Our New Philadelphia Forum - Or, "How I Spent My Summer"

[DonRocks]

All,

I have labored for months breaking up the old Intrepid Traveler post "Philadelphia" into a full-blown Philadelphia Forum. This surpasses our New York forum in scope because I've spent my summer fully populating it with threads from what is now the Mother Thread - each post detailing an individual restaurant now has its own thread in the new forum. Furthermore, any references to that restaurant have also been copied in (this was a considerable amount of work). The only restaurants that aren't included in the forum (but remain in the Mother Thread) are from posts which review multiple restaurants (without any corresponding posts reviewing the single restaurant), and that's because implementing that would have been such a brutal amount of work, that a 3-month project would have turned into a 6-month project - please keep in mind that because of this, the Mother Thread still contains unique content, and if you're looking for a restaurant, you should include that in your searches. I know that previous sentence sounds complicated, but it should be obvious when you have a look - as an example, "Monk's" won't have its own thread because none of the (several) posts that refer to it in the Mother Thread refer to it exclusively - this is a shame, but I just couldn't handle the workload on my own.

I have exhausted myself in getting this forum ready for everyone, and have organized things as best I could into a Dining Guide - we even have the beginnings of a Help Needed forum. I hope you enjoy it, and if you don't, please don't tell me - I just finished everything five minutes ago, and I'm getting up tomorrow morning to spend my Labor Day weekend in ... Philadelphia. It was my goal to finish this before I left for a working vacation, and somehow, I managed to limp to the finish line.

Unlike the Washington, DC Dining Guide, I have not ranked restaurants within geographic category - I just don't have the expertise yet, so they're listed alphabetically.

This is all about you. I promised you long ago that your posts would be captured forever, and I meant what I said. I plan to devote the rest of my life ensuring that your hard work here will be preserved for posterity.

There are still more exciting changes to come here on donrockwell.com in the very near future; right now, I need a vacation.

Cheers,

Rocks

[cheezepowder]

The Philadelphia Forum looks amazing!  Thank you Don!

[DonRocks]

The Philadelphia Forum looks amazing!  Thank you Don!

Thank you for thanking me. Seriously. I need to hear it.

[LauraB]

Don, thank you so much for creating this.  I can only imagine the amount of time and effort that went into it.  As a frequent visitor to Philadelphia, it's truly a treasure trove for me.  Please know that your hard work is greatly appreciated!

[bookluvingbabe]

Don,

I think that is great!  I remember asking if it was okay to ask a Philly question in the early, early days of the site.

I don't get there much anymore, though someone is getting to be old enough to appreciate the historic sites, but I love the resource.

Thanks!

Jennifer

[DanielK]

Great job, Don. I'm still scheming on how to get back to Zahav.

[porcupine]

Thank you for thanking me. Seriously. I need to hear it.

Seriously, Philadelphia is now on my short list of places to go on a free weekend, just because of this forum.

[Free Wilma]

Having just sent my daughter off to her freshman year of college in Philly, this forum will be my go-to resource for the next four years!  Your timing could not have been any better!  Thanks!

[Mark Dedrick]

Excellent work, thanks for putting this together. I know that this site was extremely useful on our trip to Philadelphia a couple of months ago, and the new forum will make it even more so in the future.

[DonRocks]

Thank you all *very much* for the words of encouragement - believe me, I needed them: I was about to collapse when I posted on Saturday night.

I just got back from 48 hours in Philadelphia to celebrate the launching of this forum. The trip included meals at:

Zahav (sadly, did not live up to my previous visit or my expectations)

Amada (after one less-than-stellar dinner, I'm now batting 2-for-3 here)

Morimoto (a light, pleasant, relatively inexpensive lunch at the sushi bar)

Amis (probably the overall Meal Of The Trip (MOTT), well-worth a visit)

Monk's Cafe (for an Oude Gueuze to cut through everything else)

Dutch Eating Place (blueberry pancakes and scrapple - need I say more?)

John's Roast Pork (two sandwiches, enjoyed with Champagne that evening)

Phew!