Al Fresco

by Emily

What a wonderful weekend we just had! I worked (super long, busy days) Friday, Saturday, Sunday but Adam was off in the evenings too so we made sure to aggressively enjoy ourselves. Tons of NYC restaurants are doing safely distanced / non-exploitative outdoor dining now and we took full advantage.

Highlights include…

Homemade frozen pain-killers, enjoyed on a long walk with Webster. Coconut milk, orange juice, frozen pineapple, nutmeg, and dark rum.

S’mores ice cream sandwich. This was very graham/cinnamon forward.

A birthday cake stuffed cookie from Gooey on the inside.

Drinks and dessert at Freeman’s Alley. Bananas foster with a spicy margarita and a jammy vodka cocktail with elderflower and raspberry.

Dinner at Wayla, aka our new favorite Thai spot. They have Thai iced tea with oat milk.

We had a couple good cocktails, including this Hanabi Milk Punch which was my favorite drink I’ve ever been served. Naked Turtle Rum, Blackwell Rum, strawberry, star anise, cloves, genmaicha, and Singha soda.

Lump crab fried rice

Tua Pad Prik Khing – wok-fried long beans, crispy tofu, and galangal chili paste.

Dinner at Glasserie. I had a hibiscus margarita. Also a Hemingway daiquiri that knocked my socks off.

We shared a bunch of plates, each one better than the last. Olives and pickled peppers // labne, honey, and griddled bread.

Roasted lamb with potato and grilled scallions.

Tzatziki with trout roe and potato husks. <– my favorite dish of the weekend

17Aug2020

Woop, There It Is

by Emily

Highlights from this weekend include – tons of coffee, tons of beer, tons of togetherness. Webster spent all of Saturday kicking it in Brooklyn with us, which was amazing.

Either Adam or I work the next several weekends so we tried to really maximize our fun date time!

Highlights…

We did a decadent car brunch picnic with take-out from Soul Brew in Huntington. Woop, There It Is weekend special – chocolate pancakes with marshmallow cream.

Scrambled egg burrito with potato, spinach, and smoked gouda.

Chocolate peanut butter cup iced latte.

Brooklyn Kolache Co is one of our favorite breakfast spots.

I had pimento cheese and we split a chocolate peanut butter. Plus an ube iced latte!

Lavender toasted marshmallow iced latte from Pipeline Coffee.

Frozen cortado from Better Read Then Dead. <– the best thing I ate all weekend/month/year

We were 10/10 excited to buy/try this Gushers yogurt but it was, unsurprisingly, not all that good to eat.

Evil Twin Brewing is currently our favorite spot in the city/on earth. Everything is inventive and delicious and they offer smaller tasting cups so you can try a lot of things. Blackberry peach milkshake IPA // key lime pie milkshake IPA // gose brewed with soursop(!!) and sea salt.

Triple dry hopped IPA // Triple IPA with marshmallow // a Saturn frozen cocktail – Dorthy Parker Gin, L’Orgeat, Velvet Falernum, passionfruit, Rockey’s Milk Punch, citrus, and edible glitter!

Highly recommend this chicken, corn, and rice frozen meal, particularly topped with chili oil.

(Distanced, outdoors) dinner at a Thai restaurant in Red Hook. I had spicy duck salad.

And a green papaya salad with salted eggs.

Happy Monday!

3Aug2020

Lemon Meringue Pie

by Emily

I worked (long days!) Friday, Saturday, Sunday but we still had a fun weekend with amazing date nights! Five favorites were – –

Mekelburg’s rose black halva latte – an oat milk iced iced latte with rose halvah syrup, topped with rose petals and sesame seeds.

Westbrook Brewings‘ lemon meringue pie gose might be even better than their key lime pie gose!

Friday night we cuddled on the couch with nachos and ice cream and (re)watched “Love and Basketball” and it was kind of the best. Chipotle nacho hack – order chips and a rice bowl without rice (this one had chicken, fajita veggies, corn salsa, and cheese (and guacamole on the side!)) and bake.

We got three -epic – sandwiches from Mekelburg’s and had a picnic down by the water near Domino Park. Waygu roast beef for Adam / a bahn mi with Peking duck, duck rillettes, and sambal hoisin mayo for me / a Mekelburger with dry-aged beef, American cheese, grilled onions, fried onions, and tarragon mustard on Hawaiian bun to share.

Chinese take-out to finish the weekend. I got chili oil tofu with cabbage, celery and white rice.

27Jul2020

Sprinkles And Sushi

by Emily

We were easing ourselves back to work so we kept my birthday weekend pretty low-key. Adam and I made super exciting, sprinkle-packed coffees and walked around Cold Spring Harbor admiring the flowers in the morning and then got sushi take-out for dinner and I video-chatted with my parents while opening presents. And the next night we met up with friends for drinks/dinner/a long walk around Park Slope. It was perfect!

Highlights include…

Birthday dalgona coffee.

Quad iced latte from Balancero.

Fredo cappuccino (espresso blended with ice and topped with frothed milk) from The Grand. <– my new favorite coffee

Lox and cream cheese biscuit from Comfortland.

An epic yogurt bowl – – plain Greek yogurt with cashew butter, plum, plucot, apricot, and Bueno Bar.

I left key lime pie off of my list of favorite foods the other day, but it’s definitely in the top fifteen! Westbrook’s Key Lime Pie Gose is fantastic. I also made a wonderful key lime pie cocktail with lime juice, vodka, sweetened condensed milk, and key lime seltzer.

Birthday sushi. I got seaweed salad, a roll with egg and pickled vegetables, and a roll with king crab, crunch, avocado, and spicy mayo.

Chuko Ramen. I got the kimchi ramen with soy eggs. It was so great to see friends for the first time in months… we were sitting outside and only took our masks off to eat and we all felt pretty safe about it.

Cross your fingers for me that it’s an easy transition back to work, please!

24Jul2020

Birthday Week

by Emily

Today is my birthday! Woo-hoo to getting another year older!!

We were supposed to be home in St. Thomas to celebrate so Adam and I have actually been on ~~vacation~~ staycation this week. A tropical island is obviously always the preferred option but social-distancing fun in the best city isn’t a bad second choice. We’ve taken several long walks, had lots of cuddling time with Webster, and watched a ton of Seinfeld and The Office. Plus we’ve eaten so many good things! If I was going to name ten of my top favorite foods I’d say Diet Cherry Coke Zero, vodka, espresso, sweetened condensed milk, soursop, nachos, cheeseburgers, ice cream, roasted green beans, and Pad See Ew and I’ve eaten all but three of those things in the past week.

Highlights include…

A ton of yummy things from Win Son Bakery. The standouts were the mochi doughnut and the Fan Tuan (rice roll) with egg and Chinese cruller.

A fancy picnic (from Ellen’s) in our car at the end of the North Fork.

We had a lobster roll and duck fried rice.

Plus a local passionfruit IPA.

Soursop ice creams. I’ve been wanting to go to Taste of the Tropics for a decade and their soursop ice cream did not disappoint.

I actually preferred Island Pops though. Soursop + nutmeg.

IPAs at Greenpoint Harbor Brewing.

Tamarind + mango + tequila = our new all-time favorite homemade cocktail.

East Wind Snack Shop makes our favorite dumplings in the city. Dry-aged beef potstickers // Shanghai vegetable steamed dumplings with ginger scallion sauce // veggie noodles.

Happy birthday to me! 🙂

20Jul2020

A Few Of My Favorite Things

by Emily

We had quite a lovely time this past weekend; several long walks, lots of dog cuddles, and I had at least six of my favorite foods. Five highlights include…

{1} The new cold brew can from Partners Coffee.

{2} A coffee date at Rose Wolf. We had a quad iced latte with skin milk (<– #1 favorite thing) and a whipped coffee with oat milk and vanilla.

{3} The ET Stay Home series from Evil Twin is our new all-time favorite in beer. We were over the moon for #8 (a sour ale brewed with pineapple, guava, hot chili peppers, and conditioned on marshmallows) and #9 (a sour ale brewed with brown sugar, apples, apricots, almonds, and milk sugar).

{4} Halo Halo from Pig and Khao. Shaved ice with leche flan, ube ice cream, and macapuno.

{5} My favorite thing I’ve eaten all year = the dumpling collaboration from Pizza Loves Emily and Mimi Chengs. Pat LaFrieda dry-aged beef, Grafton aged cheddar, crushed pretzels, caramelized onions, and Emmy Sauce.

17Jul2020

Soursop And Szechuan Peppers

by Emily

Today is my 1st day back in at the hospital after a day off and a two-day stint of project days at home. I had to recertify in ServSafe and I had a big task to work on (updating the Nutrition Department’s Clinical Practice Guidelines to be more current/evidence-based) so my boss let me work from home, which was lovely. I got to leisurely brew Phin coffee and sip while I worked! Plus I ate a million snacks. <– Normally I sit in the ICUs and wear an N-95 for most of the day so I took full advantage of having a free face!

Highlights included…

The company that makes the instant espresso we love for Dalgona coffees also makes a really good espresso roast.

Plain Greek yogurt bowl with blackberries, peach, cashew butter, and a chopped up Bueno Bar. <– I realize it is ridiculous to stir a candy bar into your lunch but this was breath-takingly good and I’m glad I did it!

Vanilla skyr yogurt bowl with blackberries, black plum, cashew butter, coconut chips, and starry sprinkles.

Adam and I had to go into Manhattan for a doctor’s appointment so we stopped by Bibble and Sip for a cream puff. A cream puff topped with crème brûlée and filled with milk tea cream and boba!

I snacked on nuts every day this week. These sweet Thai chili almonds were a favorite.

Still obsessed with Hal’s caffeinated cola seltzer.

Adam and are both head over heels for these dinner mints. We made it through 12 years of marriage before we realized we are both fans of these guys!

This soursop ice cream was possibly the very best packaged ice cream I’ve ever tasted.

I topped this cheese enchilada meal with more cheese, sour cream, and Crystal hot sauce and it was 10/10. P.S. I highly recommend Amy’s frozen meal options, this one is good even if you aren’t over the top about it.

There’s a newish poke place in our neighborhood that lets you add a thousand toppings. This was white rice with crabcake, tofu, eel sauce, spicy mayo, cucumber, shiitakes, shredded carrot, string bean, green onion, tamago (shredded egg omelet), oshinko (pickled veggies), inari (tofu skin), garlic crisps, and lotus chips.

Blistered green beans – sauteed with garlic, ginger, and chili oil – with Trader Joe’s mini chicken and cilantro wontons.

Have a great – safe, distanced – weekend!

29Jun2020

Sweet Polly, Sweetie Pies

by Emily

Adam was on vacation this weekend and since we couldn’t travel anywhere we did all of the fun, social-distancing things in New York! Highlights include…

Breakfast from Sweetie Pies on Main in Cold Springs Harbor. We got a cookies and cream scone

and a quad, non-fat, iced latte with toasted marshmallow syrup

and ate while walking around and admiring the water.

Lunch from Lunch Lobster Roll in Montauk. We got lobster rolls for take-out and ate near the beach. They gave us so much lobster!

Drinks from Sweet Polly in Park Slope. The fact that social distancing rules have pretty much killed open container laws in NYC is a giant silver lining. This pina colada was perfect for enjoying on a long stroll.