It’s no secret, I love trips home. West Coast sunshine, family and friends…can’t get enough! This trip was jam packed, due to Kyle’s birthday celebration and an insane amount of wedding planning. Since I have photos up the hoo-ha, I’ll try to avoid the mundane (read: heaps of Stacy’s pita chips and hummus), such as this:
And show you only the highlights, like this:
Brewskies and cake. Now that’s a trip home!
As I mentioned before, Friday was Kyle’s birthday, so we celebrated all day long. The key to having a fabulous birthday is having me in charge the following.
Step 1: Massage (no pics, duh!)
Step 2: Mexican
Roasted veggies, black beans, and avo. This beast was money.
Step 3: The Bay Area
Step 4: Surprises!
Unbeknownst to Kyle, friends from LA were assembling in San Francisco…so fun! I’m not the best in terms of putting together surprises (I literally can’t keep secrets from Kyle – I get so nervous/anxious/excited that I’m going to blow it), and there was a minor hiccup (we went to the wrong Starbucks…but there are worse places to end up in error), but it all worked out.
Step 5: Booze
Wow, I’m a light weight! I was definitely boracha after (two of) these, but in my defense, it was 4 pm when we started.
Step 6: Fancy shmancy dinnah
After we were adequately sauced up from an afternoon at Elephant & Castle, my mom picked us up and we made our way to Ponzu. Located a bit off of Union Square, this Asian restaurant was perfectly easy to get to and had a classy feel to it without being overly showy.
We started with wine salty edamame.
Then got a few small plates for all of us to share, including the potato and edamame samosas (vegetarian wontons filled with mint, cucumber raita, potato, and edamame), as well as asparagus (with fennel and a miso vinaigrette), and Kalbi short ribs (kiwi marinated beef, cilantro-lime kimchi salad, traditional red leaf lettuce).
[Blurry]
Obvs, I didn’t partake in the short ribs, but the rest of the apps were scrumptious. The asparagus was divine and I would pay $$$ to get the recipe of the miso vinaigrette that they used.
My mom, sis, and Ethel all got the Tempura Nori Wrapped Ahi with
bhutanese red rice, furikake spice, ponzu, frisée, and shiitake candy. They were all members of the clean plates club, so I’m guessing it was tasty.
Kyle ordered the Angus Flat Iron Steak with horseradish marble potatoes, szechuan glazed baby carrots, and onion jus. He couldn’t stop raving about it.
Mateo got the Miso Marinated Black Cod with a swiss chard stir fry, saffron rice cake, and wasabi sake-beurre blanc. This dish definitely won the award for the prettiest plated. How amazing does it look? Yum.
However, I still think I ordered the best dish of all…
Wok Fired Udon Noodles with roasted winter vegetables, crispy tofu, napa cabbage, soy & sriracha.
Looks can be deceiving, as there were so many veggies wrapped up in the noodles…the dish also never seemed to disappear! Try as I might, it was a long while before I made a dent in it, and I was definitely the last one eating (pretty rare for me). The flavor of the noodles and veggies were great, but the tofu was kinda on the bland side. It was fried and although the crispy exterior was good, the inside lacked the taste that the rest of the dish had. Still, it was delicious thanks to the extra sauce in the bowl. My stomach was very satisfied.
Birthday boy!
As if dinner wasn’t perfect enough already, Kyle got a Banana & Nutella Spring Roll with vanilla anglaise dipping sauce. Now that’s a birthday treat!
So as you can see, Friday was pretty busy…but things really got crankin’ on Saturday…
Wedding cake tasting started bright and early.
And was followed by registry fun at Crate & Barrel, the purchase of a new BlackBerry at Verizon, invitation/save-the-date research and finally lunch.
TJ’s Organic Black Bean Soup topped with a fistful of Garden of Eatin’ Guac-a-mole chips.
After lunch, we began a save-the-date assembly line sweat shop.
Print. Stuff. Seal. Stamp. Send. Repeat.
That pretty much took up the rest of the day…so when we finally got to sit down to dinner, it was a nice break.
Orange overload on the top of the plate (raw carrots and a steamed sweet potato with roasted red pepper hummus), and golden raisins/dried cranz with green bizzles on the bottom of the plate.
Zoom.
My mom actually insist I post this photo demonstrating my inability to practice moderation (or, as I like to think of it, my ABILITY to demolish a tub of “14 servings” in a single sitting).
I know my mom reads my blog on occasion, but more importantly, she’s seen how I eat my entire life, so really, this shouldn’t be a surprise to her. But for some reason, she was a bit taken aback when I started scraping the corner of the nearly empty tub with some (unpictured) pieces of sourdough bread.
Yes mom, as a side dish I had 14 servings of hummus, and no, this is not my first time completing such a feat. Obviously, I am a regular at this rodeo.
The next morning was a chaotic mix of last minute wedding tasks [church organist music, more STDs (crass humor – not me!?)], but eventually we had to say goodbye to CA and head to the airport.
I packed enough plane snacks for the entire airport, but only took a pic of this new product, Trader Joe’s Chicken-Less strips.
In a salad with spinach, green beans and dried cranz.
With enough broccoli to stank up the entire plane (sorry fellow travelers!).
Now I am catching up on my life in NYC…how was everyone else’s weekends?
For the married ladies, how was your wedding planning process? Did you do it from a different state? A different city? Across the country perhaps? Or did you live where you were getting hitched?
Have you taken advantage of my OpenSky discount yet?
Looks like you are going to have a magnificent wedding full of great FOOD, fun GIFTS, delicious CAKE, awesome FRIENDS… Now i can’t wait to do all of that stuff 🙁 Registering will definitely be something i want to be a part of, so my wife will have to deal… Please don’t tell me there are 14 servings of hummus in that tiny container? I hate hearing stuff like that, because realistically there are two at most… I could polish off half of that with one carrot and the other half with a slice of ezekiel!
Looks like you had a great time! Love your dress btw.
Wedding planning… somehow I managed to plan a wedding in my final year of uni whilst studying for my finals, and in a different country (to be fair, I was in England and we were getting married in Wales so it only kind of counts!). How did I do it… not sure. Both of us wanted a really simple wedding so we kept planning and details to a minimum, and roped in family to help out where possible. And we tried to do the majority of the organising when we were on hols.
All the best with yours. Sounds like everything’s under control and going well. The wedding day itself will be amazing regardless of what you do, or don’t do leading up to it 🙂 x
All that food porn is making me hungry.
I was lucky enough to have 16 months to plan my wedding and it was in the next town over (10 miles away) so it went pretty smoothly. We made sure to make the major appointments a few months apart and then we saved up so we could pay each person in full. <— good discounts by doing that!
Plus we liked almost all the first people we interviewed so it cut down on the stress levels. Well except for the officiant. There are a LOT of creepy men out there so we finally just said screw it and got a woman to do it – she was amazing too.
love all the photos. flowers, friends, FOOD! glad you had a successful trip and i am with you on the planning! your save the dates are so cute!
Looks like an awesome trip home!!!
The Huz and I planned our wedding from Boston so we only made it home to Pittsburgh 4-5 times in our 2-year engagement. Generally, I just tried to jam pack those weekends with visits and decisions. I managed to do a lot of planning online and by phone, too, and hiring our wedding coordinator in the final months really helped bring everything together.
Your wedding is going to be GORGEOUS!
We are on the same page w/ Stacy’s pita chips and hummus- i ate a million this weekend!
LOVE the save the date cards! i hate the serving sizes on hummus containers. i eat at least 1/4 of the entire tub in a sitting. some days half. i feel a bit guilty because of the stupid serving size but whatevs
What a great weekend home! California is beautiful. Does anyone actually stop at one serving of hummus? The only time I come close is if it’s going on a sammie, only because the bread can’t hold more. I love your save the dates!
What a great trip! And I KNEW I needed to go to San Fran. My parents are going in a couple weeks and I am totally jealous/ thinking in the back of my mind of possibly moving there within a few years…
Happy Save the Date! You guys are so cute.
CUTE save-the-date cards!! Never been married, so I can’t provide any tips on wedding planning;)
Thankfully I planned a wedding in the state where I was living, which made it easier. I actually found the engagement/wedding planning process to be VERY stressful (tons of pressure from family, etc.) and while it was fun at times, being married is 1,000,000x better 🙂
I live in Virginia but was married in Amador County, California, on my husband’s aunt’s vineyard. Honestly, I thought long distance planning was better in most ways (obviously there were some cons), because I couldn’t obsess and had to let other people take care of some things. We also had a pretty small and laid back wedding, though!
ahh the save the dates are SO cute!! love them 🙂
when i pack for planes, sad to say I really don’t think about the other people in the plane haha, I just pack what I pack and really just enjoy myself, yes I also take pics, and yes maybe I get some looks, but hey, what can ya do, im a food blogger!! 🙂
swiss chard stirfry sounds SO good! I love swiss chard!
Yummy eats and, yay, cake!
I can’t keep secrets either (or be late), it gives me a heart attack.
We planned our wedding locally and used a site where both the ceremony and the reception was so that part was easy. Enjoy the planning, and register smart – I’m still wondering why we registered for some of the stuff that we did.
Thanks for having me relive Friday in this post! I love you both sooo sooo much and so excited to get my save the date! Besos mi amor! I’m referring to this blog fa sho!
p.s. I miss ponzu already and may I say, that’s a good looking bunch of peeps, esp the brown ones 😉
You can never have enough Stacy’s…or hummus. Glad you had a fabu trip home – it looks like Kyle’s birthday was a success! I feel ya on being a lightweight, these days it just takes one to do me in.
I am planning TWO weddings!! I am an American, but live in Australia, so I am planning one in Australia and one in…England?! Yes, England. England is where my fiancé’s family lives, plus it will cost about half as much for my family to fly there. So we’re getting married in Australia and then renewing our vows in England. As a result, we are having two SUPER simple weddings, so hardly any planning required! The main thing, of course, has been the FOOD!
Amazing recap, girl!
Lovely pics!
And, btw – 14 servings in one sitting?!
You´re my HERO, honey!
😀
Have a terrific week!
Brazilian XOXO´s,
Gabriela
well when i got married my wedding planner did it all for me and my reception at the plaza hotel was amazing especially after we shut down all of central park just for the ceremony..
haha i wish.
UM HOLY FUN!!!!!! will you be planning my birfday?
now that you’re back in town i think its time for you to plan OUR first date. k? great!
That tofu and veggie noodle dish looks SO good! So do all the wedding cake samples. Any idea what kind you are going with yet? I love your save-the-dates too, they are adorable. 🙂
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Im not proud of this… but ive powered through a COSTCO tub of sabra in a day-but then again, i do this with pb tubs as well (blushes). Id say your container was a 10oz (aka only 8-10 servings) essentially snack sized. No shame there… I decided a long time ago that the inch high tubs were definitely single serving portions. Just sayin…
MA
Yay cake!! I love trips home as well. Sounds like you had a blast. My wedding was planned by my mama and I couldn’t have been happier about it. I was in the middle of wrapping up my last semester of college. I did the invitations by myself while in the midst of studying for finals and I wanted to scream the whole time. It’s nice you had a sweat shop to help with yours! Plus, my mom lived in the city where we got hitched.
such a fun, quick trip! i’m dying to live in the bay area at some point in my life.
i’m in the midst of wedding planning (for my brother, not me!) and it’s involved a lot of trips and food tastings. we actually just got our bridesmaid dresses, thank god they aren’t ugly.
glad you had such a good visit!
how were those trader joe’s chicken less strips?? i contemplated getting them the last time i was there…
so-so on the chik’n strips…i dont think id buy them again. im not so big on the faux meats, but every once in a while i kinda like them. they are good in salads, but the flavor wasn’t really existent so you’d probably need to add flavor if using them in a dish.
you and me both girlfriend. hopefully soon…
id like to meet the person who stops at one serving of hummus – fools!! oh and btw, kyle isnt in Rio (i would have told you if he was) hes in sao paolo and is crazy busy with work…too bad he cant enjoy the time (otherwise i would have gone with him)
thats good to know!
I have two ideas for things/pranks you could do the next time you finish eating with your mom:
a.) Look deeply and intensely into her eyes before saying very seriously “…. The beast is satisfied,” OR
b.) As soon as you are done lean back and rub your stomach while moaning how tough it is eating for two.
😉
Rachael*
omg, she would completely freak out at the second one! haha