"I have been buying pies from Perkins? restaurants for years?and I swear by them. They aren?t ?cheap?, but the flavor and the tender caramel-apple crumb pie is worth every cent to me; try one and I?m absolutely positive you?ll agree, wholeheartedly!! I usually buy my pies from 2 restaurant/bakeries?the one at Cedar Crest and Hamilton, and the other on South Lehigh Street, both in Allentown. Last week I found myself on Rte 191 in Bethlehem, so I decided to purchase my pies for our Memorial Day family cookout there at the intersection of Rte 22. The pies smelled, and tasted as they should, the apples just slightly firmer than ?tender??the way they should be; not hard to chew at all and yet not mushy. All-in-all, everything seemed on par with the pies at my usual restaurants. So why then would I rate this restaurant only 1 star, you are probably asking yourself. The caramel on both pies was mostly ok, but there were large globs of it around the edges that had firmed up like rubber, impossible to chew through; it seemed like a cross between rubber and leather. [SEE PHOTO #1] That, in-itself, wasn?t favorable but was forgivable IMHO. But there was something far worse than the caramel plaguing these pies. Both had thin, pointy and sharp shards of plastic baked into the apple filling. The pieces ranged in size from about 1/4? to just over 3/8? in width and were very thin. [SEE PHOTO #2] At first, the attendees of the cookout who found the plastic in their pie, myself included, thought it to be part of the apple cores which have a similar color and texture?flexible yet solid and not chewable. I believe I swallowed one by accident, Not expecting anything but edible ingredients in the pie, but then another piece came to my fork. When I couldn?t chew it, I spit it out into a napkin so that I could look at it. Moments later I realized it was plastic, and brought it to the attention of the rest of the family. Two others had spit out pieces they thought were core onto their plates; closer inspection proved them to be the same plastic. I am a forgiving person by nature, but I am not ignorant. While I can forgive whatever caused this anomaly with these pies, I will not purchase pies from this restaurant/bakery again?strictly out of a sense of self-preservation and good health. I have had some unusual GI trouble since the cookout?I hope it clears itself up with some over-the-counter aids from the pharmacy. I don?t know where these plastic pieces could have come from, but they very well could have caused a very serious health emergency. Please, take this as a friendly heads-up to check your pie and chew thoroughly before swallowing if you chance buying one at this location at all. I would highly suggest keeping the pies away from children; had a small child swallowed a piece of that plastic, God only knows what might have happened. I am sorry for the bad review about this restaurant, but the safety of people"
