We didn’t get started to Philadelphia as soon as I would have liked, but we got out that way in time to make sure we accomplished a lot of what I was hoping The Wife would want to do in observation of her 40th birthday.

We started with an unplanned stop at Victory Brewing in Downingtown. While Victory is one of my favorite breweries anywhere, the industrial feel of the bar and brewpub was a little off-putting. The beer, however, was not; I had a brewery-only glass of Scarlet Fire, their smoked beer, and The Wife had a wonderfully fresh glass of HopDevil. Yum. Fortified, we were ready to fight through the suburban rush-hour traffic to get to Center City.

Dinner on Friday consisted of a visit to Manayunk Brewing Co., a really nice brewpub in a cool neighborhood alongside the Schuylkill River We had crab bisque and ungodly pizzas — and some wonderful beer — all on the tab of Fred and Ethel. Excellent dinner. Thanks, guys.

We hit the Reading market on Saturday morning, after breakfast at one of the downtown Marathon Grill locations, a regular stop for us in Philly. We’ve been in similar markets — the West End Market in Cleveland comes to mind — but this one is the biggest and most diverse. We split a kind of Italian Reuben for lunch — melt-in-your-mouth pastrami. Holy Crap.

Next was the Mutter Museum. Run by the Physicians College of Philadelphia, this is a storinghouse for some really bizarre medical curiosities. I’m a little squeamish about such things, and have always been hesitant to go, but The Wife, who is totally without squeam, has been dying to go for years. This place is home to a liver shared by Siamese twins, a 7-foot 6-inch skeleton and samples of every kind of tumor, lesion and boil known to mankind. It’ll give you a monster-sized case of the willies, but it’s also informative and pretty cool. There were exhibits about the Legionnaire’s Disease outbreak, about the 1918 influenza pandemic and how it affected the city and a display about Ben Franklin’s contributions to medicine.

We then killed some time darting in and out of stores along South Street — also cool stuff — before getting ready for The Main Event — dinner at Morimoto, the highly hyped Japanese restaurant owned and run by the former Iron Chef.

The restaurant’s design is very cool, with curves and waves everywhere, perhaps to emphasize the place’s connection with the ocean. The façade looks like a huge wave, sweeping up over the entrance. The ceiling inside is a gentle series of waves too, but warm wooden slats take the place of the textured exterior. The tables and booths also feature the curvy theme — there are simply no angles anywhere in the building — and their plexiglass frames are lit from the inside, so they slowly change colors throughout the evening, giving the restaurant a different tone at different points while we were there.

Morimoto has an extensive wine list, but we stuck to the chef’s imperial pilsner, made for the restaurant by Rogue. It’s a little sweet, a nice contrast to the hops that linger in the background. Two 22-oz. bottles got us through the night.

And then, the food. We shared a sashimi plate to start. The Wife is the real raw fish fan of the two of us, but she pushed me to try some things I normally wouldn’t in Pittsburgh or Columbus. I was not sorry. Each piece was delicious.

She stuck with sushi, a chef’s sampler, for dinner, and said it was amazing. I went off the deep end and got the restaurant’s version of surf and turf, which, in this case, was a sliced Kobe beef filet with a beer reduction and a half lobster soaked in a sweet butter glaze. The lobster was wonderful but the beef — jesus, it was amazing. One of the best meals I’ve had anywhere. The Wife was blissfully in agreement.

The only drawback to the evening? When we got out of the car minutes before our reservation time, The Wife heard an odd clunk as I closed the car door. She even asked about it, but I didn’t take the time to walk back around the car to check. If I had, I probably would have seen my cell phone lying there, after it jumped off my belt. When dinner was over, and we returned to the dark garage, I didn’t notice it lying next to — or maybe underneath — the car, so I might have even run over it when we backed out. I’m actually hoping that’s the case; if it is, whoever found the damn thing wouldn’t have been able to access any of the numbers or addresses stored inside. When I talked with Sprint Sunday morning, they said there hadn’t been any calls placed on the phone since I made one while we were still at the hotel. A replacement is on the way; that’s good, because I feel like I’ve lost my brain.

Great trip. I think a great birthday for The Wife. We’re now hopelessly behind schedule Christmaswise, but everything will get done eventually.