Category: Restaurants

There’s a wall at Ample Hills Creamery where you can leave recommendations of your ice cream flavor idea. This was the best by far. I die every time I read the “cheerio” part.

Photo credit: Ryan, whom discovered and possibly abandoned instagram in the same weekend. We view social media networks very differently, to say the least.

My anniversary came at a good time this year, landing on the day my deliverables were due for the quarter, which means that despite rushing in to work Sunday night to finish a couple of odds and ends, I finally had some time off this weekend. So we kicked off our celebration a couple days early by heading out of town on Friday in order to go to…. Brooklyn. I know, I know… I got a lot of eyebrow raises when I told my friends as well, but honestly it was a place I always wanted to spend more time in, but just seemed too far away to make an effort.

So Friday night started off with a check in at Nu Hotel, the most awesome place in that it came with a room service list with more mixed drinks than food, a free continental breakfast, chalk board wall in the bathroom, AND a hammock! The only downside… it was located across from the Brooklyn detention center. Say WHAT?! At least with all the cops swarming around, you felt protected.

That hammock was dangerous! I sat in it while waiting for Ryan for 5 minutes. I woke up 2 hours later.

Saturday started out with a stroll through the brooklyn heights promenade with gorgeous views of Manhattan. This picture doesn’t show it but there was free kayaking going on below – although free meant huge line!

Next up was a brunch (okay they really open for lunch but we made it our breakfast) at new eatery Brooklyn Crab in Red Hook. AND we got there by taking the bus. This is not a huge feat for most but I hate the bus. I grimace and complain at the big cities that don’t have subway (or above ground) transportation systems (I’m looking at you LA) but I hate taking the bus. Mostly because I never know when I’m supposed to get off or where I should go to catch one. It’s all very confusing to me. I got off at the wrong stop in San Francisco several times which resulted in many glorious calorie burning moments as I climbed up all their hills. But, clean signage, clean (and wonderfully air-conditioned) busses AND the google maps app on my phone (this might have been my first bus ride since owning a smart phone) and I was hooked. I was actually super disappointed to find out I would have to take a subway ride back to Manhattan the next day instead of hopping on a bus.

As for Brooklyn Crab, it’s a super cute new place that opened across from the Red Hook Fairway and don’t just serve up food but mini golf and corn holes as well.

The big sell of the day seemed to be their King Crab legs but they also had Maryland blue crabs. We were a little to lazy to do all that work and ended up with crab and oyster sandwiches. But it was all delicious.

Needing to walk off our gorgefest we headed up a little ways to the Valentino Jr Park. I had googled “romantic things to do in Brooklyn” and one thing that popped up was this park due to its small grassy area, pier for fishing off of, and views of the front of the Statue of Liberty. It was so cute and the end of the pier there was indeed several fishermen catching their dinner for the night.

For our own dinner we headed off to a cute little french caribbean place called Kaz An Nou in Prospect Heights that is revered for their jerk chicken and sweet, homey-style service. I myself went with their goat cheese souffle, which was out of this world. The one negative is that since it’s such a small place and they don’t take reservations, there is usually a long wait. As I’m not a huge fan of waiting we showed up at the god-awful early dinner time of 5:30, right when the restaurant opened. There was hardly anyone there and we were seated immediately. Fast forward 30 minutes and the lines had started. Oh it’s also cash only, so bring your moolah.

I’d say that’s enough about food for this post but really the only other two main things we did this weekend in Brooklyn was to stop in at the Ample Hill Creamery for ice cream and spend our Sunday morning at Smorgasburg, a Sunday pop-up food-tent thingy (I’m awesome with descriptors today) at DUMBO. Everything from lumpia, asian tacos, and bolivian sandwiches to donuts, bbq, lobster rolls AND maple syrup covered bacon was served

The bolivian tent even had a Chuck Norris seal of approval.

Last up on anniversary weekend 2013 was heading out of Brooklyn and up to Times Square to see The Book of Mormon. We wanted to see it for our anniversary last year and tried to obtain tickets the month before. They had only premium seating left at that time going for around $400 per ticket. Thanks but no thanks.

So in July 2012 I bought tickets for our 2013 anniversary for a much more reasonable price! So after waiting years to see it, how was it? It was okay. My dad went to see it and hated it because he was offended by all the swearing. I didn’t have a problem with that (in fact, probably because I swear a lot but I barely noticed it) but it just didn’t compare in my book to some of the other musicals out there (like my all time favorite Wicked). But I did learn so much about the Mormon faith through the musical, though I did have to do a little fact checking afterwards to figure out what was true. Considering that most of my knowledge about Mormonism before this came from South Park, that means that Matt Stone and Trey Parker are my two biggest teachers on the subject!