Tag: dinner

An Upper West Side Weekend

I spent all weekend in my ‘hood. I really like my ‘hood and I wasn’t seeing a show, so I didn’t have a real reason to leave. Additionally: this weekend was for being lazy. On Friday night I watched Gone Girl (for the millionth time) and colored a page in my “art therapy” coloring book. I basically just vegged. It was the nicest. After pouring myself into bed before 11pm, I woke up at the crack of 8am to head to my 9am yoga class. It’s an advanced class and is always hard but this was by far the hardest class my teacher has ever taught. I was dying and I also set a record for the most calories ever burn in one 90-minute yoga class (478 calories to be exact).

I spent the next couple of hours relaxing (and eventually showering) before Justin came over and we went to get coffee at the Hungarian Pastry Shop (somehow I was still exhausted) and he suggested watching John Adams. (Meh. It’s good, but sort of slow.) We headed out into a rather mild winter evening to The Ellington on 106th and Amsterdam for dinner with my folks. I like brunch at The Ellington better than dinner, but it was good anyways. After saying goodbye, we ended the night at new Amity Hall on 109th and Amsterdam (the location used to be another Pourhouse) to watch some football and have a drink. I fell asleep to another episode of John Adams later in the evening.

It poured all day on Sunday. In the brief break we got in between downpours, I ran out to Absolute Bagel to pick up the freshest bagels ever and we made coffee and started to wake up. Multiple cups of coffee later, we made ourselves semi-presentable and took a long walk to Petco to look at adoptable cats. There was a really sweet one named Grace that seemed really calm. Shortly after, we tried another new bar near my apartment, The Hamilton, which used to be ‘The ‘Dam,’ until it closed suddenly and without notice. The bartender was Scottish with a heavy accent and he was really friendly. They’re still trying to find their way into the neighborhood but with their prices and selection of craft beer, I have no doubt they will. Both of our meals were delicious and our bill came out to $29.

After we finished eating, we took out the chess board that we’d ordered (him, rather – it was really him) and played. I’d never played Chess before and I had a lot of trouble remember which pieces could move which directions and how. I felt like a dope, but he showed me how to beat him and I tried not to let my ego get too down on itself.

Back at my apartment, I worked on something for work in my bedroom while more John Adams was watched in the living room. That show, while interesting, bored me to tears. While perusing Netflix after, we found the documentary “The Nightmare,” about 8 people who suffer from sleep paralysis. It freaked me out, for sure, while my dude just laughed.

It was a good Upper West Side weekend. New places, new experiences, and I definitely remembered to enjoy the day.

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Guys, eat more vegetables. Seriously, my diet has been SO CLEAN over the last couple of weeks. Sure, I had a few beers over the weekend but that gets a pass, right? I mean, I went to Cascabel and got a quinoa and kale salad instead of a taco. Major restraint showed there. 

Fruits, veggies, eggs, chicken, brown rice, Ezekiel bread, and peanut butter have been my food staples as of late and I feel awesome. 

Movies, Marshmallows, and Moving

I had planned on going to my first yoga class in three (3!!) weeks on Friday afternoon until I received a notification that there was a fire in the building. Well, damn. Elliptical in my building’s gym it was. 

The rest of Friday night was spent eating a delicious meal at Cascabel and watching Rosemary’s Baby with my dude. He really liked Rosemary’s Baby and I didn’t find it scary at all – just more silly than anything else. I was also admittedly falling asleep through parts of it. I just appreciated that they lived in The Dakota. 

On Saturday we went for a nice run, followed by a long walk back up to my apartment, and brunch at The Ellington. We both had some things to take care of during the day (I cleaned out my closet and reorganized the storage underneath my bed – score!) but we reconvened at night and watched Catching Fire (because he’s a good sport) and made s’mores in the microwave. Seriously, it’s the best snack ever.

Sunday was spent brunching at The Penrose with my friend Ben and then finding this $1,250 rare breed of short haired Persian cat in a pet store on the UES. That cat is huge and it’s only 5 months old. I know you shouldn’t get pets from pet stores, but he was SO cute. Should I put together a GoFundMe to rescue it from the pet shop? We went into the UES Housing Works where I bought a dress for a 1920′s themed seance party that I’m going to later this month and I saw the above dress which looks shockingly like Glinda’s from Wicked. I have no idea how much it is, but if you’re looking for a Halloween costume, you should totally buy it.

I hit up a yoga class on the UES afterwards (never again – the teacher kept the room freezing the entire time which to me is a big no-no), went grocery shopping, and started going through my pictures from Scandinavia. More photos to come, don’t worry….

My weekend in food, in no particular order of awesomeness: 

  • After an ass-kicking vinyasa class, I grabbed brunch with Ben at Harlem Food Bar on 114th and Frederick Douglas. It was awesome. The food was amazing (I had the bacon/blue cheese/apple salad, and Ben had the burger and sweet potato fries), the prices pretty moderate, and the staff was SO nice. Our waiter saw that Ben didn’t have a case on his iPhone and felt compelled to bring over his super-cracked iPhone to show him what might happen if he didn’t get a case. Not pictured are the fried mac’n’cheese balls which were also amazing (just not photogenic). 
  • On Saturday night, I went to Forlini’s, an old school Italian restaurant in Chinatown, for a jovial gathering of Coach’s (aka Matt) friends for his 32nd birthday. I had the chicken parmesan. It was delicious.
  • Today I went going to my best friend and her husband’s apartment in Forest Hills to binge-watch more of season 5 of The Walking Dead. I knew we’d be ordering Chinese food for lunch so I brought dessert from Levain Bakery. I brought two chocolate chip-walnut cookies, one dark chocolate/peanut butter cookie, and a chocolate chip brioche. They were, of course, delicious.
  • The aforementioned Chinese food. When my friends order Chinese food for delivery, they like to order a selection and lots of extra. Fifty dollars later, we had quite the selection of entrees, soups,  and rices. To give you some perspective of how much there was, they included 8 forks in the bag. They thought we ordered enough for 8 people. Yes, we felt fat. (In our defense though, we had LOTS of leftovers.)