Furious Flav-or

http://www.harrisburg.com/restaurant_reviews.php?key=2 (The paper indicates that it's in Duncannon, but I thought that it was in Clark's Ferry) Red Rabbit Drive-In Route 322 Duncannon , PA 17020 717-834-4696 Two words: Bunny Burger. While you're at it, throw in a side of fries and a thick chocolate milkshake. The Red Rabbit has been a Perry County institution that rolls campy drive-in atmosphere, memorable fast food and great people watching all into one trip. Open only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, you might want to anticipate a bit of a wait. Red Rabbit offers a take-out and call ahead service so you can drive up and drive off, but I highly recommend parking and eating. Your order comes to you in the typical drive-in fashion: on a tray that attaches to your window and piled high with goodness. Non-food idea: Rickett's Glen

The 'Burg itself is really known for one thing and one thing only: the cheeseburger sub. A cheeseburger is split and loaded into a long "Italian" roll and then decorated in "California" fashion, with lettuce, tomato, and heart-stopping gobs of mayonnaise. French fries are typically piled up next to it. Back in the pre-Clinton days the 'Burg was a swingin' town, with insanely good dangerous dining both on the Hill (great Puerto Rican joints) and up North 6th Street for ribs, broasted chicken, and a Halal joint for chicken wings. Unfortunately, it's all gone now. Three links which might prove helpful: http://www.modeweekly.com/1998/0798/CheapLunch0798.htm http://www.northsecondstreet.com/spotmenu.html http://www.visithhc.com/mem-dine.shtml Don't laugh at the link to "The Spot." It's been ten years plus since I worked in the 'Burg but the cheeseburger subs and Spot-dogs are still etched in my mind.

It almost sounds like you'd be better off at a diner. Not to be too brash, but I'd tell the son to deal and go down Washington Ave. towards the river. There's some great Mexican, Vietnamese, and Cambodian to be had on either side of 9th St. If you want "tourist Italian," try Ralph's at 760 S. 9th St.

Jas is right; the molcajete is the name for both serving vessel and food contained within (or to put it another way, it's the name of both the dish and the dish). Kinda like "casserole". Anyway, Moroleone's molcajete had lots of different meats: beef, pork and a big ol' sausage lying there on top. Good stuff. Mm hmm, clarification acknowledged about four or five posts up, one past his post, in fact. Sometimes too much knowledge isn't a good thing; I'm hobbled by my strong command of Spanish. As I said previously, mea maxima culpa, and as punishment I must ingest some of this rare and unusually named dish.

I second the earlier mention of La Taquería Michoacana in Norristown. We've been going there since well before they expanded backwards into the next property, even before the addition of the tiny Tiki-Mexican fusion bar with the terra-cotta roof tiles. It used to be a hole in the wall with about ten tables and a huge rear projection TV set. The place is the best balance between price, quality, and atmosphere around. The horchata kicks booty, they have menudo, birria, and pozolé on the weekends, but expect to stand in line for a table at normal dining hours. The staff is friendly, and somewhat bilingual. I'm an ex-Spanish teacher and translator, so fine-tuning orders and getting little extras is usually fairly easy for me. Now, if you were to go towards the downtown in Norristown, away from La Michoacana, as if you were to make a right going out the door, there's another place called Sol de México (IIRC) about three blocks up the hill on the other side of Rt. 202, on the left, as the cuervo flies. The place has zero atmosphere, the tables and benches are one-piece, right out of 1974, with molded, curved seat bottoms that are gut-unfriendly, but the food (so far, been there twice) is better and significantly cheaper than that served at La Michoacana. Now then, option three. Instead, if you were to make a right at McDonald's on 202, and then make a left at the next light and go up the hill about three or four blocks, there's a little hole in the wall place that makes kick-a$$ tacos and sopes. He doesn't have a huge menu; in fact, his menu is microscopic, but, as he says, he'd rather do a few things very well than be a middling generalist. The only beverages are Jarritos and the omnipresent Mexican-bottled Coca Cola. It's clean and bright inside and a great place for an in-and-out taco experience. You really, really need to try what he calls "cochinitas," which seem to be a play on the standard "al pastor." I was a bit confused at first by the name, because a "cochín" isn't a very nice thing to be called.

If we do a Philly run, we gotta include Texas Weiners, one on Syder Ave., to which I directed Holly myself. Totally, totally Twin Peaks à la Sout' Philly atmosphere inside, but the dogs keep you coming back. Plus, there's two different places to go for great espresso coffee and cornete afterwards, literally within 100 feet of TW.

Maybe we could get Satch from "Get Fuzzy" to be the spokesdog. He's about as rumpled and bulgy as a Jersey 'mater. Then again, so am I. Oh, yeah, just finished lunch: a pair of grilled cheese sammiches on Arnold's Country White with sharp cheddar and thinly sliced "Jersey Devil" tomatoes. Oh, the joys of summer.

I'll have to check that out next time we go. I usually don't get past the tampiqueña! Thanks for the clarification. ((poke)) ((poke)) And yes, La Mixteca is up over the highway on the other side, but they closed the grocery part of the operation.

Andrew, not to poke sticks through your cage, me being a rookie and all, but I'm terrified of you if you actually managed to eat a molcajete. So far as I know, which is a good bit, a molcajete is a basalt-rock mortar that is used with a basalt-rock pestle called a tejolote. It's used, as you know, not just to grind up sauces by hand, but usually, the smaller ones are also used as serving vessels for various salsas and crema. Edited for PS: I concur, the food is great at Moroleon, but the bathrooms are from hell and the service is sometimes spotty. There's another small joint on the other side of the road, across the big median, called Taquería Mixteca that you might want to try out as well.

I think there's a Jamaican place called Sunday Best that I got jerk chicken, fish with brown rice, and curried goat from a few times back in my decidedly dodgy and dangerous professional days of working in West Philly. If I remember, it's north of Market on the right side of 52nd St. Big George's makes a few dishes rather well. Probably the two best things there are the turkey wings and the short ribs. They don't have a great corn bread supplier though, but the dinner rolls are out of this world. Avoid the ribs—they're nasty at best.

We were at what used to be Le Cyclo last night. I had two total Vietnamese food rookies with me, folks from Argentina, and my wife, who's had Viet three or four times with me, even though she always sticks to quail and crispy spring rolls. Parking, as usual, was a near impossibility. A few of the storefronts in the back seem to have been rolled up into one big wedding hall, and this being a Saturday night, of course they were booked. Word to the wise: if you can, conspire to get invited to a Vietnamese or Cambodian wedding. Both cultures' wedding celebrations tend to include eight to ten-course bacchanals which are not likely to be easily forgotten. Phó Ba Le itself was more than half empty at 7:00 p.m. when we got there, and mostly white folks like us. While the wife stood post outside waiting for our victims, I had a chance to prep our waiter for two people absolutely afraid of spicy food, and ask him a few questions about the name change. It turned out that his mother is the owner, and he explained it succinctly, thusly: "Business was a little flat, so Mom closed down for a month to think things through. She decided to change the name over to Ba Le, which is our family name, to match the rest of the chain, and we made some changes in the menu, as well." I had Bun bo Hue (traditionally, with the blood and the pig's foot), cha gio, chim cut ro-ti, and cafe sua da. Our friends did a good bit of finger pointing at the menu as the waiter did a fair job of explaining. Karina wound up with some sort of hot pork dish with rice, Julio had beef phó of some sort, and the wife gamely tried a cold pork dish that almost looked Korean, even though half of it wound up tossed to the side. We all did iced sweet coffee, quail, and spring rolls. The coffee and the quail were a huge hit with both rookies, and Julio smacked down all of his dish and Karina's left-overs as well to keep me polite company (yeah, right) as I finished most of my broth. In fact, I got an email from them time-stamped at 3:30 a.m. that they were still up talking about it. On the down side, though, the strange techno music continues wailing from behind the strange little bar. Despite the oddity of some of it and the forgettable parking lot scenery outside, it's still a nice combination of quality and price.