• Spring House Brewing Co. / 209 Hazel Street, Lancaster / www.springhousebeer.com/pages/hazel
This place isn’t brand spankin’ new, and it’s also not in the best neighborhood, but it’s a must-try in my book. The atmosphere is great- a big, open warehouse feel with live-edge wood, dark paint and chain link fencing. We waited for a while to get a table, but once we did were were seated in between the brewing tanks in the back which was pretty neat. I did a beer sampler to get a feel for all the options. Two to try would be the Mango IPA and the Mint Chocolate Chip. The beer was good, the food was better. I tried the duck poutine (google poutine for more detail) and the rabbit sandwich. The rabbit had creamed spinach on top. Delish! I probably consumed enough calories for the whole weekend in the 2 hours that I was there. Bonus points to Spring House for opening up in their location, as we need more establishments in the not-so-great areas of Lancaster to catch them up to the rest of town.
• DiCarlos Pizza / 155 E King Street, Lancaster / www.dicarlospizza.com
I have been seeing A TON of photos of their pizza all over Facebook and to be honest, I thought people were just posting a bunch of pictures of their Elio’s frozen pizza, it was very confusing. Apparently, they don’t melt the cheese on their pizza, which I was not understanding before I went in.
DiCarlo’s is a cool spot on a newly established block on East King street right up from Penn Square. The restaurant is clean and bright with a true NYC pizza shop feel. I opted for the original, un-melted classic “slice” and had them throw some prosciutto on there just for fun. It was definitely better than Elio’s!
Everything about it was on-point, and at $3.75 for a 3-cut, it’s a good value. I would like to see them serve it on a butcher block or pizza peel for those dining in, as opposed to the tattered box lid they threw it in for us, but I’m so glad we have a legit pizza place downtown now!
• Root / 227 W Walnut Street, Lancaster / http://rootoflancaster.com/
Root: a brand-new, all-vegan restaurant (with a liquor license!) in my old hood of West Walnut Street. I have heard some good things about root, and also some serious shade about it (even from a vegan) so I was very interested to try it.
First of all, lets just talk about how most beer you drink everyday is vegan! Beers like Bud Light and Yuengling Lager. Pretty cool.
We started with “hot wings” which were fried cauliflower in a buffalo sauce with ranch to dip. They were so great! You could obviously tell they weren’t chicken wings, but they were still pretty good and that ranch dipping sauce was the bomb.
We tried two of the entrees–the first being the Hawaiian Flatbread–which had way too many jalapenos, but was otherwise tasty. The second was a vegan take on McDonald’s Big Mac, or the “Big Mic” as Root coins it, and it was my favorite.
Rob, the owner of Root, was telling me that the “burger portion” of the Big Mic was actually some form of dough. Very interesting. I recommend that everyone tries Root, as it was surprisingly good. My advice: Make sure you go into it knowing that the food you’ll be eating is not meat, so it will not taste like meat. Root has the potential to be a regional hot spot, as nothing similar is offered in York or Harrisburg.
