Last night the Philadelphia Foodie Meet-Up was a huge success!
We held the event at Garce’s Trading Co., which a cute little restaurant/market on Locust Street in Center City, Philadelphia.
Sabrina and I got there a little early to check out the digs. As soon as you walk in the door you are greeted with a fresh flower section. I kind of wanted to buy them all to decorate my apartment!
The market area of Garce’s offers a variety of cheeses, charcuterie, wines, breads and pastries which are on the menu in the restaurant, but are also for sale. I tried a few of these spreads with my cheese plate at dinner.
Here are some of the different types of condiments to go with the cheese selections:
pistachio currant salbitxada, cherry fig marmalade
truffle lavender honey, white sangria honey
onion pecan butter, roasted garlic dulce de leche
fennel apricot mostardo, chocolate hazelnut
If those flavors don’t make you drool I don’t know what will!
There is also a wine boutique inside the restaurant. Garce’s is BYO, so its nice to be able to check out some new wines to try.
The restaurant doesn’t take reservations, but for our special Philly Foodie Meet-Up, they set up 2 big tables for our group.
Sabrina brought a bottle of red for us to share at the table. I brought nametags for the group. It was a team effort!
Side Note – Nametags for meet-up = AWESOME!
After we sat down and everyone started to arrive, Sabrina poured me a nice big glass of wine.
And what goes awesome with wine? Bread!
What goes even MORE awesome with wine? CHEESE! I split the Chef’s selection of cheeses, which was 3 different cheeses with different spreads. It was even more amazing than it looks.
I love me some cheeses.
For appetizer (round 2) I split the artichoke hearts with Sabrina. They were served with lemon, honey, dates and walnuts. Yum!
I also enjoyed an Endive Salad, which came with pears, oranges and raisins. It was delish! Endive salads are my favorite!
My new friend (in real life AND online!) Melissa and I split the Verde pizza. This was topped with spinach, ricotta, green asparagus, arugula and fava beands. It was amazing.
Here are a few group shots –
Role Call – Bloggers in Attendance:
Sabrina of http://rhodeygirltests.com/ (my co-planner!)
Emily of http://goodcleaneating.blogspot.com/
Chrissey of phillygirlruns.blogspot.com
Stephanie of stephtbs.wordpress.com
Jill of bootcampphilly.com
Lauren of http://hellopa.blogspot.com/
Kelly of http://myverbalvomit.wordpress.com
Lisa of lisaathome.wordpress.com
Kelly of runningphoodie.wordpress.com
Lisa of http://www.dsdawgs.org/
Jess of www.upsanddownes.wordpress.com
We also had a few readers in attendance! So shout out to April, Melissa, Dasha and Heather. I hope I didn’t forget anyone!
I was so excited to meet Melissa in real life! We are going to be running buddies! Last night we convinced her to join the Twitter revolution, so friend her! She’s so fun! We have plans to run on Kelly Drive very soon! I can’t wait!
Sabrina and I also put together a little door prize of sorts. We put together some samples that we had both received and put everything in a basket to give away to one lucky person in attendance!
If you missed this meet-up, doesn’t this make you want to come hang out with us next time? We give out prizes! I picked the winner from the wine glass…
Emily won the big prize! She went home with lots of goodies including some healthy snacks, a cookbook holder, water bottle and some other fun stuff! Emily is getting married in a few days! Congrats!
The whole evening was awesome! I had so much fun meeting everyone. All the Philadelphia Foodie’s/Readers I met last night are so nice, I can’t wait to hang out with everyone again soon!
By the end of the night, desserts were eaten by many. I didn’t eat this because I was stuffed, but I thought it was pretty. 
I was also really excited that I got to chat for a bit with Stephanie. We are blog and twitter friends, so it was nice to meet her in real life! Hopefully we can hang out again soon too!
Sabrina and I with Stephanie.
Here is Stephanie, Kelly, Melissa, Me, Lisa, Dasha, Heather, Sabrina, and April. We were some of the last to leave!
Sabrina and I had so much fun planning this meet-up! Hopefully we will have another one very soon!
The meet-up started at 7:00 and we were all still there closing the place down around 10:00! Us foodie love to eat and chat, what can I say?
I love blog meet-ups and trying new restaurants! I had so much fun putting blogs to faces and meeting some new people. It’s so nice to know there are so many other Philly foodie’s out there!
In the end, I think a good time was had by all!
9 Comments
YAY! ANOTHER FUN NIGHT IN THE BOOKS!
That looks like a lot of fun. And your dress is so cute!
Hooray,so much fun! Thanks for sending us all of your pictures. I really want to do this again soon!
I've always loved food blogs for the food pics – but its even more fun to see what I ate! I want that cheese plate again. Like, now 🙂 haha. Cant wait for our runs together!
Looks like such a wonderful time! I was thinking about driving up, but I had some work things going on. Booo.
Cute dress!!!
that looked like so much fun! wish I was in town for that =(
Having fun with the girls, yeah! Looks like an amazing place for a meet-up. I think you should have a monthly meet-up, why not?
such fun! i'm bummed i couldn't make it. and door prizes? you girls are goooood! looks like a lovely place!
That looks like soo much fun. I want in on the next one…I'll even drive from Delaware! That restaurant is too cute and the food looks delicious. Glad you had fun. You were a group of hot foodies!!