Dirty Birdies and Sweet Brains

Kristie, Angie, me

We continued to have more visitors over the past week. The first set was my friend Kristie's sister, Angie and her BF Wilson from the Bay Area. We all went to dinner one night at Chow Bar and had the most yummy desserts...chocolate filled crispy wontons and flourless chocolate cake.

chocolate-filled crispy wontons

flourless chocolate cake

At the beginning of the week, Mike played hooky because it was such a beautiful day :) and we attended our friend Julie's white coat graduation, at the Columbia Medical Center Garden, all the way up on 168th St.

Later on that day, Mike and I checked out the famous Bryant Park, where NY Fashion Week is usually held. It's my new favorite park here. It's just a really nice, clean place to people watch and eat lunch. It's located right in front of the NY Public Main Library. The park gets super crowded during lunchtime. By the time we left, the lawn was completely filled with lunchers.

Mike ate a chocolate cupcake...

I liked Bryant Park so much that later on that week, when my mom came to visit, I brought her there for lunch :)

Then I brought her to Max Brenner (a chocolate maker) to get, Mike and my most favorite, bestest drink in the whole wide world......a CHOCOLATE GRANITA. It's an icy version of a milkshake, but a hundred times yummier. They serve it in this fun "Alice" cup with a metal straw, making the drink even more fun to drink. Mom loved it...so much we went back 2 nights later for another :)

Mom drinking her granita from the Alice cup

As a mother's day gift, we brought mom to our favorite restaurant...Babbo..the same place that I brought Mike to for his bday.

We had a good time and even got mom a little tipsy before the main course arrived :)

For our main courses, mom had Sweet Breads (aka BRAINS!!!). Isn't it interesting how they disguise brains with a nice, cute name like Sweet Breads?! I feel for the person who expects literally sweet breads and realizes that it's BRAINS!! I did try the Sweet Brains, I mean Breads and they were amazingly good. I just wish mom didn't tell me what they really were....

Mom and her Sweet Brains...I mean Breads

I had the XXX quails (aka dirty birdies). The reason I call it triple X quails was well....you can get the idea from looking at the picture...for some reason, anytime I order quail ANYWHERE, it comes out looking real dirty on the plate...just ask Lisa, she knows what I'm talking about :)

Get a room you dirty birdies!!!

It was finally time for mom to bid farewell, so we had a wonderful brunch that morning before seeing her off...