Tucker Day and Mother’s Day

I’m fully aware that my blog has turned into a once a week thing where I share some pictures about the past weekend.  While I wish I was writing more often, I just don’t have the time.  40 hour work week plus an infant, I’m sure you understand.  So for now, you get weekend recaps.  And I get way fewer pageviews.  It evens out, I suppose.

Another spring weekend, another festival.  This time we went to a smaller festival – Tucker Day, which was about a mile from our house.  As far as Atlanta festivals go, this one didn’t have much to see or buy but it was still fun.

While Alexander, Jason and I had fun, someone else was really the star of Tucker Day.

Bring a Golden to a festival and he’ll have an instant fan club.  People, especially kids, just flocked to Murphy.  By the end of the day he was Tuckered out.  (Har-de-har-har.)

For Mother’s Day, I got to sleep in and then the three of us went to Urban Pl8 for brunch.  It was Jason’s idea to go there and it was a great one.  Atlanta is a very brunchie town anyway and on Mother’s Day, the usual brunch spots are madhouses.  However Urban Pl8 is a bit off the beaten path and we didn’t even have to wait.

I had the Huevos Rancheros for my meal and coffee, lots of coffee.  Because if I’ve learned anything about motherhood, it’s that coffee is a necessity.

And also, I have the coolest baby ever.  Motherhood taught me that too.

Hope you had a nice weekend too!

#Momlife

We went to South Carolina this past weekend to visit Jason’s family.  Alexander got to visit with his grandparents and his great grandmother while Jason and I had some rare alone time and went out on a date.

We drove to Greenville, about 45 minutes from Jason’s parents house, for dinner.

After a quick Yelp search, we decided on The Trappe Door, a Belgian restaurant that specialized in mussels. We didn’t have reservations so we had to sit at the bar.

No problem there though; there was still plenty of room for our moules frites.  We shared the Thai Red Curry and the Provencale mussels.

The Thai Curry was better but both were good.

When we first got to Greenville, we were all like, “We have babysitters; we can stay out late.”  After we finished eating, we thought we’d walk around a little and find a place to have another drink.  That quickly turned into, “Well let’s drive back to Clemson (where Jason’s parents live) and go out there instead.” And that turned into, “Let’s just go back to Jason’s parents.” and I fell asleep by ten.  #momlife

Myrtle Eats

While my dietary preferences make it hard for me to consider myself a foodie, I’m definitely somewhat of a food snob.  Atlanta just has a great restaurant scene and living here for the past 11 years has really opened my eyes to what good food is.  Call it snotty if you want, but that good food really didn’t exist in Myrtle Beach.  Well, not really.

We arrived around dinner time and just walked around looking for a place to eat and settled on Banditos.  It had a beach view and lots of vegetarian options.  Apparently I was hungry because the vegetable fajitas that I ordered came with like seven plates.

Unfortunately, my seven plates of food weren’t that good.  The veggies were too salty, the chips were on the stale side and the guacamole just plain sucked.

The next morning, I decided to do some research.  After sorting through the numerous Yelp reviews for places that specialized in all you can eat buffets or fried seafood, I did come across a little gem in Bay Naturals, which is a little grocery store with a cafe in the back.  I had the acai bowl.  I don’t really even know what acai is, but it was delicious.  The best thing I ate all week for sure!

For dinner, we went to Ultimate California Pizza.  Again, what I ordered sounded good, the Malibu Greek Salad.  I mean a salad on top of hummus covered flatbread?  That had my name all over it.  Unfortunately, it just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

The next day was Jason’s birthday so we consulted Yelp once again for a nice restaurant with good reviews.  We settled on Aspen Grille.  It was fancy, but fancy like grandparents fancy, not trendy fancy if that makes sense.  I got the scallops, which were good, but very buttery.  Probably because there was a butter sauce on them.  Too rich for my blood.

What was not too rich for my blood was Ben and Jerry’s.  I tried one of their Greek yogurts, the raspberry fudge chunk.  It tasted a lot like Cherry Garcia, which is one of my favorites.

Though we intended to eat our lunches in our hotel room, that didn’t always happen and we found ourselves at the 8th Avenue Tiki Bar.  I ordered the veggie burger, which the server basically told me that no one ever orders and that they’ve spent a lot of time in the freezer.  That said, it was actually really good.  That white stuff is mozzarella, not mayo.

For our final meal, we set out to find some seafood.  I found the Noizy Oyster on Yelp.  The reviews said it was Maryland style.  Since I’d been feeling nostalgic for my Maryland beaches, I decided that’s where we should go.

I had the crabcakes, which were pretty good.

Jason had some oysters and one that he ate tasted bad.  He ended up getting some sort of food poisoning from it and we went to Urgent Care on Monday night because I panicked and was sure he got some killer oyster bacteria.  He’s fine now but I don’t know if he’ll eat raw oysters anymore.

So that was the food at Myrtle Beach.  The beach itself was wonderful, but I can’t say the same about the food.  Except for that acai bowl.

Greenville’s Artisphere

Jason’s parents live about two hours away in Seneca, South Carolina, and that’s where we spent the weekend.  On Saturday, his parents had some home improvement stuff that they were working on, so Jason and I decided to drive to Greenville, about 40 minutes away.  It just so happened that a big art festival, Artistphere, was going on this weekend and we all know how much I love my festivals.

The first order of business, before any festival-going, was to get lunch.  Jason suggested Mediterranean food and I looked for something on Yelp and came up with The Lazy Goat.  It was right on the river, near the festival.

We started out with the Harissa whipped hummus, which was served with veggies and warm pita.

It wasn’t bad, but I thought it was on the bland side and definitely didn’t taste of harissa, which is supposed to be spicy.  We decided to split two entrees – the Grilled Veggie Wrap and the Lazy Plate with chimmichurri shrimp.

Though they both sounded good, they just weren’t.  The veggie wrap wasn’t bad, but it was oily.  The shrimp was overcooked and charred and it just wasn’t a lot of food for the $15 price tag.  (The veggie wrap was a good deal though.)  The meal wasn’t bad, it was just one of those mediocre meals where you wish you’d gone elsewhere.

Disappointing meal aside, we had a fun time at the Artisphere.

We walked around looking at the different booths.  It wasn’t much different than the many art festivals we have here in Atlanta, but it was still fun to browse and I felt like they had different artists that I hadn’t seen before, though many were from Georgia.

In addition to art for sale, there were a lot of artists at work and interactive activities which were fun to see.

(I liked that one, as you can tell!  I don’t know what I would write on it.  Hmm.)

It had been threatening to rain all morning and as soon as we felt the first few drops, we ran for cover.  Cover just happened to be a wine tasting tent.  Convenient, no?

Though I have no idea if it’s considered a good wine or not, I liked that Bonterra Saugivnon Blanc and oddly enough, also really liked the Seven Daughters Moscato.   (I say “oddly enough” because I’m not normally a fan of sweet wines, but this one tasted like cream soda!)

This was the cheese and accoutrements plate if you were wondering.

The rain let up pretty quickly and we enjoyed the festival a little more.

We also explored some of the shops on Main Street and I got a pretty necklace.  It was a really nice day.  Greenville is a cute little city.  It’s too small for me to want to live there, but it’s really nice for a day trip.

Drinks and Indian Food

My 3-day weekend is going to be one of those annoying things that takes up three separate posts. I can’t help it. I did three entirely different things this past weekend and if I tried to fit them all in one post, it would be very, very long. Plus, it helps my writer’s block.

Since our three year anniversary is coming up in just two months, we decided to head back to the scene of the crime. We drove into DC to the hotel where we got married and had a drink.

They had remodeled the bar area, so it looked different than we remembered but it was still fun.

After our drinks, we went to my mother’s boyfriend’s house for a little bit before heading out to Rasika for dinner.  Rasika is an upscale Indian restaurant that’s very popular.  We weren’t able to get a reservation before 9:30 pm.

My mom and I had looked at some Yelp reviews the day before and a bunch of people recommended the Palak Chaat.

We also got the Sev Batata Puri.

Forgive my awful iPhone pictures.  It was pretty dark in the restaurant.  For our entrees, I ordered the Vegetable Biryani.  It was almost like a pot pie and much bigger than it looked.

Jason got the Tandoori Chicken Tikka.

My mom had the Khatta Meetha Black Cod.

And Marty had the Tandoori Lamb Chops.

We all shared a bread basket full of naan and some rice.  Everything was really, really delicious.  It was one of the best meals that I’ve had in a long time and a really fun night.  Of course, I was full for about 24 hours afterward, but that’s okay.

 

 

 

Crispy baby spinach / yogurt / tamarind / date

Dinner at Vedge

Vegan breakfast and cheesesteak aside, we actually didn’t eat that much in Philadelphia.  We found ourselves having coffee for breakfast, skipping lunch and sharing appetizers for dinner most of the time.  So on our last night there, we wanted to do it up.  After draining both of our phone batteries looking up Yelp reviews, we decided on Vedge, mostly because we’d just walked past it and we knew where it was.  Vedge was actually one of the restaurants that I’d looked up a few days before our trip but I wasn’t sure if Jason really wanted to go there.

The restaurant is entirely vegan but the concept is that vegan can be upscale and doesn’t always have to have a sort of hippie connotation (not that I mind, I am sort of a hippie myself).  We walked in around 6:30 (on a Monday) and were told that the only seats available were at the bar.  Guess it’s popular.

Sorry for the bad pictures, I only had my iPhone and it was pretty dark.

We started out with the full board appetizer.  In hindsight, I don’t really know why we ordered this because I don’t really like green olives and I only like some black ones.  The lupini beans and pickled veggies were really good though.

The couple sitting next to us mentioned that the portions were on the smaller side, so we both ordered an entree and then got two sides to share.  I had the fresh hearts of palm, garbanzo crepe, gold lentils, curry, tomato chutney.

Jason had the grilled seitan, creamy parsnips, english peas, truffle steak sauce.

For our sides, we split the brussels sprouts and fingerling fries, both delicious.

Though we were pretty full, the couple next to us had ordered some desserts and one of them looked so good that we had to get it – the sticky toffee pudding with pumpkin ice cream.  (I determined that gluten is not my problem and that dairy is.  This ice cream was, like everything on the menu, dairy-free.)

We had to roll ourselves back to our hotel afterward and promptly fell asleep but it was so worth it.

Back in Philadelphia

We found ourselves back in Philadelphia around lunchtime yesterday.  We checked into our hotel and immediately set out to find some food.  Jason is a good sport and indulged me by agreeing to eat at Mi Lah Vegetarian.  Our meal started out with complimentary fruit.

I had the Spanish Breakfast which consisted of tofu, curried polenta cakes, vegan chorizo (which I am aware looks totally gross in this picture) and kale.

Jason had the Seared Zucchini Setian Pattie Cheeseburger.

We both enjoyed our meals.  I probably enjoyed mine a little more, but Jason actually does like vegetarian food.  At least he tells me he does.  After lunch, we just kind of walked around Philadelphia.

Our walk took us to Reading Terminal Market…

then through Chinatown…

and finally to the Liberty Bell area.

The line to see the Liberty Bell was really long so we skipped it in favor of doing another super touristy thing.

It’s a good way to see a city!  Our tour took past Betsy Ross’ house…

A Ben Franklin bust…

The Philadelphia Museum of Art…

and the Eastern State Penitentiary.

And that was our day in Philly.

Restaurant Weekend

My friends and I go out to eat a lot.  One might argue that we go too much.  I think part of it has to do with living in a foodie city (Richard Blais, Kevin Gillespie and Hugh Acheson, all from Top Chef, have restaurants here.) but I think mostly it has to do with our age.  In our 30s, as most of my friends are, we don’t really do the bar scene anymore.  That’s not to say that I never go to a bar, because sometimes I do, but meeting up with friends is generally over food and drinks rather than just over drinks.

My friend Joan’s fiance Sean just moved here and has been on a quest to find the most authentic Thai restaurant in the city.  We decided to try Panita Thai Kitchen last night.  This place is in the middle of Virginia-Highland, a very pedestrian friendly part of the city with tons of bars and restaurants, but it’s kind of hidden away on a side street.

I’d read some Yelp reviews that were mixed.  What I gathered was that service could be on the slower side because the whole place is run by just a husband and wife.  We were sort of surprised when we got there and found that the whole restaurant was open air and there was no air conditioning.  Despite the sweltering temps outside, it actually didn’t feel bad at all.

The menu was large and I settled on the Scallops Farang.  Everything came in some sort of carved out fruit bowl.  Mine was in pineapple and a coconut, Jason was in a pineapple and both Sean and Joan’s came in a watermelon.

Everything tasted good and I thought the service was efficient.  I didn’t feel like we had to wait at all.  Plus, the server, who I assume is the wife, and I had a lengthly discussion about how we both didn’t get in the Peachtree lottery two years in a row!  Apparently, she shares my bad luck.  I have no idea how we started talking about that, by the way.

Sean declared this place the best Thai he’s had in Atlanta so far!  A winner.

Of course, my restaurant eating didn’t stop on Friday night, because I had lunch plans with Tina on Saturday.  Although we didn’t exactly go to a restaurant.

Tina had never eaten at Whole Foods before and there’s a nice one pretty much half-way in between our houses (we live about 45 minutes from one another) so it was a no-brainer.  We both loaded up on both the salad and hot bars.

It was good, although I thought those things on the bottom right were fat mushrooms.  Nope, they were eggplant.  Not an eggplant fan at all (except for Trader Joe’s Eggplant Parmesan, for some reason.)  I hadn’t seen Tina for a month or so, so it was nice to chat and catch up.

After lunch, I did some errands.  And by that I mean that I went to the mall.  While I was shopping, Jason was adding bead board to the wall in the bathroom and when I got home, he really wanted to get out of the house.  Yup, we went to another restaurant, this time, a new Mexican place that just opened near our house called Las Colinas.

I tried very hard not to gorge myself on chips and salsa before our meals came.  I think I did an okay job and probably stuck to one serving, though I didn’t count.  For my meal, I went with a shrimp salad and added a side of guacamole.  It was basically grilled shrimp atop a bed of shredded lettuce.  Not quite a salad, but not bad.  I think the guac came from a mix.  No avocado chunks in sight.

They didn’t skimp on the cucumbers though!  Jason got the Molcajete.  He said it was too oily.

Now what I really need is a trip to the grocery store so I can eat at home for a while. All of these meals were fun (although I wouldn’t go back to the Mexican place) but I really want to just eat at home for a while.

How often do you go out to eat?

Vegas Food

After a somewhat turbulent ride, we got home around 10:30 last night.  I had the good sense to take today off work too so I could decompress from my trip.  I have to admit, I’ve checked my work email several times, although I haven’t responded.  So hard to unplug, especially with a smartphone.

Even though we’re back in Atlanta (and it’s my 10-year anniversary of living here!), I’m not done with the Vegas updates.  I’ve got one more and it’s the food.  It’s funny, being in Vegas really skews your perception of what’s expensive and what’s not.  A $15 salad is a steal whereas at home, I’d balk at one that pricey!  A $25 entree seems reasonable, whereas at home, we save those type of places for special occasions.

When we arrived on Sunday night, it was around 7pm Pacific time, so 10pm to us and we were starving.  We went to Diego, in our hotel.  I had the Ensalada Diego and Jason had a taco sampler.

 

Honestly, this was my least favorite restaurant that we went to our entire trip.  It wasn’t bad, per se, it just wasn’t that memorable.  And I ate too many chips.

For lunch, we went to wichcraft, which is one of Tom Collichio’s restaurants.  I had the silician tuna sandwich.  I usually shy away from tuna because of the mayo, but this sounded (and tasted) like it didn’t really have any, so I went with it because I actually really like tuna sandwiches.

Another day, we went to Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay where I had this monstrosity known as the Vegas Vegan.  It typically comes with eggplant, which I don’t like, so I asked for extra zucchini instead.   I maybe ate half of it and I have a pretty big appetite.

It also came with sweet potato fries and we got 5 dipping sauces – spicy ketchup, marinara, homemade mustard, cinnamon honey mustard and trufflle mayo.  I liked the ketchup and mustard best.  I did not try the mayo.

Another day, another meal.  We actually kept it pretty light for dinner our last night and went to Seablue in our hotel for their happy hour specials.  Jason had a half-dozen oysters while I had a half-dozen shrimp.  I also had a salad that I didn’t really like.  The shrimp were delicious though.

We wandered over to a different restaurant in our hotel, NobHill Tavern, afterward for a drink.  I had the Cable Car.  I don’t often order mixed drinks, but this sounded, and was, delicious.  Probably because there was caramelized sugar around the entire rim.

After walking around Fremont Street for a while, we stopped in Cosmopolitan to try to find the secret pizza place.  They have a little pizza place there that’s down a hallway and not marked where you can get greasy pizza slices.  Hey, when in Vegas, right?

And now that we’re back in Atlanta and my pants are a little tighter (not really), I cannot wait to go to the grocery store and get back to my normal way of eating.

Do you splurge on food on vacation?

Michael Mina Tasting Dinner

Jason and I decided beforehand that we were going to go to one fancy dinner while we were in Vegas.  We kind of said it was for an early anniversary dinner, but really we just wanted an excuse to get dressed up and go somewhere fancy.  We decided to go to Michael Mina in the Bellagio, primarily because they had a Vegetarian Tasting Menu.

We walked around the Bellagio for a while taking pictures of things before heading into the restaurant.

When I expressed interest in the Vegetarian Tasting Menu, our server kind of tried to talk me into the regular one instead, after finding out that I eat fish.  He said it was better, but I think maybe it just costed more and I opted to go the vegetarian route.

My first course was an heirloom beet salad.  I’m not normally a huge beet fan, but this was good.

After that, I was served fennel tortellini in a brown butter sauce which was delicious.  I mean, you can’t go wrong with brown butter, right?

And finally, a Japanese style tofu.  Honestly, this was my least favorite of the dishes.  The tofu was breaded tempura style and that’s just not really my thing.  Oh well.

Jason went with the regular tasting menu and his first course was tuna tartar.

After that, he had lobster pot pie.  This was good, but very rich.

And finally, steak.  I honestly started laughing when this came out because it was so small!  I mean, I know it was a tasting menu but they weren’t kidding about just getting tastes.

With our tasting menus, we both got dessert samplers.  My favorite was the root beer float.  I’ve always liked root beer.

And with our bellies full and our wallets empty, we took a cab back to our hotel and fell into a food coma.