I was just back in Philly in October. Sundays, a lot of the best restaurants are closed (including, ironically, the restaurant called “Friday Saturday Sunday”) or close earlier than will work given your ETA; however, there are still some good to excellent choices, depending on what time you get into the City from the airport:
Barclay Prime – [Steakhouse] 237 S. 18th (215) 732-7560
Buddakan - [Asian fusion] 325 Chestnut St. (215) 574-9440 https://buddakan.com [closes at 9pm]
If everybody was masked on the bus I still figure the restaurant’s the most likely. There are a lot of factors. People’s immunity levels vary. So does the number of virus particles they happen to inhale. If you look at the diagram a few posts back of infection on an airplane the distribution of who got infected and who didn’t looks pretty random. If we had an airflow diagram it might look less so.
Sunday night in Philly in Center City….like what NewTrial said pretty limited.
However Monday for lunch you should definitely try Dizengoff and Goldie. Both are from Chef Solomonov. If you love Cortinas Rocky Balboa than head down to Reading Terminal for a roast pork with sharp provolone, broccoli rabe, and some long/sweet hots at DiNic’s.
It’s in South Philly but if you have a chance Angelo’s Pizzeria on 9th/Fitzwater is spectacular and worth the hype. The pizza, cheesesteaks, hoagies all of it. Right next to it is Sarcones Bakery you gotta try a seeded roll and a tomato pie. You might be able to walk in as a single diner to Zahav or Laser Wolf right when they open.
Midtown NYC?
Best Bagels and Coffee might be the best option for bagels for breakfast. Or hit up a coffee cart or bodega for a baconeggcheese and a coffee in those blue cups with greek lettering. 39th and 8th in the southwest quadrant is cart called Coffee Guys. They do a baconeggcheese but you have to ask for the verde sauce. You can’t get that at a Domimican or middle eastern runned bodega. They run out of bacon and verde by 9am just to let you know the word of mouth popularity. King of Falafel has a cart in midtown if you need lunch.
Oh, if people are giving some random dining recs on this thread, here’s a link to a thread about an upcoming road trip (in case anyone has recs for that):
Funny, I had the same initial thought. Many years ago, my Dad was supposed to meet my Mom at a reception at Leonard’s and was surprised he had gotten there before her. So he started to enjoy the party and mingle. After a while, he realized he did not recognize anyone there and discovered that he was in the wrong one of Leonard’s several ballrooms, all of which were in use that night.
Been to many Bar Mitzvahs at Leonard’s. The first “fine” dining place my parents ever took us to was Cookies on Northern Blvd maybe a mile away. They had an all you can eat shrimp bar and it was the first time I ever ordered a steak at a restaurant. Brings back a lot of memories.
I miss hard rolls.