when I eat more than a small scoop or two of ice cream, I feel really tired. So instead I tend to go for the smoothies or milkshakes. They generally cost more, but getting fresh fruit, ice cream, yogurt, milk, etc. all blended together into cup is worth it to me. Less mess, easier to consume, easier to carry around. Unfortunately on this occasion, they were out of bananas so the man behind the counter offered to substitute Bananas on the Rum ice cream instead. While fresh bananas would have been perfect, this still ended up being a damn good smoothie. It was rather heavy on the pineapple, which got to be a little too much near the end, but overall I definitely recommend this smoothie. I am all about value, and for $5 you get a lot of smoothie in this one.

The other funny thing we noticed at the shop was that they sold bags of potato pancake "chips". Curiously, I picked up the bag and read the motto - "thou shall snack" - and had a good laugh with Leslie and Adam. Such a good motto, in fact, that I decided to steal it...

Intro

Hello everyone! I've tried blogging before, but gave up because I had no purpose. This time I have a purpose, and that is to review/write about snacks, food, and beer that I enjoy.

I earned the nickname "Snacky D" while working at Mt. Nittany Wheelworks last summer. Apparently, I hoarded enough snacks underneath my shop bench to make Frank, Jim, and Harry both jealous and hungry. Frank probably stole enough of my snacks to deserve a "snacky" nickname himself but I guess I just happened to get tagged first.

Ironically, I begin this blog just as I am fighting off a nasty case of viral gastro-enteritis (aka stomach flu). This hit me rather suddenly on Friday morning and hit its peak with a trip to the UPMC Shadyside E.R. on Friday evening. I ate very little over the weekend, and spent much of the time on the couch watching fine films such as American Flyers. Luckily, I feel much better now and today I began to eat more "normal" foods. Hopefully my body will recover in time for the 24-hour mountain bike race at Seven Springs this weekend; fortunately, I'm on a 5-person team.