Birthday Weekend Eats

For one who generally does not like celebrating birthdays (I mean seriously, what did I do to get born? I really had no choice in the matter...), my impending quarter life mark resulted in a crisis that started well before the month of my actual birthday. To me, and I hear I am not the only one, turning 25 seemed to mean I now officially had to be a "real person." An adult if you will. What that means, I have no idea, but whatever it was/is, it stressed me out to no end. And I worried that I wasn't where I thought I would be...but where was that? I have not a clue. Nevertheless, it caused me much anxiety. 

I almost didn't even do anything to celebrate because I was in such denial, but then the week before, I thought that if I really didn't do anything with anyone, I would come to regret it later in life (ahhh, such insightful forethought on my part!). So that week I made plans for eating and drinking with friends. And as you will see, I did quite a bit of eating...I recently started with a trainer at the gym because I really wasn't making the time for myself and needed that extra push, and when he asked how I ate that weekend, I said..."a lot." To which he responded "well I'm glad you're honest...but...you might want to work on that." So how exactly do I explain to him that I'm fatchowder? haha

Moving on - it started on Friday night with dinner at Yakitori Taisho in St. Marks (I have no photos, so the web link will have to suffice). All the grilled meats on sticks were great, but being such a carb lover, I'd have to say that the Yaki Onigiri (grilled rice balls) with salmon inside were my absolute favorite...even just writing about them now has me craving one. 

The next stop was at Sweet Revenge in LES where I met up with a college friend who's birthday was actually that night, and we always celebrated in school together because our birthdays were so close together and we were the same year (and she actually liked celebrating her birthday).

JENITA

On Saturday, I made plans to go hang out at Perdition and figured whoever had time and wanted to show up could show up - I'd been there before and knew it didn't really get too crowded, so it made it perfect for something casual without the stress of having to make reservations or book tables. 

But let's backtrack to earlier in the day, when we had an actual family meal for the first time in who knows how long...complete with the traditional pigs feet that is eaten for birthdays with noodles for long life. 

mmmm, pigs feet w/ noodles!

Then before heading into the city, I had to stop by Flushing to get my haircut because my bangs were starting to constantly poke me in the eyeballs and I had difficulty keeping them out of my face so that I could see. And a trip to Flushing, means I'm going to eat some delicious Chinese food. My sister and I ended up at the food court in the relatively new New World Mall food court. Between the two of us, we did some damage on a giant bowl of stir fry rice cakes with a mix of meat and veggies that you can pick yourself, mixed in this most awesome hot sauce. 

Before

After

Sunday night dinner, to thank a family friend for helping me get my taxes together (I absolutely despise accounting and doing my taxes), my mom brilliantly suggested that we take her out for dinner at Riviera Grill, which if you couldn't tell from my last post, is now my favorite local "to go" place.

Appetizers Cold Plate

Piping Hot Garlic Bread

Mom's pasta verde

Sister's Parpadelle alla Vodka

My Fettucini Abruzzo

Torta della Nonna

Peach sorbet...back in the peach!

On my actual birthday on Monday, my manager who had wrestled out of me my date of birth, took me out for a nice lunch at Stout before she completely embarrassed me in front of the office. And while we were at lunch, since she told everyone that it was my birthday, and it was the waitress's birthday the day before, I guess they were in a good mood, and we got a most delicious chocolate cake on the house.

Steak Salad

Amazeballs - warm & gooey chocolate cake w/ ice cream

After lunch, at the office, she presented me with a tirimisu cake (also amazing), which I accidentally walked into as they were preparing it, and had the office sing for me, not once, but twice, happy birthday (this was after they already sang at lunch). I actually tried to run out of the room in embarrassment. Then she presented to me Jeremy Lin paraphernalia because her goal is to marry me to him, and a set of nail polish because she knows I am nail obsessed. 

Birthday swag

Playing with new nail polish!

I had class that night, so I kind of had an excuse to not have to do anything, or to not explain to people what I was doing to celebrate. But in a mini-celebration, I bought some sushi from my favorite sushi to go place at LZ Sushi before class to help make the time go by. Seriously, 3 types of rolls (my favorite combo is the spicy tuna combo), 24 pc, plus soup, for $12 - how can you beat that?

Sushi dinner

So I suppose overall, the process of turning 25 wasn't so bad, at least for that weekend. We'll see what it has in store for me the rest of the year. There will most likely be much food involved...I also booked a trip to New Orleans last weekend...FRIED CATFISH HERE I COME!!! :-)

Italy in Glen Cove

It was Saturday night, and I had made plans with 2 of my girlfriends to get dinner at a local restaurant - the Fishery  Grill (formerly Crabby Dan's). I pass by it every morning walking to the train station, but I've really never thought anything of it, even after they remodeled and renamed it. To be frank, I've never really thought much of any of the local restaurants since I've grown up here and always ventured out west to the city for eating.

However, we decided this time to stay local - little did we know, that apparently no one likes to cook on a Saturday night. We stopped by and called a number of restaurants after that to see if and when they could accommodate a party of 3 - everything was packed. So we're driving around time, racking our brains trying to come up with places to go while searching on our Yelp and Alfred apps on our phones [hooray for iPhones!] and yelling out names of restaurants and reading out their menus. At least we had narrowed it down to Italian, so that made it only slightly easier. 

As we're driving, we also keep our eyes peeled (not the driver of course), for anything that looked like it was open with a decent amount, but not too many cars in the parking lots. We seriously had no idea there were that many restaurants in our area! I stumble upon Riviera Grill on Alfred right as we're driving by it. My friend was craving gnocchi, and there was gnocchi on the menu at a price that wouldn't break the bank either. I call them, they said to just stop by. Done Deal. We park. We go in. We're seated. 

The man whom I assume is the owner comes by, and he's like a little Italian grandpa with a constant scowl on his face, and apparently, he asks us if we wanted anything to drink...thankfully Kate understood what he was asking and asked for a wine menu. While sipping on our Pinot Grigio and Chiantis, we look at the menu - everything looks delicious. 

I myself love me some risotto, and while searching the menu online, saw one with champagne and black truffle that looked amazing. But then it wasn't on the menu in the restaurant, so I ask what the "Risotto Del Giorno" was, and the waiter (whom we all wanted to adopt as our grandpa) replied "whatever you want it to be." I think I heard the angels singing as he said that. IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES!!! I was already in love with the waiter as soon as I heard him say "allora,"but this, just made me fall that much more in love with him. In addition to letting you create your own risotto dish, they are very flexible on substitutions on their other dishes. The gnocchi gorgonzola was switched out for gnocchi alfredo, and whatever pappardelle they had on the menu was made into a pappardelle alla vodka with green peas. And my risotto, was mixed in with porcini mushrooms, truffle oil, prosciutto, and green peas (Alex and I really love our green peas and carbs). When I asked him if that was ok, he goes, "Porcini mushrooms + truffle oil, go very well together, porcini mushrooms + truffle oil + prosciutto, beautiful! + peas, eh." But I wanted the green, so the peas stayed.

When the food came out - my word, it was ah-maze-balls. Seriously good. Between the ambiance of the restaurant and the quality of the food, we felt like we had been transported to Italy. I had meant to take pictures of us eating the food as well, but became too distracted by the actual action of eating that I forgot to do so.  I also realized for the first time, that Italian risotto, is very much like Chinese sticky rice *light bulb moment!*

Pappardelle alla Vodka w/ Green Peas & Cherry Tomatoes

Gnocchi Alfredo - aka, little fluffy pillows of cheesy, creamy potato-y goodness

Risottoa alla...me - this picture doesn't even do it justice, and I ended up taking half of it back with me

We were sitting right in front of the dessert table, so it was already decided at the beginning of the meal that we would be ordering dessert - good to know, because it helped us control how much of our actual meal we ate. Kate & Alex both ordered the chocolate mousse, and I got Nonna's (Grandma) Lemon Custard Tart. Before we even finished, the waiters came around with some limoncello and biscotti. He even left the bottle at our table "just in case." I think all in all, they refilled for our three times. And it was delicious every time.

Torta della Nonna

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Alex enjoying her cake

Limoncello

Good friends of 20+ years (which we didn't even realize until the waiter asked us how long we have been friends for)

Shennanigans...Alex "hugging" the fancy car...though it looks more like she is trying to lift it up