This past Friday was a rainy day. We had our regular playdate at Prospect Lefferts Gardens in the morning and Yves was home from work by the time we got back. He worked late the night before so left early on Friday. Since he was home, i decided to try this bagel recipe. I never did any sort of bread baking or kneading or anything like that. It’s not very hard but you just need some patience because you have to knead and then wait, form the bagels and then wait, blah blah blah. I have to tell you, they were just ok. Not bad for the first time but just ok. They were crisp on the outside but too doughy for my tastes on the inside. I prefer a more lighter inside. I’ll have to research some more recipes. Of course, Sienna ate it up!
Forming my funky looking bagels.
Boiling them
Taking them out of the water to dry.
Out of the oven.
Saturday we took my parents out for dim sum for Mother’s Day. Sunday is normally a busy dim sum day so I can imagine how crazy it would be for Mother’s Day. We tried a new place in Brooklyn, which I failed to notice the name. It’s on 65th Street and 8th Avenue. Their dim sum wasn’t bad, wasn’t fantastic, but wasn’t bad. They had some dishes I never saw before, which I appreciate. And Sienna tried everything we gave her!
The carb lover in me enjoyed these noodles. I don’t recall seeing this before at other places.
All finished! Sienna claps at the end of the meal and really seemed to like the steamed roast pork bun!
Then on Sunday for Mother’s Day, we decided to stay in the neighborhood since I had a hankering for Mexican food. We went to La Villita for lunch, a truly authentic Mexican place with delicious food!
Sienna eating some chips.
She really loved the fried plantains!
I also bought myself a resin necklace from stoopidgerl on Etsy. I’ve been admiring her stuff for awhile and when I saw this latest necklace, I had to get it! I hope to one day make some resin stuff of the same quality as hers!
I think we take Sienna out to eat a good amount of time. Besides a little bit of food throwing, she is really well behaved. She’ll be a foodie before we know it! Last Saturday we went to our old neighborhood, Bay Ridge, and went to have Indian food at India Passage for lunch. The prices stung a little bit knowing how cheap we can get Indian food in the East Village. But I can just imagine Sienna in one of those restaurants. She’ll have pulled off all the lights in less than 5 minutes! I can’t even imagine fitting a hi-chair in one of those cramped restaurants. Anyway, Yves got chicken tikka masala and I got chicken tikka saag. She seems to really like both of them!
Having a bit of my saag.
Yeah so she still talks with her mouth full. LOL
Here we are sharing mango ice cream that they gave us after lunch.
Then last night we ordered Thai food for dinner and she seemed to really like that too! That’s when I thought she is truly an international baby! My parents made fried rice for lunch and last week she had mediterranean with the Gunns and brick oven pizza another day! So far there is nothing she won’t try. Just like her mom!
Last week, Yves took off Thursday and Friday. Friday I had the luxury of getting a spa at Ohm with a gift card Yves got me a few months ago. Needless to say, it was wonderful! I had gotten the masseuse I got the first time I went and he is really great. Before my appointment, I decided to have a quick lunch at Rickshaw Dumpling bar, remembering the delicious dumplings DeeDee had brought over for potluck. Since I forgot to take pics of the dumplings at the potluck, I made sure I took some this time!
Last Wednesday me and Sienna went over to Trader Joe’s to do some shopping. Instead of rushing home for lunch, I asked my friend Tammy for some good dining options for me and Sienna. She gave me an awesome brick oven pizza place and an awesome old fashioned ice cream parlor all on the same block as Joe’s! Who would have known? I was torn between which place to go but the ice cream parlor made that decision for me by not being open! They were so super nice at the pizza place! It was my first time eating out with Sienna in a hi-chair. We would usually stop off at more casual places for lunch and she would stay in her stroller. It wasn’t bad and she was so good when we went to the bathroom together! I forgot to take a picture of the pizza but here is Sienna enjoying a snack while we wait (which wasn’t much of a wait since it came out super fast!)
And since the ice cream parlor was just a few blocks away, we decided to check on it. It was open! Yay! I shared a banana ice cream cone with her. The ice cream was delicious and home made! YUM! This may have to be a regular stop after going to Joe’s! (please leave a comment or e-mail me for password)
Banana Ice Cream from Lisa on Vimeo.
Her very first taste of this ice cream yielded a face 5x as funny as the one in this video.
Sunday we met up with Tommy and Maureen for lunch at First Oasis. I am ashamed to say that we haven’t seen them since the baby shower last year!! I’m sure we won’t let another year pass before getting together again. I have been friends with Tommy for quite a long time and he went to our wedding in Vegas in 2001. And speaking of wedding, they got engaged in December 2007! Yay!!
Well, sorry there aren’t any pictures of the food. I tend to forget when Sienna is around but I managed to get the waiter, Rami, to take our picture after the meal. Sienna liked Rami. Sienna tends to be leary of waitstaff, more specifically female waitstaff and then they become scared of getting too close to her. Well, I think Rami was the first male waiter we had. Sienna kept looking at him and waving at him and smiling at him. It was cute. For now. 🙂 Rami was very nice too. We started off with the vegetarian combination on the advice of Rami. It was good! Stuffed grape leaves, hummus, babaganuj, falafel and salad. I know Tommy is not a fan of non-meat but Rami was so nice, I wanted to take him up on his advice. I got the mousakka, Yves got the chicken kafta kebab and Tommy and Maureen got the Roasted Spring Chicken. It seems like everyone enjoyed their food and Sienna tried some rice, hummus, falafel and pickled radish (which she seemed to like) and gasp tomato (which she also seemed to like!) and she was picking from my plate.
And they were so super sweet to give Sienna a birthday present! Lots of cute clothes from The Children’s Place!
Here’s a video of Sienna and Yves walking from the car on the way to meeting Tommy and Maureen for lunch. If you need the password, please leave a comment or e-mail me and I will send it to you!
The band got together this past Wednesday and we realized Coachella is this weekend (where we first got dubbed the band by Yves-I think…can’t trust my memory these days!) Anyway, we went to Calidad Latina for some delicious spanish food. Everything was delicious and the waiter and staff were super friendly. We started off with the mofongo.
This is after we tackled into it and started playing with it by putting the garnish on top. Our own little Joshua Tree (more reference to Coachella).
Joy got the fried pork chops and mixed rice and we all shared a side of tostones with garlic sauce (not every place gives garlic sauce with their tostones). I got the breaded steak and Pete got the marinated steak.
I couldn’t decide between breaded steak or marinated steak so Pete offered to get one of them so we can share it. What a friend! And Tammy got arroz con pollo! Check out her mounds
of food!! 😉 Everything was delicious! The only disappointment was the mixed rice. It wasn’t very flavorful. But just a small setback to an otherwise wonderful meal.
We managed to save some room in our tummies to go to Billy’s Bakery for some cupcakes. It was sadly disappointing. Dry and not much flavor. They don’t have anything on Sugar Sweet Sunshine.
I told Yves I predicted that Sienna will walk on April 12 solely because when people ask I can simply answer, 1 month after her birthday. And technically, she might have actually took a few steps on her own during that week, it was really Saturday the 12th that she took quite a few steps on her own! And I got it on video the Monday after. (Please leave a comment if you don’t have the password)
This past Saturday, we met up with Peter, Nate and Mari at Raymund’s in Williamsburg for pierogies. YUM! Here’s a picture of her eating her first pierogie. I think she liked it! And of course she prefers the potato and cheese one over the meat one.
And while we were leaving, we grabbed the bread that came with Mari’s borscht and gave Sienna a piece, which she promptly chomped on and ate the whole thing. I then decided to take all the bread. LOL. I was surprised she ate it because it was just plain bread. Hmmm, good to know!
And more walking! And no, the similiar outfits between Yves and Sienna were not planned!
After lunch we walked around a little bit since it was so absolutely beautiful outside! We walked over to Peter Pan donuts so Pete can finally compare those donuts with the ones in our ‘hood. He agrees with Yves in that the one in our hood is better.
Last Wednesday was the April mixer. No mix again. I really, really have to make one for the next one. Anyway, I met Joy at Skyway for Malaysian food. It was yummy! We got roti canal, poh piah, hainese chicken and fried pearl noodles. We’ll be back for sure and hopefully with more people to try more stuff.
We went to Stanton Public again for the mixer. It was like girl’s night out since it was me, Joy, Brenda, Alison and Robyn. And then Eric, Robyn’s husband but he’s a good sport and didn’t care since he was working on his list. The bar has a thing that if you drink 57 different beers (not in the same night!), you get your name on a plaque. That’s what he is working on. My tolerance went up a little, I drank 1.5 pints of beer and did not feel as groovy as I did last month. LOL. It’s getting there.
A couple of weekends ago I made Ackee and Saltfish! My MIL left me a can of ackee for me to try and make. I was a little nervous about it because it’s such a delicious dish and I didn’t want to ruin it. I found this recipe online and confirmed with my MIL and she said it looked good except for the tomato paste (which I still put in since I had one open anyway). It came out delicious!! And so simple! I also made bammy’s and tried it in the oven instead of frying them. I think I cooked them a little too long the first night but the 2nd night they were perfect and the 3rd night it wasn’t cooked enough. Oh well! I also made rice and peas to go with it all. We were able to have it for 3 delicious nights! The 2nd and 3rd night we added the patty meat I had left over from Sienna’s birthday party. YUM!
Ackees in the pan Bammies in the oven Rice and peas
Deliciousness on a plate!
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