This was one of my best birthdays in recent memory! We spent a long weekend in Hudson, filled with an excessive amount of handholding, pastries, and cocktails! Some highlights of our favorites …

Hudson Roastery butter pean iced cortado (with an extra shot, this is the best ratio for us here).

Treats at Kitty’s. This cruller was actually only ok, but I had a puffed rice krispy treat with tons of marshmallows.

Treats from Mel the Bakery, all 10/10. Jalapeno cheddar pretzel croissant / blueberry jam and corn cookie sandwich / almond chocolate croissant.

Supernatural Coffee‘s blueberry jam oat bar tasted as good as it looks.

Huckleberry lemonade (this was the best premade lemonade I’ve ever had).

Hudson Brewing Company pink guava sour IPA.

Pez Husker Du – white and Oaxacan rums, Flor de Azul, blue corn, and lime. The incredibly nice bartender gave us a taste of the house-made blue corn syrup and it was amazing.

Hereafter Marigold Weather including gin, lemon verbena tea, meyer lemon, orgeat, and honey.

Breakfast at Cafe Mutton. This restaurant is so special. We shared a perfect meal. Delicious house-made celery soda.

Zucchini, corn, and onion omelet with goat gouda. With toast buttered to near insanity. I asked for hot sauce and they brought out a house-made sungold tomato situation that was one of the best sauces we’ve ever tasted.

Lettuces salad with sungolds, cucumber, corn, scallions, herb dressing, pecorino, and breadcrumbs.

Milk-soaked almond cake with honey and blueberries.

Breakfast at Gracie’s Luncheonette. Chicken biscuit with honey butter and hot sauce and a great hashbrown. This was some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten.

Dinner at Gracie’s Luncheonette (yes, we went twice, it’s that good!). I got the white bbq half chicken – broiled half chicken with Alabama white BBQ (also some of the best chicken I’ve ever eaten; we loved the sauce and rub too), slaw, a biscuit (excellent), and mac and cheese (weak; meanwhile Adam’s fries were swoonworthy). Sadly, we enjoyed neither our iced coffee nor our iced coffee cocktail.

Dinner at Lil Deb’s Oasis. Their upcoming closure is giant loss. I’m showing my three favorite things but we ordered a lot and it was all great. Charred snap peas with tahini sauce / tomatoes and cucumbers with fennel, perilla, roasted peach jam, and sesame chili crisp. <– these were both stunningly good

Burmese crispy tofu lettuce wraps with spicy ginger mustard.

Dessert was my favorite course. We had flan, a surprisingly good dessert cocktail (with vodka, brown butter, dates, orgeat, and nutmeg), and the best – boozy – affogato I’ve ever had (with sweet cream ice cream, grilled pineapple, and coffee caramel tequila). I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the pineapple but it actually made the dish.