This past weekend I traveled to State College, PA, with my husband Topher and his parents for my brother-in-law Bryan's wedding. We were blessed with beautiful weather and a safe, relatively traffic-free road trip.
My father-in-law and Topher share the ability to find great restaurants in any town they visit, and they didn't disappoint this past weekend. On Saturday we tried out two local restaurants in State College, and both were solid picks.
For lunch we stopped at The Deli (picture above) at the corner of Heister Street and College Avenue, which borders the Penn State campus. We debated whether to sit indoors or out (they have a cute sidewalk patio) and ended up indoors, in a back dining room with dark wood walls, retro leather booths, and a huge skylight.
It took us a while to order: the menu is more like a book, and everything sounded delicious. I was torn between the macadamia nut & cilantro crusted salmon and the bunless burger plate (both from the Lite, Lowfat, Lowcarb menu), but then I went with something completely different.
It also took a while to get through the beer menu: they had an impressive selection of brews on tap, including one of my summer favorites, Dogfish Head Festina Peche.
What We Ate
- Me: Middle Eastern Roasted Lamb Wrap (hummus, baba ghanoush, tomato, sprouts, onions, spinach, olives, & cucumber sauce in a whole wheat wrap) served with veggie couscous
- Topher: Chipotle Burger (cheddar cheese, spicy chipotle salsa, & a whole chipotle pepper on a kaiser roll) served with sweet potato fries
- Patty: Chicken Fajita Pita (peppers, onions, lettuce, tomato, & sour cream in a pita)
- Jim: Triple Decker Deli Reuben (grilled corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, & Russian dressing on rye bread)
For dinner we went to Otto's Pub and Brewery. A member of the Pennsylvania chapter of "Buy Fresh Buy Local", their menu lists the regional farms, bakeries, wineries, and creameries from which they get their ingredients. My mother-in-law "Miss" Patty was so impressed with the statement about their beef - "local, pasture-raised, hormone-free beef cattle ... their feed is supplemented with the spent barley from our brewery" - that she ordered a burger.
What We Ate
- For starters: Chicken wings w/ two sauces (sweet & spicy garlic and mango habanero)
- Me: Catfish po' boy (blackened catfish with lettuce, tomato & remoulade sauce on a toasted kaiser roll) served with garlicky green beans, and a glass of red sangria to drink
- Topher: Fish & chips - perfectly battered: not too heavy, but not so light that it flaked off the fish
- Patty: Mushroom swiss burger (half-pound pasture-raised beef with sautéed mushrooms, onions and swiss cheese on a toasted kaiser roll) served with green beans*
- Jim: Roasted butternut squash ravioli topped with gorgonzola cream & fried sage
*Patty has a severe allergy to garlic, so we always have to check with the waiter/chef to find out what items on the menu are safe for her to order. Both The Deli and Otto's were extremely accommodating: they made sure that none of the meats were seasoned, and Otto's even cooked her burger on a separate surface to make sure that no stray garlic from the grill accidentally found its way to her plate. And of course, her garlicky green beans were served sans garlic.
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