It's been three years since I last visited Philadelphia, which is honestly three years too long. Living in DC, it's effortlessly easy to visit cities up and down the northeast via Amtrak, and after passing through Philly's 30th Street Station so often on my way en route to New York City, I figured I was long overdue to alight at the city of brotherly love for a long weekend of exploration.
While I certainly had non-food points of interest on my itinerary, priority number one once I had my train booked was stopping by the dedicated gluten-free Fox & Son and get my hands on their gloriously golden menagerie of fried foods. If you've been missing corn dogs, loaded fries, fried cheese curds, or funnel cake from your free-from-gluten life, Fox & Son has you covered. Located in the vibrant and bustling Reading Terminal Market, this food stand not only has the gluten-free goods, it's nestled among an epicurean wonderland of produce, prepared foods, and kitchen wares.
The cruel thing about being gluten-free is not only that forever alters your sense of "normal" for baked goods and other wheat-based products, but it turns every dining experience into a research project, with serious sleuthing skills required before crossing a restaurant or cafe's threshold. Gone are the days where stopping by for a sandwich or sitting down for a dinner can be done on a whim.
However at one of New York's newest 100% gluten-free eateries, you can find proper baked goods as well as dining options from dawn to dusk and for a brief moment, forget both downsides to being gluten-free. Meet Modern Bread & Bagel and Arba, which should be a priority point of interest for any gluten-free foodie, whether local or from out of town.
Operating as Modern Bread & Bagel by day and Arba by night, this upper west side eatery already impressed me as I experienced their dinner serve earlier this year (read my review). Now, in this post, I'm turning my sights squarely on their daytime iteration, where I finally got my hands on a half dozen of their signature bagels, which I have been pining for since their opening.
