Siam Thai
Favorite dish: chicken and lemongrass soup –sublime
61 North Main Street, Lambertville, NJ 08530-1724
(609) 397-8128

Ooka
Favorite dish: crunchy roll with shrimp tempura and avocado
110 Veterans Lane, Doylestown, PA 18901-3412
(215) 348-8185

Hamilton’s Grill Room
Favorite dish: grilled rib eye steak w/ frites. A classic meal at Hamilton’s starts with chilled Blue Point oysters from Cape Cod
8 Coryell Street, Lambertville, NJ 08530-1727
(609) 397-4343

Bell’s Tavern
Favorite dish: chicken sandwich with roasted eggplant and spicy aioli – succulent and tender
183 North Union Street,  Lambertville, NJ 08530-1629
(609) 397-2226

Carversville General Store
Favorite dish: turkey cheddar, bacon, and avocado sandwich on a Crossroads Bakery baguette with mayo
6208 Fleecy Dale Road, Carversville, PA 18913-9703
(215) 297-5353

Sneddons
Favorite dish: classic grilled cheese with tomato and bacon.  Simple pleasure!
47 Bridge Street, Lambertville, NJ 08530-2144
(609) 397-3053

Fred’s Breakfast Club
Worth the wait – made from scratch- fresh baked goods. The best!
13 E Randolph Street, New Hope, PA 18938-1325
(215) 862-7024

Elements Princeton
I can’t stop thinking about the foie gras torchon- Chef Scott Anderson is the most talented chef in our area. Period.
163 Bayard Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540-3043
(609) 924-0078

Visually, La Boqueria is stunning, shocking and thrilling.  Vendors’ stalls are specialized and represent the culinary vocabulary of the city Barcelona and the region of Catalonia.  One stall is dedicated to ingredients foraged from the forest such as the treasured mushroom known as rovellos, as well as porcini, chanterelles and an encyclopedic variety of other woodland bounties.

The egg stall, for instance, doesn’t just have prosaic chicken and duck eggs, but a huge variety of eggs from the ridiculous (ostrich and black emu) to the sublime (quail).

Some of the stalls are not for the squeamish. There is a cornucopia of tasty horrors such as baskets of skinned rabbits with bloody bald heads and denuded ear holes. Fresh sides of cabrito (young goat) and other small farm animals are displayed with pride in all their gruesomeness. The fish mongers’ displays are SPECTACULAR with shimmering masses of fresh anchovies and cuttlefish, stacks of razor clams, fresh shrimp with the heads on, and monsters from the deep with bizarre features and scary teeth.

This is also the place to get the specialties of Catalan cuisine such as bacalao (dried salt cod belly) and Pata Negra, an air cured Iberian ham made from black Iberian pigs that forage on acorns.  These are only some of the “go to” ingredients that show up in various interpretations in the tapas bars around town.

The energy of the crowds, the sights, the friendly faces, the passion of the vendors, the variety and the history of La Boqueria all contribute to an atmosphere of celebration. In this sense, La Boqueria has the feeling of a culinary cathedral; it is definitely worth a pilgrimage for anybody who loves food.

Thank you for reading, Max.