Reunion Dinner

Dinner with all my fav girls & Kyle (haha) at Nai Tapas to celebrate Tingah's temporary return to the US. Feasted on empanadas, squid, octopus, chorizo, beef, croquettes, etc etc etc, and like, 4 pitchers of delish sangria :)

Post-feast we headed out for something sweet...and had a great Shit Girls Say moment outside of a cute bakery near 10th street, all of our eyes and mouths were just like OMG and we demolished a chocolate tart thing. Perfect :)

Cookie Party :)

Happy day after Christmas! One of the best parts of the holidays is that it's totally acceptable and encouraged to stuff your face with every sweet thing possible. And have parties celebrating this :)

Cookie party involved hungry girls, lots of sugar and butter, lots of gossiping, and lots of watching "Shit Girls Say" and identifying 100%. Casey brought amazing caramel macarons, and we made peppermint meringues, Rolos cookies, and cake balls mmm:

And the snazziest party ever...

So this party involved

1) parking in a middle school parking lot
2) taking a shuttle bus to the estate
3) being greeted by servers with specialty cocktails
4) being ushered to the heated covered tent erected in the guy's courtyard
5) the best magician ever
6) a waffle bar, a sushi bar, a mac & cheese bar, a taco bar, a pulled pork bar
7) a room of liquid nitrogen ice cream
8) a room of absolutely beautiful desserts:

Look at that cake!!! And yes, I'll be at the gym every day this week...

The Lazy "Rest of December"

So didn't take any pictures of the Christmas feasting which included duck, mutton, leg of lamb, potatoes, endless cookies and cakes and other deliciousness, and wine at almost every meal.

However, the week in Chicago was spent with all this deliciousness.

Somhe (literally) one hundred brown sugar chocolate chip cookies I baked:

Something yummy at Bolat

Something else yummy at Bolat :) goat? perhaps

Pork belly rice bowl at Saigon Sisters in the French Market, can't believe I never knew about this, it was so yummy:

Dessert holiday party in the ATK Chicago building! Awesomely sweet and super cute sugar cookies:

Shwarma at Roti, this brilliant Middle Eastern "Chipotle" style lunch spot, really good, and definitely my new Chicago lunch spot

:)

Perhaps best ramen so far?

So I really love ramen, and really want to be able to replicate it at home b/c it's perfect for like, all of my winter meals. Usually go to Naruto cuz it's close to home, and recently tried Rai Rai Ken which was good, but decided to go for the mother ship, Ippudo, this weekend.

Got there at like, 1pm, and there was a 90 minute wait. Get real. So waited for the rest of the group and luckily Kyle knew another place, and luckily it was gorgeous outside and perfect for walking and this other ramen shop, Minca, was absolutely delicious. Walked in and it smelled amazing, and then the food just rocked - super flavorful broth, yummy and soft pork, general happiness :)

Then winter holiday party! Hamachi tuna and sushi rolls and pasta stations and lots of champagne tequila drinks and half a slice of not that impressive artichoke pizza (but it definitely prevented a hangover) :)