Feeling Cozy at Bosie Tea Parlor

I was wandering around the West Village on a rainy day with my dear friend visiting from out of town, when we decided we could do with a spot of tea. I pulled out my iPhone map app and was delighted to see we were a few steps away from a place called The Pink Teacup. Although it was adorable, they were not actually a place that had much tea, it was a southern food restaurant. Major letdown. So out came the old iPhone yet again and this time it guided us to Bosie Tea Parlour.

What an absolute delight! They had an amazing assortment of teas and we found it very hard to narrow our selection, but we finally settled on a pot of toasted coconut and a pot of almond chocolate. Unfortunately, we were still pretty full from breakfast, so we did not order the full tea service, but I couldn't resist a couple of macarons. In addition to your usual flavors they offered Rose and Peanut Butter & Jelly which caught my eye and stomach's attentions. Delightful!

This place is an amazing find and I can't wait to come back to enjoy their Afternoon Tea. One final note, is that this place is adorable, but not overly frilly and feminine like most tea shops, so you might be able to drag a guy into this place without him grumbling too much.

Sold on Vintry

My friend was visiting from out of town and after a quick back and forth on the Staten Island Ferry, I wanted to bring her over to soak in some of the history and booze available on Stone Street. As we walked down the cobblestones trying to decide on which tavern we should grab a pint at, we noticed a Wine & Whiskey bar called Vintry. A glass of wine struck our fancy so in we went.

We were immediately impressed by the sophisticated polish of the place and knew we had made the right decision. Our bartender was as knowledgeable as he was charming and was able to navigate us quickly to wines that pleased our palettes. We wished we had longer to spend at this delightful place, but alas, had much more of New York to explore!

It's Our Lucky's Day

Seeing Red at Luckys

A while back we bought some coupons on Fab.com for Lucky's Famous Burgers value meals for $.50 each. That's right- two value meals with a normal value of $20 for $1! Now that's what I call a deal! We finally cashed these in at the Chelsea location and got Turkey and Veggie burger meals with fries and soda this afternoon on our way out to run errands.

We enjoyed our meal and it was a great alternative to your typical fast food chain options, but I don't see us returning unless we get another great coupon deal. There are just way too many burger options to explore in this city for the next time we get struck by a burger craving.

New Taste of the Upper West Side

A classy event

We've become oddly obsessed with Man v Food recently (we watch with a mixture of jealousy and disgust), so were excited to see that Adam Richman would be in his home state to kick off the New Taste of the Upper West Side Comfort Classics event.

When we arrived we were given wrist bands and then a wine glass on a necklace. Any event where you where wine around your neck, seems pretty promising. Unfortunately, we arrived at 7:30pm so we missed our celebrity sighting, but the disappointment didn't last long as we soaked in the above sight. A beautiful tent with a live band filled with comfort food tastings done by famous NYC chefs with lots of booze booths to boot? I felt like a kid in a candy store, and yes, Dylan's Candy Bar was in fact present and had banana cotton candy!

After we stuffed ourselves silly with sliders, cookies, and all other goodies we were ready to head home incredibly satisfied. On our way out we received goody bags! Talk about icing on the proverbial cake! I hope this was a successful benefit for them financially and that other neighborhoods (such as our beloved Chelsea) and charities take a cue from this fantastic event.

Foodie Schwag!

Steamy Russian Samovar

Russian Beer 

Last fall, our Russian friend took us out for a traditional Russian dinner at Russian Samovar. No blog entry appeared, because, well...things got a bit out of hand with all the vodka and beer. This time, we swore not to repeat history. We went back and forth on whether we should order beer this time, but as you can see, beer won out.

Mushrooms & Potatoes, Olivier Salad, and Bliny

Last time we tried the herring and meat platters, but weren't won over, so this time we ordered our favorites. Foreground Right: Olivier Salad is basically the Russian version of potato salad and is therefore delicious. Background: Bliny is a mixture of salmon, capers, crumbled egg yolk, diced red onion, minced egg white, and caviar rolled into a crepe. Soooo good. Foreground Left: some good old fashioned fried potatoes and mushrooms.

Beef & Cabbage Pirozhoks

This time we tried the pirozhoks which are beef or cabbage mixtures in a puff pastry. As stated before on this site, I don't believe I've had anything wrapped in puff pastry that I didn't like.

Dancing

We let our appetizers settle as we danced and enjoyed the live music. I love the feel of the place with it's flowery tablecloths and fringed lamps. It's one of those rare places that makes you miss smoking in restaurants, since it would really fit with the ambience. When The Mr invited me out to dance with something to the effect of 'Come on, let's go' our new waiter friend intervened to show him how to "properly" ask a lady to dance. This was a hilariously welcome intervention at this point, as we had been building up a rapport with him over the course of the evening. It worked like a charm!

Chicken Kiev & Braised Rabbit

After a while we had worked up an appetite for our main course and out came our Chicken Kiev and Braised Rabbit. The quality continued in their entrees.

We had a fair share of vodka

But how can we forget the vodkas! So many amazing infused flavors to try: Garlic, Apple Cinnamon, Coriander, Cherry, Ginger, Chocolate, and Red Pepper...just to name a few. This time, according to our Russian friend, we did things right by drinking our vodka with fatty foods over the course of time and didn't get into trouble.

Honey Cake, Raspberry Napoleon, and Special Tea

Since we were in much better shape than last time, we stuck around for dessert and were so glad we did! The Russian Tea is served with lemon and cherry preserves that you put in to sweeten. The Honey Cake was very good, but the Raspberry Napoleon completely stole the show!