COCONUT Wednesday!!

I’m going to preface this post by saying that I may or may not have been a little intoxicated last night…I am pretty much freaking out about tonight’s CHOPPED, and I know that I got a “by week”, but still.  AND…I may or may not be addicted to PicMonkey.  I believe everything looks better in a self-created collage, and I love it.  The end.  LOL.

Lets also say that this post will be mainly about food.  Shocking.  My life LITERALLY revolves around food, and breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any snack I can fit into there.  No joke.  Apparently, it’s (201) Magazine’s 4th Annual Restaurant Week in Bergen County.  You can click on that link to find participating sponsors, but apparently, it’s only until the end of the day/night today.  *SAD FACE*  We didn’t know that it was restaurant week, and we we were feeling a little adventurous.  So, Mom and I tried a new lunch place – it’s this French Thai and Japanese place about 2 blocks from where we work…we figured we would give it a try, since “adventurous” doesn’t really grace our presence that often.  It was called Aoyama – you should really check it out if you’re in the area…the prices for lunchtime aren’t that bad (cheaper than other places with the same “culinary genre”)…and all the menus are listed on the site (allll the way on the left of the page).  Once we were seated in this beautiful atmosphere, we realized that Restaurant Week had graced this place, and a 3 course lunch was only $12.95!!!  It was more like a 5 course lunch (and I’ll explain more in a minute…).

Mom had Green Tea, I had Ginger Ale, then we were given free rice chips and salsa (that was amazing)…we both had Miso Soup, then we added to our $12.95, a Shitake and Asparagus Sushi Roll – AMAZING.  Then we get our Lunch “Bento” Box.  This had a green salad with ginger dressing, a california roll, Pad Thai Chicken, and for dessert (OHMYGOD) it came with Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango.  Holy crap.  By the time we got to the dessert “section” of our lunch, all my mother could do was point at her face, and exclaim “COCONUT!”.  I’m not even kidding, we laughed so hard we cried…because that’s all she could muster out of the deliciousness that was the food we were eating.  It was insanely delicious, and we will definintely be back again.

After I got out of work, I met Greg over at The Copper Mine Pub.  One of our favorite watering holes 🙂  I honestly couldn’t even tell you what I drank…maybe some Cantillon, maybe some Carton, or Jolly Pumpkin?  I don’t even know – I was having such a great time, it was a laughing blur 🙂  Vito (the bar owner) is installing a Cheese Bar – sounds weird, I know, but if you knew him, or know the crowd at Copper, it makes sense.  Here’s a picture of the countertop…it’s turning out beautifully:

We left a little after 7pm, and headed home.  Mainly because Greg had been “slaving” over the CrockPot (insert laughter here) for chili.  Literally the best chili I’ve had in a while…and I forgot to take a picture of the food.  I did, however, take a picture of Mr. Meowgi…mainly because he was being crazy kitty, and I was laughing hysterically.