A Great Weekend With Friends

What a lovely weekend spent eating and drinking (my two favorite hobbies) with good friends. 

On Friday night, Kailyn arrived from the West Coast and checked into the DustBunny-Astoria Hotel. We went to a local hole-in-the-wall neighborhood restaurant for some authentic Mexican grub – and our bill came to a whopping $41 bucks for the both of us. I will definitely be back. 

On Saturday we picked up my old friend (and I do mean OLD) Maddie at Penn Station and headed over to The Spanish Institute on fancy Park Avenue. The Institute was putting on an exhibition of the designs of the great couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, featuring some of Balenciaga’s most fabulous creations – including one of Maddie's favorites: 

After our moment of cultcha, we cabbed it over to Harlem in order to dine at Dinosaur BBQ. Since it was late afternoon (after lunch and before dinner), and because the restaurant is kind of out-of-the-way (125th St. & 12th Ave.) – I figured it wouldn’t be too crowded. 

I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was packed, and we had to wait a little while at the bar before being seated. Also spotted waiting for a table: New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn! 

The food was delish – but unfortunately my pictures didn’t turn out too well so I snagged this one (and the pic above) off the internet. This is the “Tres Hombres” – BBQ brisket, ribs and pork – and it was phenomenal: 

We went back to Astoria and rested a bit before hitting the booze. The plan was to drink it up at my apartment (on-the-cheap) before heading out to The Urges. We laughed, we cried, we danced – and at about 2:30 am we realized we weren’t going anywhere so I made a drunken pizza run before we passed out. 

Yesterday we had Hangover Brunch at my restaurant and Maddie headed back to PA. Kailyn transferred from Casa de DustBunny to a hotel in Manhattan, so she can be closer to all the restaurants she plans on visiting over the next 2 days. Yesterday she went to Harold Dieterle’s place, Perilla (read about it HERE). 

All-in-all, the weekend was absolutely great – even though it didn’t involve any gogoboys. Maybe next time. What did YOU do this weekend??

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Great Birthday Dinner: Amy Ruth's

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming amount of birthday well-wishes I got via blog comments, blog posts, email, telephone, snail mail, Twitter and even Bookface!  Seriously, ya'll made my day.

But the icing on the cake was my birfday dinner at Amy Ruth's in Harlem.  OMG ... I am still full.  Unfortunately I wasn't in "Blogger Mode" (didn't take pictures) because it had been such a long time since I'd seen my friend Shanta (the kind soul who bought my birfday dinner).  So all the pictures from this post were snagged via Google search.

Shanta had the BBQ Ribs with Collard Greens and Mac & Cheese.  I had the Honey-Dipped Fried Chicken with Potato Salad and Corn.  She had Sweet Potato Pie for dessert, and I had the most DELICIOUS Banana Pudding I've ever eaten (below).  Dinner was served with cornbread - which was the only thing I wasn't crazy about (a little too dry for me).

Amy Ruth's isn't that big - and it was full the entire time we were there.  Also, they don't serve alcohol (sorry Maddie).  But the food is delicious and it's totally worth the short trip Uptown.  The restaurant is located on 116th Street, right off Malcom X Blvd (AKA Lenox Ave) - only 1/2 block away from the 116th Street Station (2/3 line).

Check out the Amy Ruth's website HERE.