You can't get a decent egg cream outside of the 5 boroughs. Even in NJ it doesn't taste the same. You have to have U-Bet syrup for an authentic egg cream.

The water ice in Philly is different from the Italian ices that I know from down the shore. NJ and NYC Italian ice is sweeter and uses a sugar sweetner, not juice. It is creamier than the water ices that I've tried - although there is no dairy product in Italian ice.

If you ever get to Ocean Grove, NJ (my favorite shore town), go to Nagles. Nagles was an authentic pharmacy with a soda fountain, but over the years the pharmacy business was halted and the soda fountain took over. They kept the original architecture and some of the pharmaceutical display cabinets. There are old medicine bottles on display as well as advertising and you get the feel of what the old place was like. The ice cream is good too! (They use Welsh's Farm products). Ocean Grove has another ice cream parlour - Days, which dates back to the late 1800's. Paul Robeson was a waiter there during the summer when he went to Rutgerss. Days was never a pharmacy, and the ice cream they serve is one of the premium brands - but there is still a nice old time feel to the place.