Weekly Wrap-Up: Paella, Peppers, Presents, and Pappardelle!

Yet another busy, busy weekend!  We are constantly having to picking between lots of plans, but I couldn't be happier, since it means that we have lots of family and friends around.  :)

Also, I'm not sure what you guys have planned for this weekend, but I put nearly everything on hold to do something suuuper exciting.  I'm going to Mimi G's 2nd Annual Sewing, Fashion + Styling Conference 2013.  This is all thanks to Monique, who won the ticket giveaway last week and let me be her "plus one."  I can't wait!


Precap:

• Eats: Taberna Arros y Vi, King's Fish House, Titi's Ice Cream and Treats, Picarelli's
• Activities: Pepper tasting, Birthday present etching, Birthday party, Co-worker fun  :)

Friday

I should have realized what a busy weekend this would be when I couldn't get out of work until 6:30, dinner reservations were at 7, and the GPS quoted an hour due to traffic.  Really?

Somehow, we got to Taberna Arros y Vi less than 10 minutes late!  My dad was dying to go to the Lazy Ox for the paella for what seems like forever.  When I found out that this place opened up from the same restauranteur, specializing in paella and other tapas, I suggested it for our next family dinner outing.

Since it is a tapas style restaurant, we shared a little of everything (clockwise from top right): Fried Green Tomato, Shrimp Gambas, Tiny Smelt, Boquadillo Hamberguesa with Spicy Potato Skins, and Mussels.

My favorites were easily the Fried Green Tomato and the Shrimp Gambas.  On a side note, gambas means shrimp in Spanish, so the dish name is a bit repetitive...

For our entrees, we ordered and shared the Paella de Verduras (vegetable), Rib Chop, Seafood Paella, and Rack of Lamb.  My favorite had to be the Paella de Verduras, but we were all divided because they were all pretty amazing.  :)

By the way, the lighting is just so awful on these due to the lack of lighting for ambiance.  Anyways, this is the best adjusting in Photoshop that I could do.  Sorry guys!

Dessert was possibly the best part.  We ordered the Chocolate/Caramel Bread Pudding (10/10), Boquadillo con Dulce (7/10), and the Flan with macerated cherries (7/10).  I'm probably grading the other ones so hard because the bread pudding was INCREDIBLE!  Our family is a huge on bread pudding, and I daresay that this is in the top 3 that I've ever had.

Saturday

I had a homework assignment from my mom who asked me to sample her peppers and call her with the results.  My dad and I are the members of the family who can take spice, but I'm the only one crazy enough to sample and rate each pepper's spiciness.

Actually, tomorrow I'm going to ask a question for all you gardeners out there because I came up with some interesting results.  :)  Also, I'll give a tiny tour of her herbs & vegetable pots while I'm at it.  :)

After my "pepper homework," I used my glass-etching skills to make a birthday present, which I'll show you probably next week.  :)

Next, we went to the birthday party (cutting it close on the present!) and hopped into an open house on the way.  Cute but too expensive.  :(  As for the birthday party, I played some bocce ball against my guy and totally won.  My first time ever!

I was going to include a bocce ball picture here with my winning throws, but my guy conveniently forgot to send me the pictures from his phone...

After the birthday party, we headed home to rest up for a get together with my guy's coworkers.   We were both hoping that we would be home at a decent hour, but alas, we were up later I have been in years!  Early in the night, we played a couple of games at his home.  The first was "The Game of Things" and the second was "Mafia."  I hadn't played since college, but luckily my acting skills payed off, and my fellow Mafia member and I won.  Sorry townspeople!  Later on, I totally pooped out and although I caught my second wind, we were there for sooo much longer.  By the time we got home, I was practically a zombie...


Sunday

Of course, my internal clock got me up way too early.  Luckily, I had some work that needed to be cranked out so I could have it e-mailed by Monday.  Yay!

For lunch, we went to King's Fish House because someone had a craving for clam chowder (which I inconveniently forgot to photograph).  I stuck to my healthy eating guns and ordered a salad (although I had to remove half of the cheese) and a BBQ wild salmon (it's the season!).

One of my eating buddies got this huge plate!  It was called the New England Clam Bake, and it took forever to get through!  I was done pretty quick, so I helped the eating process out by cracking the shells.  It's a tough process!

For dessert, we stopped by a place I had heard about called Titi's Ice Cream and Treats.  It was located in a totally nondescript part of town, but I had seen pictures and heard good things...

We couldn't decide what to order because there were tons of options.  The specialties were the overload creations and the lady told us that we could combine two.  We ended up having the Brownie Overload and the Strawberry Cheesecake Overload on top.  We couldn't decide which was better, honestly!  It may have been the brownie version, but it only just edges the other out.  :)

Tuesday

For a quick dinner, we decided to go to Picarelli's, a restaurant that had formerly been in the Crooked Duck space, but moved to a larger spot.  To start, we ordered a Minestrone Soup and the Quattro Stagioni pizza.  Both okay.  For my entree, I ordered the Pappardelle al Brasato.  It was sooo amazing!  I'll definitely have cravings for this, because the pasta is just so darn fresh!  I couldn't try the Lasagna di Mamma, due to the sausage, but it looked pretty good.  :)

Overall, a pretty eventful weekend but no sewing.  I don't think I'll get much done this weekend either, but it'll definitely be helpful to learn a lot more sewing techniques!

Any exciting weekend plans for you guys?