Sugar Mama's, Camp Hill

Tonight I decided to stop by Sugar Mama's for dinner, on my way to the annual dance recital. Mama's is in the Hartzdale Drive Shopping Center, behind the Capital City Mall. It occupies the space where Coyote Joe's used to be.

Mama's is a pretty simple cafe, with a few extra touches worth your while. First of all, they have over 50 different flavors of cheesecake. Along with that, they're one of the handful of local restaurants where you can find gelato. Mama's opens at 7:00am and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I chose a grilled panini called the Sugar Special. It was essentialy a kicked up cheesesteak on Ciabatta. After I placed my order (at the counter for take-out, or take a seat for table service), my panini was brought out in 15 minutes. It was served with a side of french fries. While the fries were unremarkable, I really enjoyed the panini. It set me back $6.95, but there was a good amount of beef in the sandwich. Mama's also serves up salads, wraps and soup.



I will definitely come back to try the Caprese panini, and probably some gelato.

Sugar Mama's
3401 Hartzdale Drive, Suite 113
Camp Hill, PA 17011
Wait Time: 15 min.
Total Cost: $7.31
Size of Water Cup: 20 oz.

Zpizza, Mechanicsburg

Tonight, I checked out Zpizza over in Mechanicsburg. It's an upscale-casual pizza chain (if you can figure out what means), and this is their only location in the state of Pennsylvania. It's a quick-service establishment with a bunch of tables, and a leather couch for folks waiting to pick-up pizza to go.

While the menu features calzones, salads and pasta, the draw is the pizza. And the pizza is pretty good. They have a set list of specialty pizzas, like Thai, Greek, and Moroccan, along with your standard cheese and pepperoni options.

But where it really gets good, is when you make your own pizza. You choose your crust type (white or wheat), and then choose your cheese (low-fat mozz, feta, soy, ricotta or parmesan). Up next is your sauce. You can choose tomato, sweet basil pesto, chipotle pesto, roasted garlic, BBQ or Thai. Finally, you get around to the actual toppings. Everything from roasted red peppers to chicken sausage.

I chose the 10 inch pizza on wheat, with sweet basil pesto, mozz and grilled chicken breast. It set me back $8.25. I took a seat and waited for my pizza. From the time I placed my order at the counter, to the time it was delivered, took all of 18 minutes. And it was good. The crust was pretty good and they certainly did not skimp on the toppings. The one thing I didn't like was the ultra-small water cups. It seems that more and more places are choosing to use 8 oz. cups for water (I'm looking at you Panera) which means multiple trips to the fountain for refills. But that's a minor thing. If you like pizza, this place is definitely worth checking out. I know I'll be back.


Zpizza
Wait time: 18 minutes
Total cost (w/ tax): $8.61
Size of water cup: 8 oz.

Appetizers

I've been itching to do something new, so I decided to start a new blog. Specifically, a blog about eating out. It's been something that I've been thinking about for a while. I was inspired by one of my favorite websites, Holly Eats. He goes around and visits various restaurants, assigning each establishment a "grease rating" according to how good the food was.

The goal of this blog will be to show you in pictures and words about local dining establishments. By "local" I mean establishments in Cumberland, Dauphin and York counties. And if I go out-of-town and have my camera with me, I'll make a note of those visits too.

I hope to do one of two posts a week, depending on how often I get out.