San Francisco Recap, Day 1 & 2

by Emily

If you follow me on instagram you’ve already figured this out, but {surprise!} I’ve been in San Francisco for the past week. Adam had the last two weeks of November for vacation again this year so I took the time off as well. We spent week 1 on the West coast and now we are headed off to Ohio for Thanksgiving family time. So far it’s been great!

I have a ton to share from SF – we basically walked and ate all day, every day – so I’m going to try to keep myself from being too wordy, but I’ll still need to split this up into three posts…

We had non-stop flights each way which was awesome. Monday we flew out around noon so we had a little time at home in the morning and then with the time change a full afternoon of vacation. Plus there was free television and movies on the plane which was basically the most exciting thing ever.

Plane food. Coffee, plus a white cheddar and pumpkin butter sandwich and tasty pretzel sticks.

The time flew by and before we knew it we were struggling up super steep hills on our way to dinner.

We had a late reservation so we stopped for bubble tea first. Brown sugar ice milk with egg pudding and grass jelly. Apparently I love egg pudding. And grass jelly.

And we got to keep our cool bottles.

Dinner was Waterbar, a sustainable seafood spot right near the Bay Bridge.

I got a cocktail with Buffalo Trace bourbon, Heering cherry liqueur, Benedictine, and orange zest.

We split a leek and parsnip soup with smoked trout that was very yummy (I had lots of good trout this trip).

And for dinner I did pan-roasted sablefish – caught in Fort Bragg, CA – with globe artichokes, butterball potato, grapefruit, nicoise olives, and chervil.

I adored the artichokes, but sadly didn’t like my fish at all. This was the only meal that I didn’t love on the trip. My food was practically floating in a watery sauce and I hate that. Adam, on the other hand, thought my dish was great and basically licked his plate clean. He enjoyed his ono with uni butter so much that I still definitely consider the meal a win.

And we did have brown sugar brioche bread pudding, with butterscotch pecan ice cream, for a fabulous dessert.

’twas a great first night.

Tuesday morning we headed out for a run in the neighborhood around our hotel. We ended up happening on the Palace of Fine Arts. It was beyond gorgeous.

I am so glad we got to see it.

We had a beautiful morning exploring Fisherman’s Wharf.

Including a stop for a fresh bowl of crab chowder.

We took the ferry for a tour of Alcatraz.

Then we spent the afternoon at the Ferry Building Marketplace.

We loved it there and went back almost every subsequent day. I was crazy jealous of people buying fancy mushrooms.

We shared a greens 2 juice from Pressed.

An iced coffee with milk and sugar from Blue Bottle.

And a Duck Yeah sundae – vanilla ice cream on duck fat pecan pie – from Humphry Slocombe.

I thought the ice cream was great, but not as good as Ample Hills. Adam looooooved it.

We also hit up Slanted Door’s Out the Door for Vietnamese iced coffee and buns.

Chicken bun for me.

We had dinner reservations at SD later in the week and this first taste got us very amped up.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the piers and staring at the sea lions.

Snacks included salt water taffy,

chunks torn off a loaf of sourdough from Boudin,

and a very lackluster drinking chocolate from Ghiradelli.

The chocolate was literally the only dish that didn’t knock our socks off all week, a pretty good track record if you ask me.

We were exhausted from walking around all day so we did Mexican take-out and hotel room cable tv for dinner.

Mushroom nachos for me.

It was a great first two days!!

Wednesday and Thursday coming tomorrow…

17Nov2014

Weekend Top Three

by Emily

{1} I made my Buffalo Chicken Baked Pasta. But I made this version cheesier.

Like, soooo cheesy; I accidentally spilled in most of the bag of cheese when I meant to do an extra sprinkle.

I also added more buffalo wing sauce, a bit more spinach, and swapped in whole-wheat pasta, ranch, and lean ground turkey for chicken breasts.

It was delicious.

{2} We soothed our fiery mouths with pumpkin beers.

All four ended up being fantastic. I wasn’t expecting to love the ales because I tend to prefer stouts and ciders, but they were some of the best pumpkin brews of the season.

{3} I found on-point bubble tea right next to my work.

One of the doctors told me about it and I might have to give her my firstborn. Awesomely chewy boba and tons of flavor options (they even had pumpkin!). Shown above is strawberry rose black tea with tapioca and rainbow jelly.

14Nov2014

Weekly Wrap Up

by Emily

As of this morning, the cold of winter is finally here. Ugh. But I had a good final week of thin hoodies and no gloves. Good eats too! I did a lot of train eating – bars for breakfast, guava cheese empanadas… – but the LIRR was too packed for stealthy photography. Here’s what I did capture…

breakfast {coffee, coffee, coffee}

Never hot, I don’t care if it drops below zero, you can pry my iced coffee out of my cold, dead hands.

Chameleon cold brew with the last of the honey almond milk, which I loved.

Espresso! With milk and sugar.

I tried the chestnut praline latte from Starbucks. I really liked it.

Marshmallow cold brew.

lunch

Turkey, sharp cheddar, and pumpkin butter sandwich on a pumpkin spice English muffin. With an apple and bbq chips.

Plus the last cookie.

Maple raisin oatmeal with a red pear.

And an afternoon treat of Turkish coffee that a coworker brought in.

Dannon Creamery cherry cheesecake (yum, much better than the strawberry!) with chopped strawberries and blueberries. TJ’s kale chips. I passed the kale around the breakroom and my coworkers all said they might buy some themselves.

Dannon Creamery vanilla pudding with strawberries, plus the last of the kale chips and bbq chips. This was the best store-bought pudding I’ve ever tasted. And Adam stole the milk chocolate pudding and loved it.

I tried, and did not love, the new Coke.

dinner

When I got home on Monday, dinner was waiting in the crockpot for me.

Chicken with bbq sauce, smoked brown sugar, and fresh cranberries. I ate mine on a big bed of spinach.

We had salted caramel cheesecake and a yummy pumpkin beer for dessert.

Pizza and salad.

A giant bbq chicken slice from Pinos. The crust on these is amazing, super fluffy and light but still crunchy.

Plus Whole Foods hot bar – garlic broccoli, pickled cucumber, and salad with veggies on top.

We also got hot chocolate that we’d been excited about all week – supposedly it was made with ganache – that ended up being a big cup of hot milk.

You cant win ’em all.

7Nov2014

No Sleep Till Brooklyn; Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

Oh my gosh, Brooklyn is so freaking great! <– I could probably just stop here, that pretty much sums up the salient points of this post

I was a little all over the place this week so I don’t have a ton of pictures to share, but Adam and I did go out to two amazing dinners that I need to rave about. Other than that, I have about 30% of breakfast/lunch/snacks.

The husband worked several overnight shifts this week and I took advantage of my alone time by making the super adult decision to stay up until 3am on a work night catching up on the entire new season of “Criminal Minds.”

source

Here are some snippets of cafeteria breakfasts…

That second thing was some biscuit/pastry Western omelet hybrid. Strange, but not bad.

And of course, there were many {many} coffees.

Yogurt bowl lunches…

KIND Banana Nut Clusters with my blackberries and butterscotch peanut butter with my raspberries.

And snacks at my desk…

I also bought the new peppermint cookie chocolate bites from Starbucks and they were great.

Now on to the good stuff, two amazing, fantastic, fantasmic, socks-rocking dinners in Brooklyn!

#1 Berlyn

This space was gorgeous. I couldn’t get any good shots of the décor (or the food for that matter!) but our table felt like it could be sitting in a clearing in some German forest.

I ordered the Hemingway Daiquiri and it ended up being the best cocktail I’ve ever been served.

The menu listed Caña Brava Rum, Luxardo Maraschino, grapefruit juice, and lime juice, but I swear that I could also taste cinnamon in there. I liked it so much I kept us out late ordering a second round after dinner. Adam’s beer was amazing as well; I don’t remember it’s name but it positively reeked of honey.

We shared a house-made pretzel to start,

which came with the best honey mustard I’ve ever tasted. <– noticing a theme here?? I wouldn’t say that Berlyn is the best restaurant I’ve ever been to but many things on their menu were certainly the best ever in their categories.

Adam ordered pork schnitzel for his entrée so I decided to try two small dishes.

Potato pancakes that came topped with smoked trout and pickled cucumbers.

And fried Brussels sprouts with a pine nut aioli.

Best fried Brussels sprouts we’ve ever had and the aioli was seriously indescribably good. Adam and I both were gasping at how yummy it was.

The dessert course didn’t sound quite as terrific to us so we headed over to Four & Twenty Blackbirds for the best espresso in Brooklyn.

And came home with slices of pie to eat in front of “Brooklyn 99.”

My salted honey slice was legit.

#2 Thistle Hill Tavern <– from the owner of Talde and Pork Slope

I ordered a New Old Fashioned, which was made with Four Roses, Laird’s Applejack, maple bitters, lemon, and brown sugar.

So good, though bourbon is always good.

I started with the Kale Taco Salad. Kale dressed in salsa verde with cheddar, spicy pickled vegetables, and a fried tortilla.

This was the best kale salad I’ve ever eaten (<– I’ll stop now, promise!).

Dinner was the fish and chips with their famous salt and pepper fries.

I don’t know why I keep ordering fish and chips because I never eat much of the fried fish, but this was definitely the best version (sorry!) I’ve ever had.

Adam swooned his way through a slice of maple bourbon pumpkin pie,

but I held out for the best ice cream in the world, Ample Hills.

Good God. “No Sleep till Pumpkin” = coffee ice cream with pumpkin gooey butter cake and underneath was “PB Gets Fluffy” = marshmallow ice cream with chocolate flakes and homemade peanut butter cookie dough. Just fabulous. Neither of us could believe how good the pumpkin coffee flavor was.

What is the best restaurant in your city?

31Oct2014

Best Pizza Ever; Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

Happy Halloween!

Things were busy, busy, busy, busy this week at work. <– if you don’t read that in the voice of the magician from “Frosty the Snowman” then you didn’t have a childhood and you need to go rent the movie immediately!

As I’ve mentioned, my clinic is transferring over to an electronic medical record system at the end of this year. The nutrition department needs a new charting form (built from scratch) to accommodate our specific patient population, but since I am the entire department things have been pretty hectic. Plus we are in the middle of planning a big event and I randomly had a bunch of newly diabetic patients this week.

Additionally, I do some consulting work on the side reviewing nutrition educations and I had a big batch of articles to get through this week. I really enjoy the work – did you know that I did some editing/reviewing for a famous Caribbean author as a child? – but it can be hard to get motivated to get myself back into work mode once I’m home and changed into Adam’s sweatpants at the end of the day. Snacks help.

My meals were all totes amaze this week and/but you will see quite a bit of repetition…