Adsum

One rainy Sunday we decided to venture out to 5th & Bainbridge. Adsum.

In the small space with big windows, we sat and watched the rain fall.

Initial opinion was why am I sitting on such a cheap, thin, rickety chair, ordering an over priced beer?!

The food was good. Not everything I had hoped for, but definitely something I want to give a 2nd chance.

For our 1st time we had the SUPER poutine, of course. This was good, and I probably would have thought great, if that was all we had. But it was dinner time, and we needed a meal, so we ordered entrees; perogies, and the burger. Unfortunately both tasted like the poutine. I would have really liked a different taste (or even a different temperature) to cut through the rich, fatty - bacon like essence which covered everything.

Although we will go back and try different dishes, it will most likely be one at a time.

Nicole's Meals, aka. Masterpieces

Nicole really likes to pose and take pictures of the food she cooks. 

If you have any questions about recipes etc. email her at: greatgobs123@gmail.com

For breakfast one cold morning Nicole thought she'd introduce me to grits...they were surprisingly good. We put cheese in ours, but she explained that grits are kind of like tofu and take on whatever flavor you pair it with. They have a grainy cream of wheat texture. I'm actually craving them now!

Cheese grits with jalapenos.

 Salmon was on sale (YES!) so was asparagus, we got both and made a meal with a lemon butter sauce. We did it all in the oven...excellent. And BONUS very little clean up!

Lemon butter salmon with ww spaghetti and oven roasted asparagus.

 Not sure if you can tell in this photo, its pretty small, but dinner was ready at 3:30. :) We had turkey for weeks.

Thanksgiving turkey.

 Always wanted to cook with Quinoa. We got a healthy booklet in the mail with our Philadelphia Magazine this month, found a recipe in it for peppers stuffed with quinoa, perfect! We added ground turkey and had a super protein packed meal!

Pepper stuffed with Quinoa.

NYawesomeC

We took a trip to NYC a few weeks ago.

We had an agenda: good bagels (we are still searching in Philly...any suggestions?), Broadway show, snack/wander, drinks, karaoke, and DO NOT, by any means, DO NOT miss the 1am bus back to Philly.

First things first, if you know us, you know we're planners (like you can't tell by our agenda) so the night before Nicole confirms she has our bus reservations on her phone. Check!
We're already all packed for the day so all we have to do is get up get dressed and get to the bus. We managed to do that well. When we get to the bus, we can't find the reservations we had pulled up the night before. As we're looking through the emails, the ticket taker says the bus is leaving, and we're like well we purchased seats, he's like you don't have tickets...and the bus drives away!
He tells us if we want to try to get on the bus that was just in front of us, we can take a cab to X (I don't remember) FUCKER!
Fine, in cab, still searching for email confirmation we just saw less than 12 hours ago...catch bus, bus drive MUCH nicer than ticket taker. He has to call the office to confirm our seats. There were 2 seats left on the bus...is it rocket science to figure out that you have 2 empty seats and there are 2 girls chasing a bus around town swearing that they purchased them a month ago!? Coincidence? Probably not.

ANYWAYS....beautiful ride (I still highly recommend taking the bus from Philly to NYC, just print your ticket), we get to NYC and take the subway downtown to Murray's Bagels. We get ww everything bagels, one with cream cheese, lox, and capers; and the other with whitefish and cuke. OMG YUM. The bagels were huge and warm and part of the awesomest, awesome ever.

OMG - Top
YUM - Bottom

Next stop Broadway!
We saw The Fantasticks. It was great. In a small theater, fantastic actors. Good story that made you think. We liked it.

Ok, now its 4pm, to early for dinner...snack time! We wander over to Bryant Park, super cute holiday shops and ice skating...but across the street is warm soup. Not just any soup, soup from The Original Soup Man! Great variety of soups, good bread. It was a great snack...or get a larger size for a meal.

At this point it was time to meet up with friends at Stout for drinks. Stout is a great European bar with 3 floors, lots of different beers on tap and they show rugby and soccer games on their 4 huge TV's over the bar! We usually start our nights at Stout when we go into Manhattan.

Next up, karaoke at Japas! This is one of our favorite karaoke bars in Manhattan because we can rent a room all to ourselves and it includes all you can drink/eat. We sang till our hearts content, said our goodbyes and made the 1am bus back to Philly. I'll write about the hangover I had the following day in another post. ;)

Our final Long Island trip...as Long Islanders...

Nicole has been holding this post (and photos) hostage for almost a month.
And now being late is becoming a theme on this blog...I really need to stop that.

On our final trip to LI as LIers, we of course had to eat just about everything we loved there.

So our day started with Seaford Bagles.

They haven't changed the color of
the building in 50 years!

Their bagels, a great memory of childhood, are perfectly tough and chewy outside and soft and airy inside, just excellent. I always want to eat more than one, but never let myself, and we have lots more eating to do!

Best burger on LI

Next up, lunch at All American. Consistently voted best burger on LI. This place hasn't changed in years either. You can still get a cheese burger for $2. In the summer time the lines are out the door all day and you can almost always count on seeing at least one little league team there.

And of course a snack at our favorite diner. I don't think you can live on Long Island and not have a favorite diner. If you're ever on the south shore of LI, check out the South Bay Diner. Everything. Yes, everything is good!

And our final LI food stop was dinner at the one and only Momma's! The. Best. Pizza. If you're in the mood for gourmet pizza, this is it on Long Island. We had 3 slices; 1 with pesto shrimp, 1 with grilled veggies and 1 with rigatoni a la vodka. We devoured it before we could think to take a picture. Sorry!

Happy Hour - Cajun Style

So I FINALLY make it into the city and....we go to happy hour outside of the city!

Last night we, and a bunch of other rugby peeps, traveled out to Manayunk to visit The Bayou. Now Manayunk is a very cute little town about 20 minutes outside of the city. I'd love to go shopping there one day.
But, i digress, The Bayou turns out to be a great, grungy, "college bar", where there's adequate bar food (but nothing authentically cajun as the name would suggest) and great dance music and wait it gets better... $1 happy hour drinks! Thats right $1.
Now although there are many cool bars and restaurants in Manayunk, I don't believe you can find a better happy hour deal. Check it out!

 

Moving! Week 1

So I moved last Tuesday from NY to Philadelphia.

No, not a big move, but a move none the less.

So my calendar looked like this:

Tuesday - MOVE!

Wednesday - Start new job in Philadelphia, 1st night of Chanukah, $10 Burgers & Beers at Bridget Foys & fire lighting at Devils Den.  I was a really bad jew and had a burger with cheddar cheese. Nicole was much better and had a home made veggie patty. Now I believe both these burgers were very good, but I will be honest and say that I did have 3-4 beers before the burgers arrived. I mean we were celebrating my promotion and move, they were totally justified.

Thursday - I'm adjusting to my new office and new procedures. I feel like my head is spinning, there is so much work to do. But some people in my office were going to city hall (across the street) after work to see the mayor light the christmas tree. So we got some hot cocoa and crossed the street to see the tree lighting. Even Yogi and Booboo were there!

City Hall Christmas Tree

Friday - Chanukah dinner courtesy of Nicole. For some reason, I am no longer allowed to cook, I can only re-heat things. :0/ 

Prime rib, oven roasted veggies and of course latkes!

Our menorah with rainbow candles!

Saturday - UNPACK. Toys for Tots Toy Drive. Too many car bomb shots.

Sunday - UNPACK and prepare for the week.

Woah weeks fly by! My Thanksgiving weekend.

This is WAY LATE and I'm sorry I don't really have a good reason. It was Thanksgiving and my family celebrates in Maine (about 6 hours from me) and then I moved. And I'm sure you all understand that moving can knock your world off its axis. So I will catch you up as quickly as possible with the abridged version.

Thanksgiving - Maine

3 turkeys came to Thanksgiving!

Thursday am - 6 hour drive with 2 brothers. Arrived at 6am. Brother wears super small shirt to turkey day dinner, is refered to as "fat kid in a little shirt" for the rest of the weekend

"Fat Kid" in striped shirt trying to get
some turkey before everyone else!

Friday - Dad's omelet (jeeze I miss these!) - peppers, onion, blk olives, shrimp & goat cheese. Harry Potter movie (whatever)

Dad's Omelet, Saturday - He got fancy

Saturday - Dad's Omelet - I forget, it was good. Cousins baby shower (woo?!), NEWICKS & ELF, Home to upstate NY

A must stop every time we go to Maine/New Hampshire

A little bit of heaven on earth.
Fried clams and a lobster roll from Newick's.