Up to Beantown: Part Two

More Boston love! Stephanie took me to one of her favorite places for brunch on Saturday morning, Zaftigs

We got there early but apparently not early enough since everyone else and their mom had the idea to go there that morning. Even though there were a some people waiting outside, we got a table right away complete with a waitress who lacked personality. I got the San Francisco Joe’s Special-turkey hash with spinach, mushrooms, onions with a side of home fries, toast and watermelon. It was way too much food and way better than any kind of eggs I can ever make.

However,  once I saw Stephanie’s french toast, I came down with a little case of food envy.

Gah, I die.

The best part of the meal was listening to the table next to us. It was one skeevy guy in his mid twenties and two college aged girls. He reminded me of a third rate, unattractive Jason Siegel with two or three unbuttons undone on his button up shirt. Homeboy wouldn’t shut up. He started to talk about how Harry Potter, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are all one in the same and that is when Stephanie and I shut up and just listened. Then he decided to be generous and pick up the entire tab (perhaps because he wouldn’t shut his pie hole the entire meal?) then when the girls were all “Noooooo, you can’t do that!” he said “If I can’t take my girls out for a meal, what good am I?” or something about that effect. Blah. Sometimes I don’t mind tables closetogetherlikethis in a restaurant, other times when I have to listen to random, weird conversations, not so much.

We went walking around later and the dilemma of what to wear came up. I hate pants in the summer time but can deal with capris. I was feeling more like wearing a casual dress around but that meant I would wear flip flops. There was nothing more I wanted to do than wear sneakers since we would be walking around a great deal but that was out of the question. I wish I could make sneakers work with a dress but there is no way to make it look good

(source)

Go on with your bad self Sarah!

We started off around Quincy Markey and near the Government Center

Somehow we ended up in the middle of an African festival.

Then we ran into some street performers who were just about to get started so we found a place somewhat in the shade and watched them.

Then started dancing, breakdancing and doing flips then they started grabbing people from the crowd to take part in a special exhibition. Of course, they grabbed yours truly. At first they lined me and threes others up one in front of the other and explained that they were going to flip over us. Oh joy. The last thing I need is a man flipping over me, especially when I am without health insurance. Then they had us bend over. Um, I was in a dress so the last thing I wanted to do was bend over in front of a bunch of people since as one of the performers said I was “juicy” to another performer. Gross, I still take offense to that comment. They had the decency to cover the girls up though so we didn’t look like a 2 Live Crew video. So we were just waiting there and I guess the guy flipped over us. We were just bending over waiting, my knee was killing me and I just wanted to get up into normal pose again. Stephanie was awesome and took some pictures of it though so you can see what I’m talking about

And I walk away unharmed-score!

We went into the madness that is Quincy Market afterwards. This is a total tourist spot complete with shops, carts, performers and restaurants but it was fun to see since I am a tourist and all.

We perused the carts and shops

Amen

Made our way over to Boston Common and that’s just about the time my camera died so please enjoy a few last pictures before we got there

Walked through the gardens and saw the swan boats.

Made our way over to Newbury

Saw all the shops there  including pretentious ones like Chanel, Gucci and others that I will never ever be able to afford. There were some cute, independent ones as well.

Too bad we didn’t have time to stop in these coffee shop, I adore the name.

Stopped at Stephanie’s on Newbury, it was that weird of time where you don’t want a meal but you need a little something in you to keep going. And our feet hurt. And we were sweaty and were in desperate need of a cold one.

Then heaven was placed right in front of us-Warm Vermont Goat Cheese appetizer.

This picture does this no justice whatsoever. When they brought it to us, the cheese and oil were bubbling right in front of our very eyes. I just kept staring at it since I’ve never seen goat cheese bubble like that before. We tried to tear the bread but it was piping hot and burnt our fingers when we tried to. But we powered on and tore away anyways since we didn’t want to miss the wonderfulness that is warm goat cheese.

So please check out Stephanie’s photo. Stephanie-Cookie Battle, not Stephanie of Stephanie’s on Newbury. Hmm, that was a tad confusing.

Reason #62 why I want a DSLR

After the walking fest we rested our feet and then  went to Margaritas for dinner for some much needed Mexican food. Ok, much needed margaritas with a side of Mexican food.

I was very excited to have my margarita (thanks Steph for the pic)

It was absolutely gorgeous out and right on the Charles River. I wish I would have got a picture of the patio because it was spacious and quite busy for a Saturday night. I wondered if there was going to be anything cheesy like a mariachi band that comes around to each table but she said there was nothing alike that there. Phew. I could have gone for tacos, nachos or fajitas but my body was in desperate need of veggies since there was a lack of greens and other fresh stuff that day and day prior. I got the Chicken Baja Salad which was adorned with a heaping portion of veggies and I swear my body felt better once the veggies were consumed.

And to go off on a short tangent……

Look who Matilda got to meet while in Boston?

Matilda and Cecil got along very well. They reminisced about the days of Eisenhower and when you could get a quality cup of coffee for $.10.

Sunday was another long, fun day around Boston. And visiting a city means one thing–blogger meetup!

The Other Side was very  *ahem* interesting. By interesting, I mean hipster. Our server had jorts on while another man sported a fedora and other people just had a sense of irony about them as hipsters do. The whole seating arrangement still vonfuses me since the host said there couldn’t be more than 49 people in the building at once so he could have sat us partially before everyone arrived but then if more people arrived after that and our guests hadn’t, they would have to wait for someone to leave. We told him how many people were in our party and he couldn’t grasp the fact that we had five people in our party, not five. I guess he wasn’t a genius at math like in Good Will Hunting, maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part that I would run into some closet prodigy.  Leave it to me to order a meaty dish at the mostly vegetarian/vegan restaurant.  I don’t care, the Ham Solo was worth every single bite!

 

Ashleigh, Stephanie, Caitie

Me and Erin

Matilda even made a guest appearance!

Group Shot!

Ashleigh, Erin, Caitie, me, Stephanie

 Another successful blogger meetup! It was wonderful to meet these ladies and put faces/names to the blogs, take part in some good conversation, enjoy good food and drink and escape the heat for the day. I love how real the Boston girls are and they were just all around fun!

 

My body is NOT a wonderland

John Mayer can go suck it. After the food and booze fest for the past four days, my body feels like anything but a wonderland.

I love coming into town and seeing friends but unfortunately it entails going out for food and drinks. Now I love food and drinks but the past four days have done me in. I am at the point if I hear the word beer I start to feel nauseous and gag a bit. There has been no mention of vegetables or fruit and water has only been drunk in between beers. I’ve been in fried fatty food heaven and it hasn’t been worth the way I’m feeling right about now.  I even went to Ross to buy a few flowy dresses since I feel like a heffer in pants plus who wants to wear pants when it’s 90 + degrees out? I feel bloated, tired, cranky and moody as all hell and I need to have my body feeling like the semi-wonderland it once was as opposed to the garbage disposal of crap it’s been recently.

Even Lincoln is eating worse than normal. He has been getting his Polish ham on like no other dog in town.

And what the hell is up with me having more of a social life in South Florida than in Charlotte? Something is wrong with that! And let’s not even start about how I’ve met more guys in the past week than I have in the past few months in Charlotte. I can’t wait to move out of that city.

Blogger meet ups rock my world and  I met up with Natalie from Will Jog For Food. I’m so stoked she wanted to meet up! I love her blog because not only does she posts recipes, travel adventures and workouts, she has reviews of restaurants in the South Florida area. Perfect for me since I’m originally from here and want to find new places to check out while I visit the parentals. She recently posted a review of Brother Tuckers in Pompano Beach and I thought it looked like a fun place so we met up for dinner on Thursday night.

I like their menu because they didn’t have a lot of variety, which is perfect for someone like me who flip flops on what to order (she saw this first hand when I kept reaching for a menu, deciding on something different every few minutes) I finally settled on the tuna burger with a side of pasta salad.

Absolutely delicious! This place was unique, it’s a pub but it is a complete hole in the wall. I’ve been to many hole in the wall places before but this one was for real since you can either walk in from the front entrance on the street or through the back entrance. The back entrance is funky since you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the dining room. When she told me this, I thought that was a little odd but it was cool seeing the staff at work and how they cook everything. Plus it’s right there in the open with people walking through so it has to be clean right?

Natalie and I

It was so great to meet her and now know one more person in South Florida!

Its been so hot here the past week, fro yo has been on my mind constantly (and 7-11 slurpees since we don’t have 7-11 in Charlotte. Add yet another reason to the list of why I can’t wait to move) I found a fro yo place a few minutes away from my parents—16 Handles.

I tend to go with fruity, tart fro yo however, I saw something I couldn’t pass up

RED VELVET FRO YO (yes, totally deserves all caps)

I’ve been reading about red velvet fro yo for the past year and was a little sad I’ve never tried it.  This was the perfect opportunity to try it out, topped with some coconut and almonds.

Gripe-I hate when people complain about the prices at self serve fro yo places. Why don’t they just practice some self control instead of filling their entire container? I got this portion for $2 and some change and it hit the spot. Moderation, people, moderation.

Half priced frapps having been helping me either. I took a chance on once I’ve never tried-Toffee Nut frapp and it was absolutely disgusting. I will be sticking with Coconut Mocha or Caramel Light in the future.

As for getting back on track? I can’t wait for some veggies like these to make an appearance again in my life. It’s been way too long since we’ve shared some quality time.

Hope everyone had a fun weekend—tell me something exciting about me!

Anyone else sad about it being the last day of half priced fraps? I am at Starbucks enjoying my last one—coconut crème-yummay!

South Side Shenanigans

I spent a good deal in South Side Pittsburgh on Friday and Saturday. On Friday night, we went to the Hofbrauhaus.

 I’ve never been to a German restaurant before so I was looking forward to both the beer and the grub. When you walk in there is a main dining hall that has long tables set up in the middle, booths along the sides, an outdoor patio and stage in the front for the house band.

We started off with the soft pretzels with homemade  bier cheese.

I was a bit full from the appetizers and beer so I got the potato pancakes for dinner since I wanted something more in my tummy to soak up more beer for the evening.

I wasn’t sure how to eat these, do you put both the apple sauce and sour cream on them or just one? I had no idea so I just double downed and went with both. And you know what? I now love potato pancakes! I need to make them sometime at home.

The cool thing about this place is once the band starts playing, people get up and stand up on the chairs and sing, dance and drink along!

It was so much fun watching everyone and singing along to the songs. Any establishment that plays Neil Diamond is a wonderful one in my book. Plus it was total sausage fest, men everywhere, mama like. The Penguins game was also playing and the whole place went wild when they scored a goal. And I mean wild, I’ve never seen anything like it before since Charlotte is very transient and there isn’t a lot of team loyalty. At first I wasn’t sure why everyone was going crazy but then looked overhead to see the game and I thought it was awesome that a sport could bring people together like that.

Then enter the creepers.

We were getting ready to leave and the men at the table next to us offered to buy us a drink. We all pondered the idea for a minute since on one hand they were older men who we would have to then talk to but on the other hand, free beer! So yeah, we stayed. One of the older men took a liking to me and kept rubbing on me with his booty. I kept yelling out “No butt rubs!” then I started yelling out “No dancing, no babies” since apparently I thought our dancing would soon lead to Lambada, which  in turn with me getting impregnated.

 

Then I started crying because I was laughing so hard. I think I was crying for real though because dude would not leave me alone. He put his hands on my shoulders from behind then stroked my hair *shivers* Oh, have I mentioned he was old? Yes. Oh, have I mentioned he had a wedding ring on? Gross.

On Saturday, we heade back to South Side for  a Pittsburgh blogger meet up. You know I’m not going to visit a city without meeting some local bloggers and I was stoked to meet Whitney and Natalie! We went to Fat Heads in the South Side along Carson Street.

Me & Natalie

Whitney & my friend

I ordered the Mo Betta Beef & Chedda with potato chips on the side.

So Whitney warned me that the sandwiches were the size of your head and she wasn’t kidding! Enter Tiffany vs. Food

 And I failed because I could only finish half of the sandwich but took the rest home with me!

Natalie, me & Whitney

We were all near food coma after that and headed to the Beehive to get some java goodness.

OMG can I say how happy this place made my inner hippie? All the funky, eclectic decor was just what I needed to see tucked away in Pittsburgh, I loved this place! I ordered a large skim latte and they serve it to you in large mugs (probably bought from a thrift store, which made me love it even more)

I had such a fun time in the South Side, it was my favorite area of Pittsburgh! We really don’t have any areas in Charlotte where you can walk to restaurants, bars and shops on end so this was a pleasant 180 from Charlotte. There was a mix of people from young to old and no one looked the same like how they do in Charlotte.

South Side Pittsburgh-you had me at hello.

Any good creeper stories out there??

Big Apple Birthday Weekend

Hello everyone! Hope everyone is doing super fabulous! I got back from NYC today and am trying to catch up on everything. Thankfully I cleaned my place before leaving so that is one less thing to worry about.

I got into JFK around 3P on Saturday bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and Mari was there to pick me up. She was gracious to host me for the weekend and I owe her a big thank you! It was cold but nothing unbearable but I was safe with packing layers and layers among clothes plus winter accessories. I just had a big purse and a carry on with me which is 99% of the time unheard of with me since I like to have options. But with it being winter and all, I took a couple of sweaters, one pair of sneakers and pair of boots.

(source)

The first place we went to was 5 Burros in Queens. I’ve been reading about this place on the blogs since the beginning of this year and it was one of the places I insisted on going to during my visit.

 I ordered a mango margarita and was hoping that I would get some cute, crawly, critter on my drink like I’ve seen in pictures.

The margarita was everything I hoped for and more. When I took the first sip, it was all tequila. That’s a good thing. When I pay for a drink at a restaurant, I want to taste the liquor. We were going out for drinks afterwards so I didn’t want to order anything too heavy but needed enough food in my tummy to get my drink on so I went with the grilled shrimp salad

Absolutely delicious. The only thing I could suggest was them taking the tails off. I hate when I forget to cut one off and spit spit goes the tail.

Me and Monique (Mo)

After that, we went to the bar to get some liquid goodies. Mari’s man was DJing that night and we found a table right near him. He was awesome! He played such a good mix of songs from current stuff (which I had to keep asking everyone at the table who sang it) to stuff from college, which made me super happy and giddy.

Mari brought her Crystal Light to mix with a shot of vodka and water. I absolutely love this idea and it’s a great alternative to calorie heavy, sugary drinks!

(source)

Mari, Missy, Monique and Me. Yay for blogger meetups!

Monique keeping dry at the bus stop.

The next morning I met up with Mo to take on the city!

First stop-Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery. Just typing that name out makes me smile. It’s becoming habit that anytime I visit a new place, I have to visit a cupcake place in the area. This can either be a really good or really bad thing. Probably really bad but I like to think really good.

I got an iced coffee (which didn’t even need Splenda added to it–unheard of!) and I got the Kissable Cupcake-peppermint chocolate with a buttercream frosting since mint + chocolate is my favorite combination out there. I saved it for a later time though since we had an agenda.

We split a Sexy Red Velvet Cupcake

Hello lover.

And we split a Chocolate Pudding. Mo was raving about their pudding and while I would never order pudding anywhere, it was delightful.

Not only was it chocolate pudding but it also had pieces of chocolate cake and frosting too. It was a chocolate party in my mouth. I may have moaned during a few bites because it was damn tasty. Too bad we couldn’t finish the whole thing. We let the sugar soak into our system and then went to…..

 

 

Well, you will have to stay tuned. This girl is super tired!