Last Weekend

I've been a little busy so I haven't been able to post about our prior weekend!

Thursday night was the annual Partner's Club wine event. It's an event held for the incoming students and their significant others. Nick and I went last year and had a really good time. It was interesting going back as "second years." I can remember exactly what it felt like to be in their position one year ago. We mainly stayed towards the back with a couple of our friends and talked.

After the event a group of us went to dinner at Keste - a new pizza place in the West Village. It was packed! We were told the wait time would be 30 minutes but it ended up being closer to 50 minutes. We finally sat down and the manager/hostess sent over some free appetizer. We were very thankful for that. It was 9pm and we were starving. Luckily pizza doesn't take too long to cook. I ordered the Margherita pizza... so good! Reminds me of being back in Italy!

We had just finished paying our bill and were getting ready to leave when this rather old, Italian guy came out to our table and said,"Excuse me, my friends have been waiting a long time for you to leave this table." To say that we all were surprised by this is an understatement! I mean, really! Who does that? The waiter overheard and stepped in (in Italian). I'm guessing he was telling him to back off. It was crazy! Needless to say we left right after that.

Friday night I surprised Nick with dinner reservations. We have been trying to get into this place called La Esquina forever! It's one of the top restaurants in NYC and it's so difficult to get into. You pretty much have to know someone to get in... it's one of those hip NYC places. Well I just wasn't able to do it on my own. Krystle, co-worker and friend, got me in! So shout out to Krystle!

It's a Mexican restaurant (now you see why Nick and I wanted to go so bad!) that sits on the corner down in the SoHo area. The restuarant is below ground but above it is their more casual restaurant called The Corner. You would never know La Esquina sits below it! We walked up to a guy holding a sheet of paper. We gave our name and he checked his list. Once we were verified he spoke into his ear piece and opened this unmarked door behind him. Yeah... crazy!

We walked downstairs and were just blown away! It had a very Mexican/Gothic feel to it. I loved it! Bars and skulls and candlelight. It was amazing! We ordered a margarita at the bar and waited for our table to be ready. They are known for their margaritas and let me just say it was so good. Probably one of the best I have ever had! The food was amazing too. We started with the tinga de polla - chicken tostados with avacado and chipotle and bistec - grilled streak taquitos. Amazing! Our main courses were carne asada for Nick and I had the camarones a la plancha. So good... unbelievably good. We didn't order desert and I have to say that it was my fault. The margarita hit me pretty hard and I didn't think I could take any more food. Nick loved it! We had a great evening... I would definitely recommend the restaurant. That is if you can get in!

The next two days were pretty quiet. We were suppose to get hit with Hurricane Irene but that turned out to be a bust! Well, at least for Manhattan. We really didn't see the rain or wind that they were expecting. There was a small amount of flooding down in Battery Park but that was about it. Nick and I just basically hung out at the apartment... read, watched TV/movies, etc. It ended up being pretty nice to just stay home and relax though!