Tag: Newton Corner

A Neighborhood Gem {Social Restaurant & Bar Review}

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If you’ve been reading B2B for a while, then I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about Social Restaurant & Bar at least a few times by now. I hosted RM’s surprise birthday party there last year, I saddled up to the bar a little while ago for pizza and bubbly and then we also went there for New Years Eve– clearly I’m a big fan of the restaurant so when I connected with the owner about hosting a blogger dinner there was I was super excited.  I haven’t ever planned a blogger event like this and while it was a little stressful trying to coordinate between various people and schedules and things like that, it was a really fun experience. Plus, when you get to spend an evening chatting, eating and drinking with these lovely ladies, how could you not enjoy yourself?!

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Going around the table you’ve got Lauren, Becki, Cara, Jenna, Caroline, Stephanie and Athena

Let’s talk about the food, though, because it was incredible! I’ve eaten there enough to know that they serve delicious food, but last week was a whole other experience.

When we got there, we were able to mingle over cocktails and my favorite chicken “lollipops” (buffalo and BBQ) and spicy pork tacos. What I love about the lollipops is that there is way more meat on them than your standard wing. And the tacos? I mean, I loveeee tacos so it’s no surprise that I loved them, but even if I didn’t love tacos I would still think they were great. I loved the spicy kick and the pork was really flavorful.

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Once we had enough time to get to know everyone and catch up with those we did know, we headed to our table. I liked that it was a small enough group where we could sit and still be able to talk with everyone. They sent out some cocktails for us to taste and even though I’m not a big mixed drink person, I was a big fan of the ELDER STATESMAN (ketel one, st. germain liquer, lemon juice, splash of soda- $10). I didn’t get to try the RED MOJITO (bacardi silver, fresh limes, mint, drunken cherries-$10), but the others said it was delicious.

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For starters, they sent out the Fall Kale Salad (honey crisp apple, red radish, scallion, almond cider green goddess dressing ) and the Heirloom Beet Salad (golden & candy stripe beets, goat cheese, panna cotta, toasted hazelnuts half), both of which I went back for seconds on. Next, they sent out a super neat dish called Hot Rocks, which was thinly sliced brandt beef drizzled with white truffle oil which we were able to cook at the table! Our last starter was another favorite of the night: Yellowfin Tuna, which was rare seared and served with  sticky rice, spicy green beans, pickled daikon, avocado and sweet soy ginger sauce. It was absolutely incredible and would be something I’d easily order again.

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We thought we were done here, but boy were we wrong! We were pleasantly surprised when they brought over an entire roast chicken that was cooked to perfection. The flavor was on point- maybe even the best I’ve ever had? Which is a big statement since I have roast chicken frequently. Alongside that was a serving of their Maple Roasted Squash Farro, which perfectly complimented the chicken. I could’ve just eaten a bowl for that and have been happy! It was a flavor party in my mouth 🙂

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And finally, when we thought we couldn’t eat anymore, they brought out their Chocolate Lava Cake and Nutella Bread Pudding (which we had on NYE!). Even though I was so full, I am a firm believer that dessert holds its own separate space in our stomachs so of course I ate my share of both 😉

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I can’t say it enough- if you haven’t checked out the Social Restaurant and Bar, I highly suggest getting yourself there! It’s literally right off of Exit 17 off the Pike and they validate parking on the weekends.

And lastly, a huge thank you to Bill over at the Social and for all of these amazing bloggers who took time out of their busy life to meet up and check out the Social!

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After such great conversations with everyone about life, work, blogging and working out, I left there feeling so blessed to be able to have connected with such strong, empowering women. Thank you, ladies!

 

Weekending: Wedding Update Edition

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Good morning! How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? I was loving the great fall weather. Know what else I was loving? BOOKING A VENUE AND A DATE!!! If you’ve been following B2B for a while, you already know that wedding planning thus far has been stressful. Being on a budget, having no idea what I want and having a busy schedule anyway has made the whole process just not that fun. BUT, now that we have a venue and a date I already feel a million times better. Before we get to that, let’s chat about the rest of the weekend, too.

After work on Friday, I met up with my sister at Hopsters in Newton Corner. This place is literally walking distance from my apartment and they sell lots of craft beers and delicious looking charcuterie boards and flatbread pizzas. On top of that, you can even make your own beer there, which sounds like a fun activity even for someone like me who isn’t a big beer person.

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The purpose for our meetup was so that I could finally officially ask her to be my Maid of Honor! I scoured Etsy for a while until I found this bracelet, which had my sisters name all over it (literally and figuratively!)- she loves bracelets and monogramed items so this couldn’t have been more perfect. Luckily, she agreed 🙂

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When I got home, RM and I made a nice healthy fish dinner, thanks to my mom’s friend Jean’s husband who caught the fish!

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A little while after dinner, it was snack time. Yes, we have a snack time every night- it’s my favorite! We always try to have healthy snacks like paleo banana bread muffins or toast or something else that’s not loaded with tons of sugar. On Friday, RM toasted up some Ezekiel bread, topped it with almond butter and my mom’s homemade blueberry jam, bananas, cinnamon and ground flax seed. Delicious!

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After teaching on Saturday, I rushed home to shower and hit the road to head up to Jackson, NH to look at The Wentworth Inn as a possible wedding venue.

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I had spoken with Kim, the fantastic wedding planner, a few times leading up to our visit and was totally in love with the venue before even seeing it in person! It was affordable, included a lot of things in the package that most other places didn’t include (90 minutes of full open bar at the cocktail hour?! yes, please!) and seemed like a great mini destination place since it’s just 10 minutes north of North Conway. I also loved that everyone could stay on site, which eliminated the need for us to need to book buses or vans or some other type of transportation. And, they source all of their food locally, from 15 nearby farms, to be exact, and they said nothing is ever frozen. For foodies like us, we loved the sounds of that!

After a tour and long discussion with Kim, we were pretty sure we were going to book our wedding at The Wentworth… on the 4th of July! They were giving a phenomenal discount to have the wedding on that day, one that was just too good to pass up, so we are going to be getting married on July 4th, 2016! We are hoping it doesn’t throw a wrench into people’s normal 4th of July plans, but since the holiday is on a Monday, we hope that people can do celebrating on Saturday and Sunday and be with us on Monday-  I promise it will be a good party!

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After our tour, we decided to walk to the Wildcat Tavern for a late afternoon snack and drink since we didn’t have lunch. The trio dip platter was a fantastic option and their wine selection was incredible! Ashley- they had La Crema by the glass 🙂

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When we got back to our room, RM laughed and said we apparently didn’t need to get a snack. Curious, I went over to see what he was looking at and was so surprised by the super sweet gesture that Kim had done by sending us a nice card and a cheese platter.

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It’s little things like this that really go a long way with potential clients- we appreciated it so much!

After resting for a bit, we went down to the hotel bar to have some dinner. They have a full restaurant, but we prefer the bar atmosphere. The food was unbelievable- I got the lamb stew and RM got the steak and everything was absolutely delicious and so fresh tasting!

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We also shared some sort of apple tart with cinnamon ice cream for dessert that went unpictured because we were too impatient to wait for me to get my phone to take a picture 😉

Another great thing about the Inn is that breakfast and breakfast tip are included in your room rate. When we saw all that they had to offer for breakfast, we couldn’t believe it! They had a really nice continental breakfast bar with fruit, yogurt, cereal, pastries, etc., but they also had a full breakfast menu. We decided to split both of the specials: blueberry pancakes and eggs benedict, with a side of homemade corn beef hash.

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Oh, my, God. Everything was so fresh and flavorful and just delicious.

We hit the road after breakfast so RM could be back in time to watch the game. I decided to make good use of time and went to Whole Foods. I treated myself to a smoothie since I was hungry for lunch at that point.

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We decided we wanted to do a roast chicken dinner so I prepped that when I got back before going to a yoga class.

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There is a CorePower Yoga a short walk from our apartment and last week there was a day where I just didn’t feel like going to the gym so I decided to check it out. They offer a free first week for new students which is an amazing deal, so I’m trying to get the most use out of it. Yesterday, the only class they had in a time that worked for me was their Yoga Sculpt class, which is almost like a yoga bootcamp. I really wanted a restorative yoga, but I ended up really loving the Yoga Sculpt class- we started and ended with nice yoga flows, but in the middle we used weights and did all sorts of lunges, pushups, squats, jumping jacks, burpees, etc…. I was totally in my element, even in the 98* room! I felt great when I left.

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I popped the chicken and veggies in the oven when I got home and everything came out SO GOOD! I have never made a roast chicken before even though it’s my favorite meal so I was a little nervous but everything tasted delicious.

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And that’s about it. If you made it this far, thank you!!

Now that we have our venue and date picked, I can focus on the fun stuff like dress shopping and invites and things like that! Feels SO GOOD to have the biggest part of wedding planning checked off 🙂

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Do you prefer beer or wine? What’s your favorite dinner meal? What do you have going on this week?

 

Weekending: Home improvement is hard work!

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Good morning, friends! How was your weekend? This was the first weekend in a really long time where we were around ALL weekend, without many plans, too! It worked out really well since RM and I were really itching to finish home improvement projects and get more unpacked. Living in a half unpacked apartment for 2 weeks has been challenging, to say the least!

For those of you who may not know the whole story, no, we did not buy a home! We are renting a 2 bedroom apartment in a 2-family home that RM’s mother owns (she doesn’t live in it, in case you’re wondering 🙂 )and it really needed some serious updating. To help keep the costs down for his mom, we have taken on projects that we can do: painting, sanding, etc. Ideally, we would’ve done this BEFORE we moved in, but we didn’t want her to go a month without rent so we’ve been living and renovating at the same time. While it hasn’t been terrible, we are both really ready to be done the renovations and be fully settled in!

But, before we got to renovations, let’s talk about the weekend. I met up with RM in the city after work since it was such a gorgeous night (and because I had an appointment in the city at 6pm so it worked out great). We started at Vanderbilt (used to be The Vault) and then decided it was too nice to have drinks inside and went over to Sterling’s because they have a great outdoor patio.

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Once we got home, we decided to walk over to Buff’s Pub since it’s so close AND so good. I got a delicious Gyro-style wrap and RM got their famous wings. Both were delicious!

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After kickboxing on Saturday, I ran a bunch of errands, including a stop at Watertown Main Street Florist, where my friend Jen works on Saturdays. She hooked me up with a beautiful bouquet of fall-esque flowers. Thanks, friend!
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Craving Normalcy

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Hi B2B friends! I’ve missed you! While we are not anywhere near being fully unpacked and settled, we are starting to feel somewhat better than we did last week, that’s for sure! And, we finally have a kitchen sink! Might not sound like much, but washing dishes in the bathroom sink or shower for a week was getting  a little old 😉 (still waiting on the back splash, so excuse that!)

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Our weekend was a mix of unpacking/organizing/renovating, but we did get together with family which is always nice. Friday afternoon my friend Jessi was in the area so she stopped by for some Prosecco. Later, RM’s brother, sister in law and nephew came over for pizza and vino. We got the pizza from Max & Leo’s, which is just a short walk from our apartment. I have to say, East Boston has pretty much nailed the pizza game, but Max & Leo’s may have them beat! This pizza was outstanding!

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Saturday we got up and I went for a 4.5 mile run before we hit the road to spend the day in Maine with some family. My mom had some of her siblings in town which is always fun! We went to the beach in Wells and then went to dinner at Billy’s Chowder House.

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Sunday was spent making a major dent in some renovations- I sanded the pantry- which is quite a workout- and then RM did a layer of primer on the cabinets while I cleaned and primed all the draws.

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It feels so good to make some progress with the rest of our move. While the living room is coming along and the bedrooms are mostly set up, we still have a long way to go until we are fully settled in!

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I’ll say this- moving is stressful to begin with. Moving 2 people with fully furnished apartments into 1 combined apartment is stressful. Doing both of those things AND living a midst a kitchen renovation is stressful X 3 🙂

As I said last week, my goal during this whole move has been to stay calm, understanding and to try and stay up-beat/positive. I’ve only had one minor meltdown, so I think that’s pretty good! I’ve got a lot less stress than RM since he’s not only managing all of the renovation work at our new apartment, but also a complete gut renovation in a unit back in East Boston and getting new tenants into both of our old units. Even though we are both very similar in our abilities to handle stress and change, I feel like staying positive this time around is the least I can do- two of us stomping around frustrated and stressed is just not going to help anyone or anything 😉

All in all, though, even with all the chaos and no sense of normalcy, we’ve been having a lot of fun living together. We’ve both talked about how it feels so good to have one home base that we share. We may be stressed and tired, but at least we are going through it together. Going for a walk to Starbucks in the morning and figuring out where we want to put stuff has been so fun! And, little by little we are making strides towards normalcy- we both like to have food prepped and ways to eat healthy food at home rather than going out, so making it a priority to even have a few key kitchen items unpacked has really helped.

I hope all of you had a great weekend and have a good week! For those of you in the Boston area, I’m subbing for Athena on Tuesday morning at 6am at the Oak Square YMCA- would love to see some familiar faces!! I’m looking for suggestions on what to teach, too!

Questions for you: How do you handle stress? Do you go with the flow or stress over change and lack of normalcy? What did you do this weekend? Have you ever done home renovations?