The Hungry Lady's Travels: Gullifty's Restaurant

Have you ever heard of Rosemont, Pa.?  If you're reading this anywhere other than the Philadelphia area, the answer is probably "no."  And that's just fine.  It's a tiny town, that tends to be lumped together with it's slightly more famous neighbors: Bryn Mawr (where Katharine Hepburn and Betty Draper from Mad Men went to college) and Villanova (which also probably doesn't mean anything to you unless you follow college basketball or you're Catholic).    At any rate, Rosemont is about 15 minutes from my mom's house, so a few months ago when my sister and I were home for Christmas (have I mentioned how far behind I am in blogging?) my mom took us out to dinner at a restaurant that is pretty well known in the area, but not necessarily outside of the Main Line. For those of you not up on your suburban Philadelphia geography, the Main Line is a part of the western suburbs that runs right along Rt. 30, straight into Center City.  They built a train route parallel to this route, and ever since, the towns along this route have been referred to as the Main Line.


But I digress.  On to the food!  We went to Gullifty's, a place that has decent beer, pretty good food, and is relatively casual.  Gullifty's has been around for awhile - I remember going there in second grade, and that was about 20 years ago.  Their menu has a ton of options from apps to salads to burgers to grinders (hot hoagies, again for those of you not from the Philadelphia area) to handspun pizzas to full sized entrees to sandwiches.  There really is something for everyone, at a fairly reasonable price.  Clearly it was the perfect spot for my mom to take her two fabulous daughters whom she rarely sees because they live too far away.  Of course, she does always have the option to visit...

We started with a couple of appetizers - my sister got a Caesar salad and I ordered the goat cheese bruschetta.  C thought the salad needed more croutons, but it tasted pretty good.  It seemed to be exactly what she wanted.  I was really excited to try the bruschetta after reading the description: garlic bread topped with a roasted red pepper & goat cheese spread and chopped tomatoes and onions with a balsamic reduction.  It was good, but not as good as I had expected.  Probably because I hyped it up too much in my head.  It was a ton of food though.  The bread was crispy around the edges, but got a little soggy after being bogged down with the toppings. Still good flavors, but I might try something else next time.

Caesar salad.  Just what you would expect.

Bruschetta.  Lots of tomatoes, not as much spread as I would have liked.

For dinner, we each got something different.  Mom ordered the Cajun Ranch Burger, which you would expect to be a bit on the spicy side.  It wasn't.  The burger wasn't bad, but when something is advertised as Cajun, I expect a huge burst of spice and flavor.  My sister ordered the Chicken Diablo Pizza, which made up for any possible heat that Mom's burger was lacking.  I'm not quite sure how she managed to eat most of this pizza, but then again, my sister has always had a high tolerance for spiciness.  I chose to have the Vegetable Fajitas.  I wish the lighting had been better so you could see the huge amounts of various veggies that were on this sizzling hot plate.  They were utterly fabulous, and I ate every single bite.  Probably not surprising, knowing my love of veggies.  Definitely the best of our three meals (at least in my opinion).


My sister, the dessert queen (seriously...she actually went to school to be a pastry chef), ordered what I think was chocolate chip cheesecake to cap off dinner.  I was so full from my fajitas that I only managed a bite or two, but wow.  It was creamy and chocolate-y and delicious.  The whipped cream and additional chocolate chips on top were a pretty nice touch too.

Look at that huge layer of whipped cream!

All told, we had a pretty good meal.  It's always nice to spend time with my fabulous family, and when that involves good food too, well then so much the better.

Final Rating

You can find Gullifty's on Facebook or on the web.