baked potato | Berks County Eats

If you’ve followed Berks County Eats, then you know that Julie and I have been expecting the arrival of our first child. Well, last Friday, he decided it was time.

On November 17, 2017, at 8:21 p.m., Jakob Laurence Brown was born at the Reading Hospital.

woman in a hospital gown holding a newborn baby

Mommy and baby came out of it happy and healthy, and we arrived home on Sunday evening, but not before Jakob joined us for his first Berks County Eats review.

After completing a three-week birthing class two months ago, Julie’s reward was a coupon for a celebratory dinner for two after the arrival of our baby.

On Sunday morning, just a few hours before we were scheduled to leave the hospital, a special menu was delivered to our room.

menu for a hospital meal for new parents that reads "You're expecting the best. We deliver."

“You’re Expecting the Best. We Deliver.” When you’re delirious with joy at the birth of a child, you forgive menu puns, even bad ones.

The meal included a tomato mozzarella salad (also known as Caprese), choice of entree – either steak and shrimp or vegetarian stir-fry – and a three-layer chocolate mousse cake for dessert.

For the salad, our bowls were lined with thick-sliced mozzarella, which was then filled with cherry tomatoes, drizzled with a thick balsamic and topped with basil leaves for garnish.

tray with a plate of surf and turf with squash and peppers, a caprese salad and a triple chocolate cake

The salad was very good, but way too much. We each only ate a very small amount so that we had room for our main course and dessert (we managed to sneak the rest home with us for later).

My diet had been thrown out the window over the previous two days, with meals that included:

Friday Lunch: McDonald’s chicken strips and fries
Friday Dinner: Famous Amos cookies and Icy Tea
Saturday Breakfast: French toast and home fries from Reading Hospital
Saturday Lunch: Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and carrots from the PA Dutch Farmers Market of Wyomssing
Saturday Dinner: A giant chocolate chip cookie

So while steak and shrimp was appealing, I thought the hoisin vegetable stir-fry was a more sensible option.

It was actually really good, all things considered. It wasn’t anything special, but the sauce had a nice flavor – a typical sweet and salty Asian stir-fry. The menu listed soba noodles as part of the meal, but they were missing. So it was all vegetables – peppers, squash and onions. I certainly wasn’t going to send it back (it’s a one-hour wait from order to delivery).

Julie, on the other hand, did all the work so no one was going to deny her the surf and turf dinner that she earned.

It included a small filet and shrimp with a baked potato and mixed vegetables (the same medley that was used for my stir-fry.

The steak was topped with gravy (meh) but was fair. It certainly was nothing like eating in a steakhouse. The steamed shrimp was ok, too, but nothing outstanding.

The hardest part about the meal was having to stare at the chocolate trilogy cake. The best part of the meal was eating it.

It was fantastic. The layers of white, milk and dark chocolate mouse melted together. There was the thinnest layer of cake on the bottom to add a little texture. And the pieces of dark chocolate on the top were the icing on the cake, so to speak.

If only we didn’t have to be in the hospital to enjoy it.

young couple in a hospital bed holding a newborn baby

For anyone out there looking to deliver in the Reading Hospital and unsure about whether to take the birthing class: take it. If only for the chocolate trilogy cake.

While we ate, Jakob lay in his crib – a clear, plastic tub that we had wheeled next to us. It was our first real sit-down meal as a family, and Jakob’s first official Berks County Eats review.

It wasn’t the best meal we’ve ever had. But it is easily among the most memorable.

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sign with red letters that reads "The Bridge Inn Pleasantville

“We need to go there sometime.”

Both Julie and I say those words often as we drive past restaurants in our travels in and around Berks County.

In the past few weeks, we have said that often about The Bridge Inn in Pleasantville as we drove Route 73 on our way to and from Boyertown.

Finally, after saying it enough, we made a trip to the Oley Valley with the Bridge Inn as our destination.

The Bridge Inn has the feel of a great dive (I use the term lovingly). You can sense the character of the building — and hear it with every step across the wooden floor.

plush gray antique sofa sits inside the entrance of the Bridge Inn Pleasantville

We chose to sit at one of the three random booths in a narrow room along the front of the building. On one side we could watch traffic breeze by on Route 73. On the opposite wall, an even more random antique couch sat empty. And at the far end of the room hung a floor-to-ceiling drape for those times when this room is closed off to the bar on the other side.

The menu is deep with bar food and beyond. Burgers and sandwich options are plentiful and there is a half-page of seafood options, as well as steaks, chicken, veal and pasta.

A few of the options stood out for originality, one of them being the tequila fettuccine.

white plate with wide noodles tossed with spinach, onions, peppers and chicken

The pasta is tossed in jalapeno lime sauce with spinach, onion, peppers, cilantro and choice of chicken or shrimp (I went with chicken).

It was a hefty bowl, for sure. Specks of red and green popped against the dull-colored cream sauce and chicken breast slivers.

And it packed a decent punch. It wasn’t an overwhelming heat, but it was impossible to miss the jalapeno that lingered after every bite. The peppers and cilantro gave it some freshness, too.

I finished a little more than half of it before I couldn’t take another bite. Not because I didn’t want more, but because the portion was too large, especially with a side order of onion rings to eat as well.

There really isn’t a side order that goes with this dish (other choices included fries, potato filling, mashed sweet potatoes and sautéed mushrooms) so onion rings were just what I was craving most among the available options.

They were fine, if a little greasy. But I certainly didn’t need them. I probably would have been happier with a starter salad and no sides.

Julie may have actually had more food than I did as her “Bridge Chicken” dinner came with two sides.

crock with chicken smothered in cheese and tomatoes next to a plate with a baked potato and a small dish with corner nuggets

The Bridge Chicken is sautéed with tomatoes, garlic, feta cheese, spinach and bacon with Dijon cream sauce. You could really taste the Dijon mustard, and it paired well with the smoky flavor of the bacon.

It was a unique mix of flavors, a deconstructed chicken sandwich of sorts. And Julie really enjoyed it.

For her sides, she chose a baked potato and corn nuggets. The corn nuggets were average, but she really enjoyed the baked potato, which was covered in coarse salt. Already a fan of potato skins, Julie was excited to have the extra salt on them.

She, too, took home nearly half of her chicken so our $42 was stretched into a few more meals.

There was a lot to like about the Bridge Inn, and judging from the crowd in the dining room, plenty of others thought so, too.

And now that we’ve been there, “we need to go there” is now “I’m glad we finally went.”

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

The Bridge Inn
3 Covered Bridge Rd
Oley, PA 19547