R2L AWESOME!

We had lunch today at R2L it was amazing!
Everything from the decor, to the view, to the service...it was all perfect.

I had a super crazy hectic day at work and arrived 10 minutes late and extremely frazzled.
Our server (I'm super embarrassed I don't remember her name) was great at calming me and by the time we had the first course I was relaxed and not worried about work at all.

We had: chopped salad, winter soup, salmon, chopped steak, a chocolate dessert, and a sesame dessert.
Everything was perfect, even the pretzel bread with dijon cream cheese spread was excellent.

The soup was thick and hardy, filled with veggies. The salmon and steak were cooked perfectly.

I really can't wait to go back.

Bar-BOOO-zo

Our meal was so bad at Barbuzzo, I don't even want to write about it.

They need to find a way to protect their customers, which they cram in like sardines, from the outside elements. Our food was cold and so were we throughout the entire meal.

Sincerely disappointed, it seems as if Marcie & Co. doesn't take customers comfort into account at all. I've eaten at 3 of her restaurants and they're all the same, small tables, smaller chairs, and even smaller space between tables.

And seriously, host/hostess...do you understand your title?! For gods sake if there is a coat check available let your guests know!

In The Heights!

Last Thursday we went to see In The Heights at the Academy of Music...it was AWESOME!!!
Our seats SUCKED, if you are going to see a show at the A of M do not sit on the side of the stage, we could only see 3/4 of the stage because of the sound system, which kept cutting out. :(
But these artists were great and sounded better without the mics!
So anyways, I've been singing the songs ever since...do not pass up the opportunity to see this show!

Pizzeria Stella

We've found more good pizza in Philly!
While this only makes a grand total of 2 pizzeria's in Phily which are good. (Slice & Stella) We're happy to keep searching!

Stella's had a $25 special the night we went, so we got to try 4 different pizzas & 2 different apps! Kristen our server, was fantastically pleasant, casual and helpful. By far one of the best servers we've had in this town.

We had the sheep's milk ricotta and the beet salad. Both were good. We love beet, the temperature difference between the ricotta and the bread was great, could have used a bit of salt or some kind of seasoning.

We had the Mushroom, Pancetta, Tartuffo, and San Daniele pizzas.
The Mushroom was good, lots of oregano, ham was slightly smokey, not salty at all.
The Pancetta was everyones #1 favorite, a lil' salty, a lil' bitter, it was well rounded goodness.
The Tartuffo, while providing table side entertainment (they break the yolk table side), was super rich, salty and basically overwhelming.
The San Daniele was basically a ham sandwich. It was crazy. While cool that it was pizza that tasted like a sandwich, there really wasn't anything else cool about it.

All that followed by gelato! 5 flavors to choose from...all were good! ;)

Great location, nice ambiance, we weren't sitting on top of the next table. It was a great all around dinner.

Davio's

We went for restaurant week, which we were happy about, but the waitress (Alice) clearly wasn't.
The food was good, aside from our waitress, the service was great. The atmosphere, while a large room, it was quite boring and forgettable.
As soon as our waitress found out we were there for restaurant week, her tone completely changed and she pushed us to order immediately. Actually saying to us "lets go".
We started with a soup and a salad: The soup was a bit watered down, the salad was salty. Our main course was salmon and scallops, both were good. The dessert was a sampler of 3 items: a peanut butter cream thing, a tiramisu-ish gel thing, and a hazelnut thing. The hazelnut thing was amazing! The others...blech.
While it was nice to be eating in a big room (so many restaurants in center city cram you into tiny places), the entire experience was only OK. Probably won't be back.

Icey Tuesday

This is Nicole's little guy Ty. He insisted on laying with me this morning, I threw him away 3 times before giving up! I was working from our bed because my office had a 2hr delay because of all the ice! He's ridiculous, I had to snap a photo.

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MLK DAY

I was super lazy today, not sure why. I guess because I could be. I didn't get outta bed until 1pm! And for those of you who don't know me that is something I just never do. When I did finally get up, I made my way to the market (this has become my job since Nicole is overnight every Monday.) where I passed a box for French onion soup & thought I bet that's not hard, I can do that. I pulled up a recipe on my phone, picked up a couple more items & hurried home, just the thought of this hot cheesey soup was making me hungry already!
While making this soup was not hard, I am an impatient person & it took a lot of patience, but it was all worth it in the end. Only regret, should have spent the extra money on the better cheese. :)

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Varga happiness

We got lucky tonight & were able to meet for dinner at Varga Bar.
We decided to taste a few items; brussel sprouts (bc they're Nicole's fav) special polenta and special ravioli.
The brussel sprouts were awesome!
Crunchy, salty, tart, melt in your mouth goodness.

Awesome brussel sprouts

The wild mushroom polenta was hot & soft inside with a nice thin crunchy outside.

Wild mushroom polenta

The ravioli tied with the brussel sprouts as my favorite. The light earthy, cinnamon/nutmeg-ish sauce paired perfectly with the winter squash & lobster. The ravioli themselves were very nice, thin pasta light fluffy filling.

Ravoli with winter squash and lobster

I liked the food and the atmosphere better than Adsum!

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Perfect Snowy Saturday

Homemade turkey chilli!

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