The High Street Caffee

As some of my readers may know or remember, our youngest son is spending part of his spring break here with us in Sabbaticalville. Poor guy. Anyone else would be somewhere much further south, enjoying the beach and girls gone wild or whatever it is they do for fun and jollies during spring break these days. Being a good son (and one with no money), he came to visit us instead.

He arrived on Wednesday on a cheap flight from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia (the hour drive from the Bogs to Pittsburgh is worth it for the $49 flight). We went to New Jersey to visit with my parents, where we had a great time. We had hoagies for lunch. Mom made ham and cabbage for dinner (if you’re reading, thanks Mom!). I’m beginning to think M the Younger was right when he said that every time we come out east, all we do is eat.

Yesterday we went into Philadelphia to see the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute. In my opinion, it wasn’t worth the drive, the gas, or the major amount of money they want you to shell out to see the exhibit. With various discounts, it cost us about $70 for the three of us. I thought the exhibit was a lot of hype with little substance. Don’t get me wrong. There were some interesting aspects to it. But it tends to build tension, as if you’re going to see great things, when it’s mostly a very small portion of the artifacts found in King Tutankhamum’s tomb.

$70 might not seem like a great deal of money to some, but I happen to think it’s a lot now that I’m not working. For that amount of money, Steve Martin should have been there doing the (Saturday Night Live) King Tut skit which Mr. Martin did in honor of Tut’s first visit to the States.

Then, too, it could be the M&M’s and I didn’t enjoy it as much as the hype because we had the opportunity to visit the British Museum several times when we lived in London for a summer. The BM is free (except for special exhibits) and has an extensive Egyptian collection that is, in my opinion, much more impressive than what we saw at the Tut exhibit. I know there is some controversy surrounding some of the BM’s exhibits and collections, but I’m not going to get into that.

Today we spent most of the day not doing too much. M the Younger is feeling a little under the weather so we gave him a chance to rest. While M the Elder went to work this morning, M the Younger slept in. After breakfast we went down to the club room to shoot some pool. We’re both terrible at it, but it was fun. I won the first game, he won the second, and then we quit. We’re not a terribly competitive family.

For lunch, we met up with M the Elder at the High Street Caffee. The whole purpose of this post is to rave about it. I loved the purple decor and the whole feel of the place. I can’t wait to go back and try their dinner menu. We started with an appetizer of Cajun Popcorn, fried crawfish tails topped with creole mustard. Delicious! Whatever they dusted the tails in was light and spiced just right, they were fried well (not at all greasy), and the creole mustard mix of sweet and spicy was nice.

Although there were a number of lunch specials that looked inviting, we all ordered the jambalaya. Wonderful! Fabulous! Marvelous!! There aren’t enough good words for the High Street Caffee’s jambalaya. And there was enough to feed us at least one or two more times. The sauce, or roux, was a wonderful shade of dark, nutty brown and spiced perfectly (spicy enough to make our noses run, but not so spicy it set our tongues on fire). The holy trinity (onions, peppers, and celery) of cajun/creole cooking were present in abundance and nicely cooked with some crispness still present (not mushy and overcooked). It comes with Andouille sausage and your choice of chicken, chicken and shrimp, or crawfish. We all ordered the chicken version. $9.95 for enough food to feed at least six.

I’m going to try the etouffee next time. I like etouffee, a lot, but only if it’s cooked right. The jambalaya was so wonderfully good that I’m sure their etouffee must be heavenly.

The M&M’s are currently at the American Helicopter Museum. I decided to take a pass on that as I’m not all that interested in helicopters or flight in general. I like having my feet firmly planted on the earth.

Tomorrow we’re going back into Philly to solve a murder mystery at the art museum. We’re going to meet up with M the Elder’s sister and two of her friends so we’ll have a team of six. Since none of us are familiar with the museum, we don’t expect to win. We do expect to have a good time and enjoy some great art.