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Hometown Pizza – CLOSED

Hometown Pizza in Blandon isn't much to look at from the outside.

Editor’s Note: Hometown Pizza is now closed. The space is now home to G&J Pizzeria & Bakery.

Every small town has its own hometown pizza place. In fact it’s a requirement for borough status in Pennsylvania.

(OK that’s not true, but that would be a law I could get behind).

In Blandon, the hometown pizza place is appropriately named Hometown Pizza.

The former home of Rocky’s Pizza isn’t much to look at from the outside. The building looks more like a house than a restaurant. The minimal signage doesn’t do much to draw attention to it from Route 73.

Hometown Pizza in Blandon also isn't much to look at on the inside

But there is plenty of parking, a good thing because there seemed to be a steady flow of take-out customers coming through the doors.

We were the only ones who had decided to dine in, and it seemed like dine-in customers were a rarity for the restaurant. There’s only a handful of tables and booths, but there was a big screen TV showing the NFL game of the week.

Julie took a seat while I placed our order at the counter – a small holiday pizza and an order of fries.

Holiday Pizza from Hometown Pizza in Blandon

Holiday pizza is a white pizza with broccoli, spinach, tomatoes and ricotta.

Unlike the white pizza that I described in our Paolo’s blog, this is the kind of white pizza that I love, and it’s the ricotta cheese that makes the difference.

Mozzarella is great, but in the absence of tomato sauce, a pizza requires a more flavorful topping. The sweeter ricotta cheese provides that in dollops throughout the pizza. There was also mozzarella on the pie, ensuring cheese on every slice.

Half-eaten holiday pizza from Hometown Pizza
When your pregnant wife says “I want that slice,” you give her that slice.

What Julie and I really enjoyed about this pizza was the crust. There was a hint of sweetness in it that was pleasantly unexpected. It may not have been the best overall white pizza that I have ever tried, but the crust put it close to the top of the list.

The fries actually arrived to the table first, about 10 minutes before the pizza.

Hometown Pizza's fries.

I love ordering French fries because even though it’s a simple side, everyone does it differently. So I never know exactly what I’m going to get.

Hometown’s fries were the battered type. The golden brown fries were extra crispy, similar to those we had at Esposito’s a few weeks ago.

Whether it was the oil they were fried in or the batter that they were made with, I found them just a little less flavorful than the same version at Esposito’s. They were fine, but nothing outstanding.

A book of Pennsylvania Dutch on the mantle of an Italian restaurant.
I don’t know why this was on the mantle, but there it is.

Honestly, the pizza would have been more than enough on its own. Hometown doesn’t offer small pizzas, just medium (14-inch) and large (16-inch). Fourteen inches is a lot for us so we took half the pie home.

Add on a couple drinks and our total bill was about $20 so we had absolutely no complaints there.

We left feeling pretty good about our meal overall. It’s probably not a place that we would go for a sit-down meal in the future, but I would definitely grab takeout from there again if it was convenient.

I would say that Blandon has a good hometown pizza place in Hometown Pizza.

Hometown Pizza
504 Main St
Blandon, PA 19510

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Pepperoni Pizza from Paolo's Restaurant and Bar in Shillington
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Review: Paolo’s Restaurant & Bar

a crowded parking lot outside of Paolo's near Shillington, PA

As Berks County Eats continues on a #NationalPizzaMonth journey across Berks County, I am looking for the best and the biggest pizza places around.

Paolo’s Restaurant and Bar just may be the biggest.

Driving past the restaurant along Lancaster Pike, you don’t get a proper sense for the scale of the building. Entering into the take-out counter, we were led to a booth in the back corner of a spacious dining room.

The decor was a bit clichéd, just another Italian restaurant only larger. A doorway opened into the bar area, itself a spacious dining area with even more seating. And with unseasonably warm temperatures, the outdoor patio was also in full swing.

If I totaled up all of the tables in the restaurant, Paolo’s has to be among the largest capacities in the county.

The salad bar at Paolo's in Shillington.

Julie and I arrived hungry for our dinner and needed something to hold us over until our pizzas would arrive. Opting to go light for our appetizer, we both made trips to the salad bar.

We had passed the salad bar – and its the three rows of ingredients, add-ons and dressings – on the way to our table, and it looked appealing enough.

A simple salad topped with broccoli

I built a rather simple salad with broccoli, cucumber, red onion and ranch dressing. Skipping on the vegetables, Julie loaded her salad with cheese, pasta salad, bacon bits and ranch dressing (with a few cherry tomatoes for show).

a salad topped with mac salad and ranch dressing

All of the ingredients were fresh – not always the case at salad bars – so we were pleased.

The pizza was up after about 20 minutes, good timing because we had just finished our salads. And both pies looked amazing.

Julie and I each ordered personal 12-inch pies knowing that we would be taking some home with us when our meal was finished.

Pepperoni Pizza from Paolo's Restaurant and Bar in Shillington

As much as I love trying foods that are unique and inspired, I love pepperoni pizza. And there was a lot to love with Paolo’s version.

It was a beautiful pie with a crisp, but not overcooked, crust. It was a little on the greasy side, but it should be. It’s a pepperoni pizza after all.

There was also a generous amount of pepperoni, enough that most bites were popping with that salty, savory flavor. Overall, it was a great pie, and one that I would happily order again.

White Pizza from Paolo's Restaurant and Bar in Shillington

Julie went with a “lighter” pie, a white pizza with broccoli. It was good, but not my style. I much prefer white pizza with ricotta, not mozzarella. It’s a richer, more flavorful cheese. For me, this pizza lost something in the cheese.

As predicted, several slices were leftover when we were finished. Julie enjoyed them for lunch later in the week. Despite getting multiple meals out of our food, the $40 price tag felt expensive.

Our one-time trips to the salad bar were $6 each. That’s a lot for just salad, even if it is build-your-own. We could have saved $2 each by ordered side salads, but the extra cost seemed worth it for making them to our liking.

I was impressed by my first visit to Paolo’s. And clearly many other people are impressed, too. With as many seats and as much parking as the restaurant has, it’s clear that the business has built up a loyal following.

Add two more to the list of satisfied customers after our visit.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Good
Ambiance: Very Good
Price: A Little Pricey

Paolo’s Restaurant & Bar
2480 Lancaster Pk
Reading, PA 19607

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Goal Achieved
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Food Blogger vs. Fat: Week 28

It’s a banner week in my journey to better health as I reached two milestones two weeks earlier than planned. Here’s a look at how I did it in my Week 28 update:

The Successes

The unseasonably warm, dry weather last week was ideal. I made four lunchtime walks in five days before recording four hours of exercise on Saturday.

That included three hours of housework: cleaning the living room and kitchen, and organizing and decorating the new nursery. The most time-consuming and tiring part was actually hanging vinyl decals on the wall behind Baby B.’s crib.

Vinyl decals are hard work
Vinyl decals are hard work…much harder than I anticipated when I agreed to them.

It’s a much more arduous task than it sounds like:

  1. Measure and cut out the pieces
  2. Tape pieces to wall
  3. Peel backing off top half
  4. Adhere top half to wall
  5. Squeegee out air bubbles
  6. Peel backing off bottom half
  7. Adhere bottom half to wall
  8. Squeegee out air bubbles
  9. SLOWLY peel adhesive off while ensuring vinyl decals stick

That last part was a killer. It was so tedious and annoying that I stretched that over the whole weekend.

A three-mile walk to cap off a successful weekend.
A three-mile walk to cap off a successful weekend.

Needing a break Saturday night, I also made time for a three-mile walk to West Reading.

The Challenges

As good as Saturday was, Sunday was the opposite. I recorded no exercise and hit my calorie limit almost exact. I had done the same thing on Tuesday.

Wednesday, despite my afternoon walk, I came in over my limit thanks to a take-out dinner from Red Robin.

It’s been years since I had Red Robin, but Julie had a craving, and I couldn’t say no. My Whiskey River burger and fries were 1,100 calories, easily the highest total of my week.

selfie of a man holding a cup of fries from Red Robin
I couldn’t let them go to waste…

But it was probably slightly higher because in addition to the fries that came with the meal, the hostess gave me a free cup of fries for the road.

What? It would have been rude to say no.

The Results

Goal Achieved
Current Weight: 158.2 lbs.
Weekly Weight Loss: -2.4
Total Weight Loss: -31.2
 

We did it! After 28 weeks of hard work and discipline, I not only cleared the 160-pound mark for the first time since high school, but I achieved my goal of 30 pounds in 30 weeks.

Ironic that we are about to have a baby, and I lost the weight of four.
Ironic that we are about to have a baby, and I lost the weight of four.

Standing on the scale on Monday morning looking down at that number was very satisfying. Looking in the mirror, I couldn’t be happier with the results. I look good. I feel good. And I’m proud of how far I’ve come in a short time.

The Week Ahead

My goal has been achieved, but I still have two weeks left in my 30-week journey. Am I going to slow down? Yes. (My Lose It! App immediately switched my calorie budget from weight loss to maintenance). But if I lose another pound or two in advance of the holidays, I wouldn’t be upset.

See the full Food Blogger vs. Fat journey here

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Pepperoni pizza from Esposito's
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Review: Esposito’s Restaurant & Pizzeria

Restaurant with a green awning and white letters that reads "Esposito's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria

The things I learn while scouring Berks County for great food never cease to amaze me.

I have learned about towns and communities that I otherwise would have never visited, discovered new – and rediscovered old -foods, and I have found unexpected patterns among various restaurants.

For instance, many locally owned restaurants are closed on Mondays (or Tuesdays). Because of the high volume of business on Saturdays and Sundays, this becomes their weekend.

However, there is one notable exception to this rule: pizza places. I didn’t realize until recently just how many Italian restaurants and pizza places are closed on, or open for dinner only, on Sundays.

stained glass picture of buildings along the sea with a volcano in the background and the word "Esposito's" in the top right

That’s a problem when you’re looking for a slice of pizza after church. Thankfully, we found Esposito’s Restaurant & Pizzeria.

Esposito’s is located just east of the city along Friedensburg Road, right up the street from Bixler’s Lodge and not far from Bertie’s Inn, two places we have visited before.

The fact that it’s not too far away is great; the fact that it is open every day at 10:30 a.m. was even better.

We arrived on a Sunday just after 12 noon. We were led through one dining area – a darker room with old-school pizzeria booths – to the enclosed wrap-around porch. We basked in the sunlight as we watched the cars pass by outside.

There were only a few customers at first, but a steady stream of people started coming in while we sat.

Learning from previous mistakes, Julie and I decided to split a small pizza, opting for a traditional pepperoni pie. We also ordered French fries (mostly for me) and a salad for Julie to get her through until the pizza arrived.

basic salad with a plastic up of ranch dressing

The simple salad was out very quick. It was mostly lettuce, garnished with cucumber, tomato, red peppers and olives. The peppers were a nice addition. The olive, not so much. Julie has been eating olives more lately, but she didn’t realize until she bit in that the olives weren’t pitted. Oops.

Otherwise, the salad did the job, though she wasn’t able to finish the whole thing before the pizza arrived.

Pepperoni pizza from Esposito's

There’s nothing artisanal about Esposito’s pizza. On the contrary, this is a straightforward pie that’s a little on the greasy side.

slice of pepperoni pizza from Esposito's

What we really liked about it was the crust. It was a little bit thicker than average, and very light and airy around the outside. Here’s how I gauge how good a crust is: Julie never eats the crust. She ate the crust here. It made it different enough to make it stand out from other restaurants.

My fries had actually arrived just before the pizza, giving me a chance to nosh on them as an appetizer.

plate of battered fries from Esposito's

They were the battered kind – extra crispy with bits of batter hanging off the taters. They’re the kind of fries that are great in moderation. There was no moderation with the mound of fries they gave us in the “small” order – a whole plateful of them that I devoured way too quickly.

The tradeoff to finishing off the fries was not finishing my half of the pizza. With the pie cut into six slices, we both ate two, leaving two more that Julie reheated for lunch later in the week.

Our entire meal (which also included a glass of iced tea for myself), was less than $20. That’s the great thing about pizza and fries – they’re a sharable meal which makes them an economical option anytime.

That includes Sunday afternoons, a time when the supply of pizza seems to be cut in half. Good thing for us there are places like Esposito’s where we can get a good pizza any day of the week.

BCE Rating
Food: Good
Service: Good
Ambiance: Good
Price: Very Reasonable

Esposito’s Restaurant & Pizzeria
1540 Friedenbsburg Rd
Reading, PA 19606

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chicken florentine pasta from Austin's
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Food Blogger vs. Fat: Week 27

After a step backward last week, I bounced back with renewed vigor this week. Here’s my 27th update on my journey to better health.

The Successes

Seeing the scale go up last week was all the motivation that I needed as I managed to fit four walks and an afternoon of lawn mowing into my week.

Monday and Thursday, I escaped for two 20-minute walks on my lunch break.

Friday's walk: 3.21 miles in 59 minutes.
An extended walk was much-needed after a long week.

Friday was spent with Julie at the hospital – everything is OK, but the doctors wanted to monitor her for a few hours to make sure everything was good with her and baby. But after we were discharged, I snuck out for an hour-long walk, three miles around Wyomissing and West Reading.

Sunday's walk: 3.22 miles in 57 minutes.
Two minutes faster!

I repeated that same walk on Sunday evening, completing the same route about two minutes faster than I had two days prior.

In between, I found time to mow the grass. In all, it was 900 calories burned through exercise over the course of the week.

The Challenges

My office, and I imagine many of yours, is one of temptation. It seems that every day, someone is bringing in something sweet to share.

On Monday, it was Pretzel Factory Rivets. Those tiny little pretzel nuggets seem innocent enough, but each one has 38 calories. I had four of them, and it took all the self control that I had to not eat more as I went to-and-from the breakroom to refill my water bottle.

Beyond that, my snacking was limited to Graze packs and popsicles.

Friday, as I mentioned earlier, was a challenging day for us, and one that didn’t help my diet. Lunch was Chicken McNuggets and fries (unsweetened iced tea helped keep the meal under 1,000 calories).

chicken florentine pasta from Austin's
We treated ourselves to Austin’s after a brief trip to the Reading Hospital.

After Julie was released from the hospital, we decided to treat ourselves to dinner. And we couldn’t think of a better place than Austin’s.

Austin’s is one of our favorite restaurants (I still say it’s not fine dining, though), but there are two problems with it: portion sizes are huge, and there’s not a lot of menu items for calorie-counters.

One of the lightest things that I could find on the menu was the chicken Florentine pasta: chicken breast with penne pasta and tomatoes in a Reggiano cream sauce.

Like all entrees at Austin’s, it was at least two meals, and the half that I finished at the restaurant was delicious. The Reggiano cream was thick enough to stick to the pasta, but not too rich. The tomatoes added a cool, bright note to the dish. And while there was plenty of chicken, it was sliced small enough that I could get some in every bite, and still not feel like I had eaten too much.

It’s hard to estimate meals like this, but my best guess was around 900 calories, including a slice of Austin’s amazing wheat bread with honey butter.

Pepperoni pizza from Esposito's
Then we had pizza on Sunday…the perils of being a food blogger.

The other challenge came on Sunday when Julie and I visited one of five pizza places that we be reviewing as part of BCE’s annual National Pizza Month celebration. This time, it was Esposito’s. The review is coming, but I calculated my lunch at around 1,200 calories (pizza + fries = calories).

There was also a delightful two-layer cookie cake at our church’s coffee hour that didn’t help matters.

The Results

Current Weight: 160.6 lbs.
Weekly Weight Loss: -0.6
Total Weight Loss: 29.2

After putting on 0.4 pounds last week, I took that off plus a little bit more this week. But it is definitely getting harder.

My daily budget is now 1,900 calories. When I started, it was more than 2,000 per day. So the weight loss isn’t going to get any easier.

The Week Ahead

Barring anything out of the ordinary, it’s going to be a relatively straightforward week. I’m making time for walks and exercise, and trying to avoid calorie traps whenever I can.

If all goes well, this is the week that I cross under the 160-pound mark. And I’m going to work hard to make this week go well.

See the full Food Blogger vs. Fat journey here

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The Aime pizza was topped with gorgonzola, prosciutto, caramelized onions and figs.
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Gino’s Grille Wood-Fired Pizza & Bar – CLOSED

The entrance to Gino's Grille in Shillington

Editor’s Note: Gino’s Grille is closed. It is now home to a breakfast and lunch spot called the Crooked Hen. 

Thanks to writing this blog every week, I am always on the look-out for things that are new and exciting.

While Gino’s Grille isn’t new – the restaurant opened a year ago – they did have something new to offer: wood-fired pizza debuted on the menu in late August, and we couldn’t wait to try it.

The building along Lancaster Avenue in Shillington was most recently home to a second location for Bella’s Subs and Pizza. That closed a few years ago, and Gino’s opened in its place.

Gino's started serving wood-fired pizza in August 2017

When we arrived, the parking lot was full, but we found one of the final two spots. Upon entering, we were escorted to one of the last remaining tables in a crowded dining room.

Our waitress warned us that the kitchen was backed up, but we had our hearts set on trying Gino’s new wood-fired pizzas.

The oven was new for Gino’s, and the pizzas had only been added to the menu about a week before our visit. The menu includes 24 artisanal pies, from simple margherita to non-traditional varieties, like the Pittsburgh – topped with French fries, burger, eggs and mozzarella.

Julie and I each ordered our own pie with side salads, hoping to tame our appetites, at least temporarily.

It took 20 minutes to get the salad, and some of the lettuce had started to turn brown.

We knew it was going to be a long night when our salads took nearly 20 minutes to arrive. There wasn’t anything special about the salads, just your normal greens with tomatoes and croutons. The lettuce itself wasn’t the freshest as the tips on many pieces had begun to turn brown. It wasn’t rotten, but it’s not a good look for any restaurant.

The wait was excruciating. Thank goodness for the salads because without them, I don’t know how we would have been able to make it without going next door to the Arby’s drive-thru.

It was more than an hour from the time we arrived before our pizza was delivered to the table. Because of the high temperatures, wood-fired ovens can generally cook a pizza in less than five minutes.

Clearly the kitchen was just unprepared for a full dining room.

The Aime pizza was topped with gorgonzola, prosciutto, caramelized onions and figs.

But the pizzas did arrive, and we excitedly dug into them. For me, I opted for the Aime Special, a unique topping combination with fig, gorgonzola, prosciutto and caramelized onions.

It’s unlike any other pizza that I have tried – that’s why I ordered it – but the first bite was jarring. It was all gorgonzola. Very strong gorgonzola. On its own, it’s not the most pleasant taste.

Thankfully, it got better from there. Once I was able to get a little fig and some of the prosciutto, it made it all the difference.

The fig and prosciutto are a sweet-and-salty match made in heaven, one that cut through the pungent gorgonzola. Together, it made for an excellent flavor. But when one or both of those ingredients were missing, and the cheese was left by itself, it was way too powerful for me.

If you really like gorgonzola, I recommend the Aime special. I’ll be ordering something else next time.

Julie went with a more conventional unconventional pizza (if that makes any sense) with her chicken bacon ranch pie. While you likely won’t find this in the Old World, it’s a common site on menus around Berks.

Look at tall that ranch dressing

Chunks of chicken breast meat and large bacon crumbles were topped with a pool of ranch dressing.

That pool of dressing was not uniform across the pie – parts of it had more ranch, parts of it less. But when all three came together (with the mozzarella base), it was a very good pie. The creamy ranch mixed with the crispy, salty bacon was very enjoyable. The chicken was good, but didn’t add much in the way of flavor.

Julie's more conventional chicken bacon ranch pie

One thing that I will say about both pies is that the crust didn’t feel like the wood-fried pizza. It was fine, but lacked that distinct char on the bottom. It was also inconsistent around the edges with one side being more well-done than the other, probably because the kitchen was too overwhelmed to give it the proper attention throughout its time in the oven.

As usual, 12-inch pies sound smaller than they really are so we took home half a pie each. It also meant we paid for two meals, with a total bill that was around $30.

I have to note that our waitress was as accommodating as she could be given the circumstances. We were offered free dessert at the end of the meal for our troubles, but declined – partly because we were now very full, partly because we had already stayed longer than we had hoped.

By the time we paid the bill and were out the door, we had spent an hour-and-a-half at the restaurant. For a nice two- or three-course dinner, that’s not bad. For pizza, it felt like an eternity.

I’m not going to blacklist Gino’s based on one visit. The wood-fired pizza was still very new when we visited. But we still left feeling disappointed in our experience.

Will we go back? Sure.

But we’ll be waiting a while.

BCE Rating
Food: Good
Service: Poor
Ambiance: Good
Price: Reasonable

Gino’s Grille Wood-Fired Pizza & Bar
2233 Lancaster Pk
Shillington, PA 19607

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Food Blogger vs. Fat: Week 26

It’s Week 26 of my journey to better health, and this week was a reminder that it really is a journey.

The Successes

It was a good week for walking. Though certainly warmer than late September should be, it was a dry week and I had plenty of time to get out on my lunch breaks.

I made it out on Monday, Tuesday and Friday for a total of nearly four miles of walking.

The weekend was spent cleaning and building furniture in Baby B.’s room. I finished emptying the room of my collectibles and assorted junk before assembling a new dresser.

It’s hard to quantify the calories that I burned during this time. My Lose It! app has “house cleaning” listed under exercise and values it as 176 calories burned per hour. Using that as the basis, I estimated about 900 calories burned over the course of two days.

Not bad for a weekend of work.

The Challenges

For the most part, it was an easy week, but I did dine out more often than usual.

On Thursday, my coworker Joe and I went to lunch together at Aroma Mediterranean Cafe in King of Prussia.

It has quickly become one of my favorite lunch spots. On this visit, I tried the kebbah kebob, a mix of ground meat (yes, the description is ground meat), cracked wheat and seasonings.

plate with kebob, rice and sauce
Dishes like this kebbah kebob are what makes Aroma such a great lunch spot.

The patties looked like hamburger sliders, but I would say it more closely resembled meatloaf in texture. As for flavor, it was deliciously seasoned, though I couldn’t put my finger on one particular spice.

It was served with a salsa-like dipping sauce on the side that had a kind of sweet and sour profile to it, too strong on its own, but one that worked really well when mixed with the kebbah and the rice.

baba ghanouj with a basket of pita
I love baba ghanouj.

Every lunch entree at Aroma is served with your choice of hummus or baba ghanouj. I chose the latter, and the beautiful plate came served with four ultra-thin pitas. I may or may not have eaten the whole thing. OK, I ate it. All of it.

Saturday night was another meal that didn’t quite work with my diet. On our way to Bethlehem for a WWE NXT show at the Sands, my buddy Dennis and I stopped at the White Palm Tavern for dinner.

I haven’t been back to the Palm since my review there more than two years ago. Enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, we sat out on the patio for our meal.

I ordered a pepito sandwich. It was described as an authentic Costa Rican dish with peppered pork (I chose this over chicken and beef), sautéed onions, Provolone cheese, Lizano sauce and black bean dressing on a ciabatta roll.

I describe it as one of the best sandwiches in Berks County. The peppered pork was perfect – tender and very juicy – and I’d eat sautéed onions on anything. But what really made the sandwich was the black bean dressing. It gave the dish a distinctly Caribbean flavor, taking it from a pork sandwich to something more.

The side of fries were also very good, but not very good for my diet.

The Results

Current Weight: 161.2
Weekly Weight Loss: +0.4
Total Weight Loss: -28.2

This is the first time since the weight loss plan started that I have gained weight. I’m not discouraged, though. And I’m not going to drop my calorie intake to starve myself just to hit a number. I had two very good weeks in a row.

This week wasn’t a road block, just a very small speed bump on my approach to my goal weight of 160 pounds.

The Week Ahead

It should be an uneventful week. Normally, I would be heading to Dover for this weekend’s NASCAR action, but I’m taking a race off to be home with Julie. Hopefully she and Baby B will let me return to the track in May for the next race.

See the full Food Blogger vs. Fat journey here

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Hawaiian bread French toast with breakfast potatoes
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Review: Brooks Cafe

strip mall storefront with a sign that reads "Brooks Cafe Breakfast and Lunch" in Douglassville, PA

It’s not often that Julie and I get to go out for breakfast.

During the week, my commute to King of Prussia is a major hindrance to enjoying a morning meal together so we end up going out for dinner much more often.

So we usually reserve breakfast trips for weekends and holidays. And on Labor Day, with Julie and I hosting dinner, we decided to treat ourselves to breakfast.

We needed a restaurant that was open, and one that we hadn’t yet checked off our list. The name at the top was Brooks Cafe.

black dry erase board with mult-colored specials

Brooks Cafe is tucked in a strip mall along westbound 422 in Douglassville. The location was formerly home to Don Julio Mexican Restaurant (whose logo still appears on the marquee along with Brooks’).

The breakfast-and-lunch joint took over the space in 2016 and has made it their own. Posters and portraits of Audrey Hepburn in her famous Breakfast at Tiffany’s style cover the walls around the dining area.

dining area with paisley patterned booths on the sides and wooden tables in the middle

The dining room itself is much larger than expected. There is seating for at least 80 – fourteen tables, five booths and one combination of the two fill the room. Audrey watches over them all.

Also larger than expected: the menu. Breakfast is two full pages, with a wide selection of bowls, omelets, eggs, pancakes, waffles and French toast.

When I say a wide selection of French toast, I’m not just talking about toppings. I’m talking about French toasted croissants, banana nut bread, cinnamon buns, and my choice – Hawaiian bread.

Hawaiian bread french toast topped with shredded coconut, pineapple and yogurt

Brooks’ Hawaiian bread French toast featured three slices of Hawaiian bread (duh) topped with stripes of pineapple, toasted coconut and yogurt.

The meal was also served with a cup of pancake syrup that I found entirely unnecessary. Hawaiian bread has a sweeter flavor to begin. The pineapple – and to a lesser extent, the coconut – added to that. And the yogurt gave it the same consistency.

It was a filling and enjoyable start to the day – quite a pick-me-up.

small plate of homefries

Not being able to help myself, I also ordered a side of homefries. Everyone does homefries a little bit differently, and these were the kind that I like best – large slices of potato that are browned on one side and perfectly soft on the other.

While I always go for the French toast, Julie leans toward pancakes. And at Brooks, it was banana nut pancakes.

The pancakes had walnuts cooked into them with slices of banana and a dusting of powdered sugar on top.

Banana nut pancakes and bacon.

I always enjoy walnuts in pancakes – for both the flavor and the crunchy texture that they add. It contrasts nicely with the soft banana slices and melt-in-your-mouth pancakes.

Unlike me, Julie was not shy about adding syrup to her pancakes. Either way, they were also very good.

She also couldn’t resist an order of bacon. Crispy, savory bacon. There’s not much else to say about them.

The only other thing left to say about Brooks Cafe is that it is priced perfectly. We both had excellent breakfasts, left feeling full (too full for a real lunch) and spent less than $20.

Everything combined to make our first visit to Brooks one to remember.

And while Julie and I may not dine out for breakfast as often as we would like, Brooks is on my way to work. So I will definitely stop in again.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Good
Price: Very Reasonable

Brooks Cafe
1139 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy
Douglassville, PA 19518

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Food Blogger vs. Fat: Weeks 24 & 25

It’s a double update this week as we catch up on the last two weeks of my journey to better health. It’s been a whirlwind two weeks, but the results keep coming. Here’s a look at the weeks that were:

The Challenges

As we begin this blog, I have a confession to make to my readers. If you’ve followed along with my successes, you’ll have noticed that I have recorded a lot of house cleaning in my exercises over the past few weeks.

That’s because Julie and I are getting ready to expand the Berks County Eats family when we welcome our first child (due in November).

Julie has a baby on board. I have a food baby on board.
It’s a Boy!

I wanted to make a big announcement on Facebook months ago when we announced it to our family and friends, but just never did. Part of that is because it’s been a bit of a challenge for both of us.

That challenge was never higher than last week when Julie was admitted to the hospital last Sunday (September 10). Everything is fine, but the doctors were a little concerned so she was admitted and we spent two nights at the Reading Hospital.

Chicken panini and cole slaw from the Tower Cafe
The Reading Hospital puts out some pretty good food for a hospital.

Again, I would like to reiterate that everything is fine. Julie and baby are good, and we are excited about becoming parents in two months.

We were even able to celebrate on Saturday with Julie’s surprise baby shower.

Cupcakes are the enemy of diets.
Cupcakes are the enemy of diets.

Between the four meals in the hospital and a day of noshing on Philly Pretzel Factory Rivets and celebratory cupcakes, it wasn’t the best time for my diet.

The Successes

With the exception of those few days above, I have really entered into a routine that is working.

My breakfasts consist of Honey Nut Cheerios and fat free milk. I’ve measured it out and eat about 1.5 cups of cereal with a cup of milk. Amazingly, Weis’ generic cereal is 20 calories less per bowl than the real thing.

Lunch usually consists of a bowl of soup and chips. Whenever I need it, I stop at the Wegmans grocery store in King of Prussia and pick up a quart of fresh-made soup. It lasts me two meals and it’s significantly lower in sodium than canned soup.

My chips are almost exclusively low sodium Pringles. Why? Because it’s a lot easier to count out the 16 crisps in one serving of Pringles than it is to figure out how much is in one ounce of traditional potato chips.

Lightly salted Pringles are perfect for my low-sodium diet.
150 calories and just 75 grams of sodium.

In between, I always eat one of my Graze snacks – usually between 100-200 calories. Occasionally I will indulge in a second snack after lunch, but I usually mitigate that with a walk around the office complex.

Dinner varies, but we try to plan out healthful meals: chicken stir-fries, homemade soup and portion-controlled casseroles are favorites that usually come in between 500-800 calories.

And that leaves plenty of room for an evening treat. Julie and I have found some great sweet snacks in the freezer aisle at Weis.

Yasso frozen yogurt bars are only 100 calories.
Mmm…100 calorie sea salt caramel

One is Yasso brand frozen yogurt popsicles. Flavors include sea salt caramel, raspberry chocolate chip and peanut butter. And they are all just 100 calories each.

Outshine Fruit Bars
Only 35-45 calories per bar.

My other go-to is Outshine fruit bars. These are actually fruit bars, not fruit juice bars. And Outshine makes a 12-count box of snack-sized bars that are between 35 and 45 calories each.

If I have more calories available, I will pull out the blender and make a fresh fruit smoothie. Peaches and bananas are my favorite. I mix each with almond milk and ice (and a little sugar for the peach smoothies). Two bananas and a cup of almond milk is only 240 calories. Peaches are even less. But both are delicious and filling.

In the last two weeks, I have only missed my target calorie count twice – once while we were in the hospital and once when we dined out for a review.

The Results

Current Weight: 160.8
Two-Week Weight Loss: -3.4
Total Weight Loss: -28.6

Last week, the update that didn’t happen, I was at 162.6, so I had back-to-back weeks of great success. I’m also just 0.8 pounds away from my original goal weight of 160 and 1.4 away from the 30-pound weight loss I promised myself at the start.

The Week Ahead

What I am trying to avoid now is falling out of my groove. Things are going so well that I don’t want to take a step backward by overdoing it. Other than a church picnic coming up on Sunday, it should be a fairly routine week.

See the full Food Blogger vs. Fat journey here

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Food Blogger Vs. Fat
The 20-ounce dry-aged ribeye at Willoughby's on Park
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Review: Willoughby’s on Park – CLOSED

Willoughby's on Park, a high-end steakhouse in Wyomissing

Editor’s Note: Willoughby’s on Park is now closed. The last day for the business was March 14, 2026. The owners still operate Telia. Perfect Greek across the street. TAO Japanese Steakhouse is set to open in the space later in 2026.

If you’re a long-time follower of the blog, you may remember our visit to Willoughby’s Bar & Grill.

It was three years ago that we enjoyed our first dinner at the Wyomissing restaurant. Living nearby, Julie and I had passed by the restaurant on our walks, watching the former T.G.I. Friday’s completely transformed.

When the restaurant closed for renovations in 2015, we couldn’t understand. It had just been completely redone and it didn’t make any sense to us.

Again we watched as construction workers descended on the building, filling and refilling the dumpster outside until the restaurant was once again ready for business.

This time, the transformation was from Willoughby’s Bar & Grill to Willoughby’s on Park, a high-end steakhouse that was going to have to wait for a special occasion for us to visit.

The remodeled dining room at Willoughby's on Park

That special occasion finally came this August as Julie and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary.

We arrived on a Sunday evening without a reservation, but it was no problem to get in and get a table. The dining room is still very large and with the additional outdoor seating, there was no danger of it filling up. Even on Fridays and Saturdays, the parking lot never seems full enough to equal a full dining room.

The renovated restaurant looks nothing like it did before. Previously, the center of the dining room featured a sports bar lined with flat screens. The TVs are now gone, and the bar is much more stately. The room is dimly lit by chandeliers with votive candles creating a soft glow on the back wall.

Romantically elegant is the best way I can describe it.

Votive candles line the wall at Willoughby's on Park

As for the menu, it is distinctly a high-end steakhouse, with 10 different steak cuts highlighting the entree selections. Additional choices include seared duck, rack of lamb and six seafood offerings.

There is also a range of salads, appetizers and cold bar options for starters, but we passed on those knowing we would be enjoying dessert at the end of the night.

Warm bread is a great way to start any meal.

Instead, we whet our appetite with the complimentary bread and butter – a pair of fresh-baked rolls that were soft, warm and enjoyable.

What else do you need when there’s a 20-ounce dry-aged ribeye on its way to the table?

This is hands-down among the best steaks that I have ever eaten. It was cooked perfectly to my liking (medium well) with just the right amount of pink in the middle. It lost none of the juiciness in cooking and had beautiful char marks on the outside. It was an all-around winner.

The 20-ounce dry-aged ribeye at Willoughby's on Park

Guests can add on one of six “enhancements” to any steak, an assortment of sauces and rubs to suit many tastes. I decided to try the mission fig cabernet reduction and was not disappointed.

It was more jelly than sauce, with the mission fig giving it sweetness and the cabernet adding depth of flavor and strong overtones. With the steak, it played on the sweet and savory while also having a built-in wine pairing to enhance the flavor of the steak.

The steak was so good that it almost made me forget about the sides – a few carrots and a dollop of whipped potatoes. They both served their purpose, but let’s face it, we weren’t there for the sides.

An eight-ounce filet topped with gorgonzola gratin

Julie went with the smallest item on the menu, the eight-ounce filet Mignon, with a gorgonzola gratin for her enhancement.

Her steak was also cooked perfectly and would have stood on its own without any additional enhancements, but the gorgonzola gratin gave it a very different flavor profile. It was heavy and rich with the distinct deep flavor that the cheese brings to every dish.

Neither of us really had room left after our steaks, but it was our anniversary so dessert was a must.

Our waitress brought out the dessert tray highlighting a range of offerings that all sounded amazing. We settled on the carrot cake and were not disappointed.

Carrot cake with a dollop of whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel sauce

The slice was gigantic and was served with whipped cream, strawberries and a caramel drizzle. Could we get carrot cake anywhere? Yes. Would it have been this good? Maybe. Did we care? Nope. We were just happy to finish off our romantic evening by sharing a lovely dessert.

Going into the evening we knew two things: one, that we were going to have a romantic dinner; two, that it wouldn’t be cheap.

When we visited three years ago, we spent $40. This time, it was more than double that as our total bill was just shy of $100. Willoughby’s on Park is not priced for everyday dining, but it’s not everyday that you get to enjoy a perfectly cooked steak.

With that in mind, I can say with certainty that we will be back. But we’ll save our next visit for another special occasion.

BCE Rating
Food: Excellent
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Excellent
Price: A Little Pricey

Willoughby’s on Park
305 N. Park Rd
Wyomissing, PA 19610

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