Harrisburg’s Best Restaurants (west shore)

Naturally, this is the continuation and counterpart to a previous list of Harrisburg’s best restaurants residing on the east shore of the beautiful Susquehanna River. As previously mentioned, don’t write off a restaurant without giving it a twice over and by all means, if you enjoyed your culinary experience somewhere make sure to write a positive review for them, great eateries deserve the promotion! There are countless websites where you can sing the praises of a deserving restaurant, my favorite local site is DineOutHarrisburg.com, and Yelp has a strong presence nationwide.
Here goes!

Best sushi – Zen Japanese Cuisine, 5205 Simpson Ferry Rd, Mechanicsburg. Sorry Sapporo fans, this place is tops for me in the Japanese food category. Sushi, service, and ambiance here are wonderful.

Best Pho- Issei Noodle, 54 W High Street, Carlisle. There aren’t as many Vietnamese options on the west shore but for a grand slam bowl of Pho this place does it best, really neat interior to the place as well.

Best Middle Eastern – Cedars Lebanese Restaurant, 2153 Market Street, Camp Hill. Incredible food, atmosphere and service!

Best Italian – Juliana’s Italian Restaurant, 6108 Carlisle Pike, Camp Hill. Hard to find, but completely worth the effort. This is a classy restaurant that couples great service with quality food.

Best Pizza – Pizza Grille, 3817 Gettysburg Road, Camp Hill. Gourmet pizza, full bar, and lovely interior makes this best pizza, Harrisburg Magazine voters have concurred for the past decade.

Best Korean – Spring Garden, 5 South 35th St., Camp Hill. Since discovering Spring Garden I think Korean food has become my favorite cuisine! You might not notice this place just from driving by, but its really nice inside and the food is definitely ‘best of’ material.

Best Thai – Bankok Wok, 125 Gateway Dr # 111, Mechanicsburg. This place lives up to the hype in every respect, the food is always impressive, the restaurant is completely top notch.

Best BBQ – Memphis Blues, 5202 Simpson Ferry Rd, Camp Hill. Fun atmosphere, quality BBQ.

Best Overall – I’ve got to give it to Spring Garden, the food is really incredible, the owners are extremely helpful and friendly, and the restaurant is quite nice inside. I recommend the dumplings and Jaeyook Bokeum- pan fried pork with veggies in spicy sauce. Don’t forget the kimchi!

Honorable Mention: West Shore Farmers Market, 900 Market Street, Lemoyne. Another awesome farmers market, with plenty of wonderful places to eat and snack from on the first floor and quite a few shops on the second floor.

Think I missed any or disagree? Please use the comment box and let me know!

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Harrisburg’s Best Restaurants (east shore)

Whether you grew up here, pass through on occasion for business, or just randomly find yourself in Harrisburg for mysterious reasons beyond your control, I’d like to point you in the right direction with the local restaurant scene. I’m not a professional food critic by any means, but I do love eating and with as much time and money I’ve spent trying every place to eat around here I could find,  I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s what and who’s guaranteed to please.

You should first of all be aware that there are A LOT of dining options in and around Harrisburg, so don’t you dare consider Applebees! A good place to start is DineOutHarrisburg.com; Yelp.com is another great way to learn about the best places to eat from those who have already been there.

Now obviously opinions are merely that, so don’t write off any restaurant before you try it at least twice. Many people are quick to complain but slow to write reviews about positive experiences, so don’t take online critiques to be gospel. But enough of the preaching, you’re hungry right!? Well here goes:

Best Burger – The Jackson House, 1004 N 6th St. Lunch hours only and no credit cards but wow you’ll have a new favorite burger place after your first visit. Try the house Jackson Burger.

Best Sandwich – Nonna’s Delicioso, 263 Reily St. This little Italian delicatessen serves up amazing quality sandwiches and Italian side dishes.

Best Pizza – Brother Joe’s Pizza, 6051 Allentown Blvd. Thin ‘n crispy pies, this place looks like your average Joe’s Pizza but the quality is surprisingly noticeable.

Best Sushi – Okini Pan Asian Restaurant, 3402 Walnut St. With so many local sushi places to choose from it’s tough to name one the champion, but personally I’ve always been impressed with the sushi here. Yes it looks like a Pizza Hut from the outside.

Best Indian – Aangan Indian Cuisine, 3500 Walnut St. Never mind the ugly exterior of the building, the inside is really quite nice and the food is wonderful. They specialize in Indian and Nepali food and have a wonderful buffet. Quite a few Indian places around the burg but this place is tops.

Best Vietnamese – Rose’s Vietnamese Cuisine, 2306 Walnut Street. You’ll probably drive by the place the first time, but you’ll know why you turned around to find it after you taste the food. Not much to the interior of the place, but definitely my personal favorite for pho and other Vietnamese dishes.

Best Middle Eastern – La Kasbah, 913 N 2nd St. Incredible Moroccan food, order anything on the menu, but don’t forget to try the tea!

Best Latino- Las Delicias, 2060 Derry St. So it’s not the nicest part of the city to be sure, but for authentic Spanish-American food this is it. Nothing impressive about the look of the place inside or out but the food makes it all worth it.

Best Italian - Zia’s at Red Door, 110 North Second St.  A private and upscale atmosphere, high quality food, and extensive wine list make Zia’s a great pick for Italian.

Suba Tapas Bar

Best overall – Suba Tapas Bar, 272 North Street. Suba is the upstairs part of an Italian restaurant called Mangia Qui and they share the same kitchen. Both places are incredible, but Suba gets my personal nod for best overall place in Harrisburg to eat. It’s not cheap, but the atmosphere, service, drinks, and tapas are so worth it.

Overall Runner Up – Bricco, South 3rd & Chestnut Streets. A close second behind Suba, Bricco is an upscale Mediterranean restaurant with an elegant atmosphere and outrageously delicious cuisine. You will leave impressed from a dinner at Bricco.

Honorable Mention – Broad Street Market, 1233 N 3rd St. I love this market plain and simple. The hours are a little funny so check before you go, but there is such a wonderfully diverse collection of food available for purchase at the market. One building is for food vendors, the other is for groceries and miscellaneous goods.

Think I missed any or disagree? Drop a comment.

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Restaurant Review: Bricco, 31 S. 3rd Street, Harrisburg

After winning a $50 gift card from a contest facilitated by the {now defunct} local events calendar Spotobe.com, my lovely girlfriend and I stopped in for a romantic evening at the most talked about restaurant in Harrisburg. I will say that I’ve been here a number of times for lunch and always left impressed, but I still had this feeling that somehow the place was over hyped.

I could not have been more wrong.

If you’ve never been inside Bricco, the place has a classy and modern New York City type of feel to it. You quickly feel relaxed and comfortable as you peruse the menu and extensive wine list. The lighting, music, and pace of the restaurant is just perfect. Our server for the evening was nothing less; attentive, courteous, and knowledgeable of every single aspect of the drink and food menus. Very impressive, in fact, I’ll go so far as to say I’ve never had better service anywhere, ever.

After a few complimentary samples from the wine list we decided on drinks and focused our attention to appetizers. We decided on 3 cold small plates, similar to tapas; house made pickled vegetables, grilled asparagus, and eggplant with raisins, pine nuts, and roasted peppers. All three dishes were exquisite, and I especially enjoyed the pickled vegetables, they were just exceptional and bursting with flavor.

Following the appetizers, I decided on the Bricco Bolognese and my counterpart ordered the Sage Pappardelle. Wow. I can hardly express how impressed I was with the quality and flavor of these extraordinary dishes. The Bricco Bolognese was a combination of house made sausage, meatballs, pancetta, chicken, mortadella, tomato sauce and polenta that was just amazing down to the very last bite. The portion was rather large and loaded with meat but believe me there was not a bite spared when all was said and done. The Sage Pappardelle was a more delicate dish, but no less incredible. The raised duck, red wine and pancetta ragout just melted in your mouth and was so succulent that we couldn’t help but finish the entire plate. We enjoyed the food so much that we unfortunately left no room for dessert!

That will have to wait for another day, but I am certain I’ll return to Bricco. While the lunch menu is wonderful you really must make a dinner visit to truly experience the brilliance of the food and atmosphere of the restaurant. Bricco has firmly established itself in my mind as setting the standard for fine dinning well beyond Harrisburg.

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Bube’s Brewery- A Must Experience

If you’re into unique dining experiences, themed feasts, quality beer, or pirates, you need to put a visit to Bube’s Brewery on your to do list. Located in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, this 19th century brewery and museum contains 4 extraordinary restaurants, live events, an unusual store, and an art gallery displaying works from local artists. Bube’s, (interestingly enough pronounced “boo bees”) has a very rustic, vintage atmosphere, as everything has been preserved as it existed years ago.

My experience with Bube’s was in the Catacombs, an incredible restaurant located 43 feet underground in the old stone cellars where enormous wooden casks used to be full of aging beer. The atmosphere is beyond unique, as the quiet stone caverns are lighted only by candlelight atop a number of dinner tables. What an experience! Not to mention that the food was great and the service superb. They even provided a free dessert to help us celebrate a birthday in our dining party. I tried a few of the house brewed beers- an IPA that really threw me off because of it’s unique maltiness and a red ale that was just perfect. My date tried a caramel apple martini that was equally delicious, and the prices for everything on the menu were very reasonable. Both the swordfish and the seafood mornay were wonderful.

All in all, dining in the Catacombs was an experience I will not soon forget, and I am already planning a return visit to try the other dining establishments at Bube’s Brewery. Those include the original bar called Alois, the Bottling Works, and the outdoor Biergarten. Themed dinners also include Murder Mysteries, Roman Feasts, Medieval Feasts, Pirate Feasts, Halloween and Christmas Feasts.

Bube’s is truly a must, try it for a romantic dinner, a fun themed evening, or just for something altogether different.

You can check out their upcoming events, menus and more at: BubesBrewery.com

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Restaurant Review: Jamines With Papine, 306 Riley Street, Harrisburg

As mentioned in a previous post, I made sure to visit this Jamaican/American restaurant to see what the place was all about. The restaurant is next door to Garden Vietnamese Restaurant, a block over from the new Harrisburg Area Community College Midtown Campus – in my opinion an excellent location to open up shop. At any rate, the place just opened a week ago, and is modest looking on the outside as well as inside. Downstairs there are a few tables, a billiards table and an electric jukebox, I’m foreseeing this place as a pretty nice little student lounge for HACC students. Up the small stairway there is a counter immediately on the left where you can place an order and a number of little tables that fill the room. Again, pretty modest inside but what is most important to me is what’s really most important (that’s the food of course). You can see the menu in my previous post, but you can see that the place is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I tried the curry chicken with steamed cabbage and rice ‘n beans. Absolutely delicious. I was a little doubtful of the authenticity of the food until I had a taste, then there was nothing except planning a return visit to try something else. The food really did it for me, and the authenticity of the place was confirmed when I met Kenny the owner, or as everyone calls him “pops.” From the 5 minutes we chatted, Kenny seems to me a pretty stand up guy. He’s got an obvious Jamaican accent and has tried his hand at making a successful Jamaican restaurant a number of times before. I’m optimistic that this place will stick for him though as the food and location are both great.

By the way, for anyone curious pops explained to me that “Jameans With Papine” is a combination of American and Jamaican names, synonymous with the type of food served from the kitchen at 306 Riley Street in Harrisburg.

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Restaurant Review: Las Delicias, 2060 Derry Street, Harrisburg

In a word, this place is authentic! My girlfriend and I finally tried this spot out for dinner last night and we both agreed that the food was just incredible. While the place isn’t much to look at, it’s nice enough inside to enjoy a great meal and the staff that works there is extremely friendly.  And while the food is completely authentic, the menu is also in English so don’t worry about that!

To start we tried two pastelillos which were just amazing, and following those we tried a stuffed plantain that was equally as delectable. If you’ve never tried either of those items, pastelillos are crunchy pastries filled with beef and stuffed plantain is a fried plantain that tastes much like a sweet banana, filled with beef – trust me it’s delicious.

That really would have been enough for dinner but we figured the leftovers would be just as good the second time so we also ordered two meals. I got the pork with yellow rice and beans and my counterpart ordered the chicken with white rice and beans on the side. Both meals were really incredible, very authentic Spanish-American food. I took the opportunity to try a curious drink to go along with my meal which I have mixed feelings about – Malta Goya. I’ve seen it around and just figured it was some sort of cola or something but as the woman behind the counter explained to me- it’s more like a very sweet beer, not anything like soda. It’s actually made from molasses and indeed extremely sweet and malty, fun to try once but I’m not sure I’ll be bringing home a case from the grocery store anytime soon.

At any rate, Las Delicias more than lives up to it’s name, the food was really incredible. They do take credit cards in case you were curious, the prices are pretty cheap and the portions are quite generous. You’d do yourself a favor by trying it for yourself.

Restaurant Review: Taj Palace, 403 Walnut Street, Harrisburg

Taj Palace in case you don’t already know is a brand spanking new addition to Harrisburg’s collection of diverse dining options. I stopped by the place a week or so back to see if 405 Jazz and Sophia’s replacement was a worthy eatery.

The inside of the place has not changed at all from the previous venues that existed, but really a change of decor is unnecessary as both 405 Jazz and Sophia’s were quite nice inside if you remember. Just replace the jazz with Indian music and you’ve got a pretty good picture of what Taj Palace is like inside. I was definitely impressed by the staff as they were very accommodating and courteous, but with a number of other Indian restaurants already in Harrisburg, would Taj Palace be any more worthy of a return visit than the others?

Hands down yes. The curry tasted so complex and well balanced that I couldn’t help but scrape the bowl clean with a piece of fresh naan. By the way, the bread was exceptional. All in all, I would say Taj Palace serves the best Indian I’ve had downtown, the prices were reasonable and I know I’ll be back to try another item from the menu. It’s definitely worth a try, check it out and see for yourself.

Restaurant Review: Ventura House, 1100 North 3rd Street, Harrisburg

Third Street is quickly becoming my favorite eats street in Harrisburg, especially after a recent visit to Ventura House. The place is neatly tucked among random shops and foreclosed buildings so it’s a little hard to spot, but what really caught my attention was the store window that read “Jamaican – Chinese – American Buffet.” Now personally the “buffet” part of that title would be enough to sell me on at least one visit, but throw in the random combination of both Jamaican and Chinese ethnic cuisine and I’m back for lunch that day.

I parked in front of a run down building I believe is being remodeled by the City to be the Midtown Arts Center and wandered into this curious combination of ethnic cuisine called the Ventura House. The inside is plain, but nice, and the woman behind the counter was quite friendly. I paid a measly $6.50 up front for a pretty nice sized buffet table and went to work on lunch. The thing I noticed first was that the buffet seemed to be made up entirely of meat – how delightful. I didn’t notice any labels on the items so I just decided to try everything (twice) and believe me, it was well worth the $6.50. Everything I tried was delicious, the meat so tender it just fell of the bones, and the variety of curry, jerk, and breaded chicken was really a treat. I wasn’t exactly sure before from just passing by the place how well suited a buffet would be to both Jamaican and Chinese food in addition to American cuisine. I stand corrected; the variety and quality of food was amazing, and I’ll definitely be going back.

Like Sushi? Join the Central PA Sushi Meetup Group!

After I stumbled upon this group on Meetup.com I immediately had to help get the word out. What a great way to meet new people and enjoy some incredible cuisine! The group has over 100 members (and growing) and has already planned a few meetups at local sushi spots – the last of which had 44 people in attendance! The group does maintain a blog if you’d like to read up on them, and they are planning their next meetup at Miyako Sushi in downtown Harrisburg on May 16th. They anticipate increasing the number of meetups hosted in order to accommodate the large interest, so expect to see more sushi meetups in the near future.

The Best Burger in Harrisburg Hands Down – The Jackson House

So I randomly noticed a small hole in the wall restaurant the other day called the Jackson House, it’s located at 6th and Boas Streets. The storefront was littered with those best of Harrisburg stickers for best burger so I figured I had better look into the matter. I stepped inside the place for lunch (it’s only open for lunch FYI) and noticed the place certainly had character. It’s really not much to look at inside, but the sheer amount of people that were squeezed in the tiny dining room gave me high expectations for the food.

I wasn’t disappointed.

I ordered the “Jackson Burger” guessing it was the house specialty and sweet heavens the 1/2 pound burger was so juicy and succulent I basically inhaled the thing. Prices are practical, the staff was friendly, and I left more than satisfied. You should be aware that they don’t take credit cards, but other than that I fully endorse the place and suggest you toss whatever lunch you brown bagged this morning and head over to the Jackson House for the best burger in Harrisburg.