(The Almost Mis)adventures in Restaurant Week, 2012: Cipriani Dolci

Restaurant Week for the first round in February is upon us once more; and once more, we're making a conscious effort to get together with frenemies and try a place or two if we can manage.

As if not plainly obvious from our adventures last year at Brasserie and Hatsuhana, H1 and I are all for Restaurant Week.  Some may argue it's a crap thing to do that does not benefit business or is not a true representation of the food one may find at participating place.  For us, Restaurant Week offers us a chance to dine on a budget; we discover new places that may otherwise never get money from us; and if a restaurant offers a good enough meal, that encourages us to try it again sometime.

As we've said before, there are so many great places to eat at in the city that ideally we would not like to go to the same place twice but the reality is, through word of mouth we've been recommended to go to some places by friends and we've recommended some to others and may share a future meal with them if we liked a place enough.

The other thing about Restaurant Week is that it gives us a chance to spend a nice evening with frenemies.  Of course, if some of our frenemies would get back to us, we could truly enjoy ourselves...Frass  (seriously though, no worries if you can't make it.  No need to feel guilt for anything but just let us know.  We're actually concerned about you at this point since we've not heard back).

Friday night, H1 and I went out with our favourite Aims to Cipriani Dolci located in Grand Central Terminal.  As shocking as it may seem, The HOchieS have never been to Cipriani.  Italian food does not move me but that's not entirely accurate of me to say.  Have I even had true, good Italian food? Perhaps once or twice but I am not a good judge on Italian food and therefore feel I have no right to speak on the matter.

The End of Days, Part II: Chocolate and Tennis

I too can live a little high-brow...uh, on Aims' invitation.

This September 2nd, Aims' invited me to attend the evening session matches at Arthur Ashe stadium for the U.S. Open 2011.

It was the Friday before Labor Day and we both got out of work early for the long weekend.  With time to spare before our 6 p.m. admission tickets, we walked at leisure along 5th Avenue to catch the 7 to Queens from Grand Central Terminal.

Adventures in Restaurant Week, Part 2: It's "Brasserie", and not that Other Thing

Faux pas, numéro un: The restaurant's name is "Brasserie", not "Brassiere".

I'm sure there was so much wrong about my above statement that H1 will have a field day with me when she reads it.  I am intent on proving either one of two things: that I am obsessed with undergarments or that I have no qualms showing just how much I almost failed French.

The point is, when inviting your frenemies for a night out to a French Restaurant for Restaurant Week, make sure you do invite them for the right thing.

Shaking Our Way Down to the Shake Shack

It's been quite the while since the HOchieS have wanted to try the burgers at the Shake Shack located at Madison Square Park down on 23rd St.



Of course, we for some strange reason that involved us being "mizzled" believed the Shake Shack to be near Bryant Park.

Indeed, we're not sure why we thought that either...

Well anyway, thanks to H1's 2009 Plan of a Once a Month (Or Maybe x 2) Foodie Adventure (because honestly, we always say we're going to do stuff but then we don't and this city's too great to ignore), we're knocking things off our list and despite conflicting reviews, I found my burger at the Shake Shack to be pretty damned good.



Maybe!

Just maybe!

I forgave it for not having bacon.

Though, as we all know, bacon makes everything taste better...

So maybe not.

I had to have the double because with a burger lacking bacon, I had to become the piggyh in that equation to complete the meal:





(No H1, I'm NOT always a Piggyh!)

But you know, a double Shack Burger without bacon is just not enough and that's why a Shack Attack Shake made from chocolate custard and all manners of chocolately bullshart complete with chocolate bits is in order.



I maintain that I am no pi::oink::gghy!

Those Who Went Adventuring with the HOchieS:

Aims, Alex, and Frass. Oh, Frass...it was good to see you because sometimes I miss you. Sometimes. Don't forget to come up on Saturday for some Jerk Pork!

Memorable Conversation of Wednesday:

Text from Or 2 to Beetchie: Don't Hate me. I have a confession to make.

Text from Beetchie to Or 2: Whu't...

Call to Beetchie from Or 2: Well, you see...H1 made these plans that I was unaware of really and apparently she and I are going to Shake Shack on Thursday...

Return response from Beetchie to Or 2: Oh, whatevs. I'm in the line at Shake Shack right now. Ahahahahahaha.

Or 2: You Ass!!!!! Did you even THINK of me when you were doing this?!

Beetchie: Yeah, you were in the back of my mind but then I remembered that you documented photos of tape on my back.

Or 2 to H1: I'm going to wish her a tiny 'choke' on her shake shack burger but not until I have consumed my own.

We all know how Karma's a bitch.

Memorable Photos of Thursday:

Rain threatened our plans again but in that period of stoppage, Frass bought us the following to clean up the chairs -



And so Alex did.

Doubles and Mayo?

Who would concoct such a vile combination?!

No one really, that's just a misleading blog title.

It's not good time trini doubles like some of you may be thinking of...and DEFINITELY not those other types of doubles that CLee might be thinking of.

This afternoon, with the threat of a thunderstorm, which not only threatened but actually waited until we were in the open to occur (i.e. eff you false sense of security) Aims, H1, Beetchie and I went to St. Mark's.

Many a day we speak of going on foodie adventures but have decided that will do it this summer or at least try to, to knock a few things off someone's list.

Today was Pommes Frites. I had it before with some awesome eggplant mayo but H1 and Aims never had it before, so off we went and actually got a seat there.

Aims went with the sweet mango chutney mayo, H1 with the garlic mayo, Beetchie with the poutine and I with boring blue cheese as I didn't really see the board and made a hasty decision. Don't judge me.







Next, Beetchie and I went off to Toy Tokyo because we're addicts and it's right next to Pommes Frites. There were hardly any TokiDoki pups left for us to choose some so instead we picked dangerous zipper pull toys.

Beetchie blames it on H1 but our luck was not that great. We both got the same dangerous zipper pullie. I wanted either the brass knuckles, knife or razor blade but got a neon orange grenade. Beetchie got the same in a normal green. Who's going to believe that my zipper's dangerous with a neon orange grenade? Do such things exist?

Then I tried to do BooHead a kindness by getting a WALL.E capsule toy and got the famous Umbrella Robot. Wha'? Yeah, I don't even remember there BEING an umbrella robot in that movie though I guess the only place it could possibly have been in was featured as a member of the misfit rehab robots.

Cursing my ill luck, I gave the money to Beetchie to try her hand...and out popped a second umbrella robot. The doubles luck was unappreciated.

Snarky Toy Tokyo workers was also unappreciated - don't talk to me like I don't know what I want in Bleach toys, asses. I don't want series 3, 5 or 1. Series 6 or nothing. Ah well. They were kind of funny in a "I could smack them" sort of way.

After our failures at Toy Tokyo we trooped for some gelato which made my hands super dirty and 'bloody' like, took pictures of some peculiar buildings and the cube (have I never done that before?!), went to beard papa and then home.





Before I forget though, I wonder how long it took for a. the tape I stuck to Beetchie's jacket without her knowing, to fall off or b. did she not realise at all and went out like that later that night? It looked like it was coming off when she was leaving the subway.

Hmmm.



Aims showed us the coolest thing at Grand Central which we have to remember to show CLee when he comes up next year for the Toy Story 3 premiere in June...for 5 weeks again!

We had fun times and H1 has decided that we will try to do this at least once or twice a month because we don't explore NYC enough as we should.

While creepy, H1 and I saw dirty carney hand prints on the glass on the train. H1 found it very coinky dinky like that it JUST so happened that my tiny carney hands were also dirty and that I too, was traveling on the same train as the prints.

Curious?

Hmmm.



Currently listening to: "Alex Descends Into Hell for a Bottle of Milk/Korova I" by U2. Wha'?

Avast, Ye Scurvy Dawgs!

What's with the talk of pirates lately?

Who knew pirates of the High Seas existed?

This just goes to show that certain parts of the world are still cutlassin' over some gold (and suga'cane?) and it is scary.

Don't they know pirating's only reserved for the Internet now? And that stealing from the rich to give to the rich is called "CAPITALISM"?

Serious business these pirates, but it turns out I've been doing a bit of pirating myself these days.

While not on the High Seas, I have taken to stealing from my dawgs to give to myself and H1.

That's right, I declare my Frenemies' Mario Coins in the Name of the HOchieS!

Thus far, I've collected booty from Bughie J. and Aims.

It might be that they'll benefit from my piracy in the long run but that is only due to the fact that I am not a very good pirate.

In fact, I believe the great Pirate Bughie J. somehow managed to trick me into giving him my Club Nintendo login information without my realising my folly!

And that is why he managed to plunder Trinidad in the not so distant past.

Pumpkin Cookies and Skwinkles!

Aims loves me.

She baked me a batch of beautiful and beautiful tasting pumpkin cookies.





I don't know why she's not making us some money by baking and selling.

She also brought me skwinkles from her retreat in Baltimore. They're mango flavoured. But even more shocking... is that they're 'skwinkles'. Who knew such a thing existed?



Thank you, Aims!

I love you too.

Currently listening to: "Down Boy" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

The D.C. Blog

Work is overrated but much more fun when you know that by 2 p.m. you'll be on a road trip with good friends!
Thanks for making work overrated stupid traffic - we didn't actually hit the road until 3.30 p.m. That extra hour and a half really killed it.

Being stuck in the car for 9 hours when the trip was supposed to be 4 hours is not good times. Can someone tell me if George Washington had as much trouble crossing the Delaware as we did? Delaware may need to be a part of the new Axis of Evil.

No one needs to tell me about New Jersey being hell, I already know because where else do you have people driving around in their cars with multi-coloured rollers in their heads?

At least we had interesting times watching and taking incriminating photos of sketch people driving while on their cellphones and doing recon missions on MC while he was on his cellphone. There were such classic lines as:

MC "You don't have time for me when I'm in Brooklyn..."
X, singing off to the side "All I need is the air that I breathe."

Finally at 11.30 we made it and even though we were cranky it was alright because what followed was fun save the part where more crankiness ensued the night after...and the day after that. Heh Heh...

After much laughing and HOchie 1 telling us that she could hear MC from her hotel room two doors down, we settled in and slept until morning, which brought me an awesome breakfast of a belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream. Now, it's only awesome because diners insist on screwing me over with their lack of bwwsawc.

Then came the walking. We walked all over D.C. and explored the monuments. It was there I had a few words with Lincoln, Slave Daddy. Aims was not impressed by my reasoning behind the title but Mitch and I know the real deal with the 16th President of the USA.

And it was there that the ducks had a few words with me or rather, showed me their asses. Man, I hate those bitchin' ass ducks.

We then took the shady metro to the Washington Zoo. The Metro is nothing like NY. The ticket system is shady. It's not simple like NY leaving me grounded in my belief that NY is still number 1 - yeah!!!

Before we could actually get to the zoo, we had to go up "The Escalator To Hell" or was it Heaven? Not sure but whatever it was, it took 2 minutes and 42 seconds to ride. Crazy!
The zoo was fun minus the double dose of annoying frickin' Behemoths. Grrrr.

Why did this happen though? What's up with animals in this place showing me their asses?!

But what was really hella awesome - my biatch Komodo Dragon. I don't know how smart the Komodo's keeper was because my ass wouldn't be in the enclosure trying to lure the Komodo in. Ah, he was a bitch though that KD; he ignored initial attempts at getting him in. "Am I interested? Meh. ::lumbered off::" That's what I do sometimes. We're kindred spirits.

At 5 p.m. we set off to see the cutest pandas eva'. Tian was being a Drama Queen. He flopped himself down on the floor all panting like as though it was the end of the world. Poor stupid panda. It was rather hot and humid though. Who can blame him?
Mei, the best lOOking panda eva' was tearing up bamboo like nobody's buisness, as expected. Bamboo was flying everywhere and all you could see was Mei's cute little head sticking out from a huge pile of the green stuff. It was awesome.

Finally, the main reason why we made this trip, the star of it all - Tai Shan became visbile to us. The little baby had his back to his viewing audience which prompted HOchie 1 to toss a mini hissy fit, scaring this dude next to her. But, due to clumsiness, Tai who had been munching on an apple, dropped said fruit and was forced to climb down his perch and then back up in all his cutie panda glory - ushering coos, squeals of delight and 'oooo's and ahhhh's' from all his fans.
The remainder of the evening was spent hanging out with TD5 and his family for good eats and good times.

That night back at the hotel was hilarious. X heard nothing and all I could make out was "It's MC" but apparently TD5 "porn slapped" MC which he claimed was really his getting up stupid in the middle of the night not knowing where he was and asking, "who dat?!" ::slap:: followed by MC's, "It's MC". Since it seemed they sorted themselves out I didn't bother to wake up completely.

The next morning was the most fun part of the weekend. HOchie 1, Luis and Aims set off for the American Indian Museum while MC, X and I made our way to the Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian and African exhibits. Our pictures are hilarious. There are such memorable moments as "India vs. China in Japan", "Praying to the Sun God, Rah", "Red Ninja Ho of the Red Ninja Clan - D.C. Division" and "I don't know how to wrap iiittttt". We were infused with culture and had fun while doing it. Don't judge us!

The trip back home was long, once again thank you to NJ but not as bad as before. MC, X and I did get our asses handed to us though in round 3 of the Car Outburst Champeenship.

All in all it was fun.

Though, the question remains: was it really worth it being stuck in the car for 9 hours, a trip that was supposed to be about 4, to see that Panda?

A few general notes about Washington D.C.:

The signs are cool because this is EXACTLY how I run:



Everything is consolidated in D.C. There's the chinese food/fried chicken/seafood/crab/lobster eatery all in one on every corner. And these are right next to the lottery/liqour/pawn shop/spa shops. It's brilliant! They're on to something...

D.C. is FULL of Plague Carriers!!! ::shudder::

And don't mess with shady people in shady vans

And thus we present to you... The Story of X

The HOchieS signing in....

It was Thanksgiving 2001. X was invited over to our house, not by us initially, but welcomed all the same. In retrospect, the prospect of a good Trini spread is probably what compelled X to trek to the Bronx on that day. X smiled a lot that Thanksgiving and knowing what we do now, it was probably because of the warm feeling that X enjoys when the belly is full.

X is a small one. Quiet when food is around since the mouth is otherwise occupied but can talk like nobody's business. The amount of food that can be consumed by X is astounding and the pork industry is strong for it.

X has endured school for over 2 decades since student is the lesser evil between student and employee but come November, X will be venturing out into previously unchartered territory - the real Job is upon X... but THAT will be fodder for many more tales.

X has become a good friend. An honorary Hochie even who may make a guest appearance here at the Hochies' blog in the future. X may tell you about X-rated Salsa, or Vacation issues but never fear, it will entertain.

And so we dedicate an entire entry to X because X is demanding.


X would also like us to mention the good time presents (courtesy of X) that we stupidly left out of previous entries, the walk-bys when the streets were dark and cold after the beers.

X would not like us to mention H.Ho's cooking or the Pumpkin Cookies or the Aims. So we won't.

And thus we present to you, the Story of X.

laters and goo'day.