from the desk of tara hope…

this was such a lovely weekend! as usual it involved lots of yummy food and we spent time with some great friends!

saturday after my weekly afro-jazz class with sarah, husby and i went down to lower manhattan to meet up with safadi, one of my bestest buddies from high school! he is a true foodie and showed us around some of his favorite haunts in the city.

i love going deep into chinatown because everything is so vibrant and colorful!

our first stop was the golden unicorn for dim sum…

… i cant believe i didnt get photos of the chicken feet!

after that we meandered through chinatown sampling little treats:

beef jerky…

bubble tea…

and of course stopping to take pictures along the way…

after that we made our way to the lower east side for some dessert to finish out the day.

like i said in the last post the lower east side is very colorful and full of characters. here is the mosaic mans dog “jessie jane”. she loves meeting people and getting her picture taken. isnt she cute? 🙂

now back to the dessert…three words: momofuku milk bar. this place was amazing. its well-known and for good reason.

this is called “crack pie” and its the perfect name because its addictive just like cocaine. the milk is called cereal milk because it tastes like the milk at the bottom of your cereal bowl! genius!

thanks safadi for a perfect foodie saturday! you are our guru! 🙂

on sunday we had a slow morning, just taking it easy and cleaning the house a bit. for lunch we met up with sarah and her friend marcel. we took them to radiance tea house and scheduled a tea tasting, since we hadnt been to one yet. the lunch was fabulous as usual, and the tea tasting was really fun! we learned alot and took home a few new tea-related items to practice our new knowledge 🙂

the tasting set-up: (white, green, oolong, darjeeling black, caramel rooibos…and mochi for dessert!)

sarah and marcel…

the four of us ( i didnt get the “muted color-scheme” memo :))…

it was the perfect way to spend a sunday afternoon!

afterwards husby and i took puppy for a little walk around the farmers market and picked up a couple snacks. i am loving daylight savings time and the extra hour of sunlight! 🙂