White Palm Tavern - Topton

To celebrate the end of the semester (and to mark my end at Kutztown) a few friends and I went to the White Palm in Topton. Here is their website:www.whitepalmtavern.com I have wanted to go here for a while and heard a lot about it. A classmate of mine had worked there (not sure if she still does or not?) as a bar tender and always bragged of the good food. So we decided to try it out for ourselves.

It was a nice warm spring evening so we decided to sit outside on the deck and eat. They had about 6 tables outside with umbrellas. I didn't look around inside too much, but what I did notice outside was that they had a palm tree door handle. I love it and now I want one. I guess I should have taken a picture, but I am not that quick!

Myself and one friend had the pulled pork sandwich. The owners have a Hawaiian background so many of their items are named appropriately. I didn't find their food to be authentic Hawaiian, but it did have a Hawaiian flare to it. OK, so you may be asking yourself how I know what Hawaiian food is, well, let me tell you. My husband lived in Hawaii for a year (and worked in the food industry) and a half and I spent some time with him so we have a good understanding of the food. I really doubt that Pennsylvania is ready for spam and eggs for breakfast and the size of a plate lunch.

OK, so back to my meal. The pulled pork sandwich was really good. It had a nice smokey flavor and was moist. When it first arrived, I was a bit miffed by the fact that there wasn't much BBQ sauce, but after tasting it, I realized that there was no need for an excess of BBQ sauce. One friend got an actual meal, a fish meal, which I can not remember (nor find on their website) and it looked very appetizing. I am not a fish eater, so I really didn't pay attention to it! We all had drinks and desert (of course you have to have this on a girls' night out!)

My one complaint is that the appetizer that we ordered, the spring rolls, were a much smaller portion than we thought. We asked our server how many rolls came with one order and was told six. When they arrived, we were disappointed to see that there were indeed six on the plate but three of them were not entire rolls. It honestly looked like a few feel apart during the cooking process and they decided to serve us the parts, totaling six. A bit of a bummer when sharing an appetizer, but we didn't feel a need to say anything. Hopefully, they will see that we are paying for 6 entire rolls, not six pieces.

Tre Scalini Ristorante - Bethlehem

To celebrate my graduation from graduate school, my husband treated me to a wonderful Italian dinner at Tre Scalini Ristorante in Bethlehem. Their website is: http://www.trescalini.net/ They state to have Italian/New American style dishes, which I would agree. I am not sure if their menu changes, but when we were there it was heavy on the Italian dishes.

I had a handmade noodle with a bolognese sauce, it was quite wonderful. I was not expecting the large portion that we did receive. Most smaller places like this tend to give smaller portions of handmade pastas, but not here. My husband had a dish with capellini, scallops and shrimp in a sherry sauce. I am not a seafood eater, so I did not try his dish. He stated that he enjoyed it. (I had the larger portion of the two dishes!)

The restaurant is a converted home and the dining area looks to be the old living room of the house. There is a charming fireplace that looks original to the home. There were only 12 tables, so not too many people can dine at one time. We arrived early (and were the youngest people there!) and were asked if we had reservations. We did not, but were seated right away.

Overall, we had a wonderful dinner and were pleasantly surprised! The only negative comment (and may not be negative) was that our sodas were from a can (we heard them opening!) Not a big deal to us, but some people may find that honky!