Posts Tagged ‘wine’
Jazzed Up
I really love the Kansas City arts and cultural scene from live music, theatre, art galleries, etc, including the Jazz scene. One of my very favorite local jazz pianists has a resident gig at a local Jazz club in Kansas City. I often watch he and his band mates jam on Sunday nights.
I decided to get a group together to continue the birthday month festivities for dinner and drinks at the club. It worked out great as we ended up having a girls night out. A few girlfriends and one of my cousins joined me and tolerated my jazz obsession.
We sat front and center in the first row and enjoyed our wine and the piano. The piano player gave me a birthday shout out, which made me feel important. We moved a bit away from the stage for dinner and dessert where we indulged in delicious food, gossip, and general typical girl talk. I just can’t describe the vibe that exists between girlfriends that aren’t catty or judgemental and are truly down to earth and friendly. What was really neat is that the only thing that the girls had in common was me.
We had a fantastic time, the food was delicious and the wine was smooth. What was even better is that the cute bartender made my favorite drink. It is a refreshing summer cocktail including cucumbers.
What is a Piropo?
And the birthday month continues….
I hopped on a plane at Chicago Midway and headed for home. I went straight to my car at the airport where I had a change of clothes. It was 7:20, and my next birthday dinner was in forty minutes. I threw on a dress and a bit of make up, and headed for this amazing Argentinean restaurant, Piropos, to meet some friends. www.piroposkc.com
Piropos was convenient as it is on my way home from the airport nestled in an area of Briarcliff Village www.briarcliffvillagekc.com They are known for their unique and authentic menu as well as the view of downtown Kansas City.
We started the evening off with a bread basket and specialty housemade sangrias. I wish that I could remember some of the concoctions that made up the sangrias that evening. I tried three of six or seven, and they were all incredibly unique, refreshing, and fitting for the meal. They were a part of a special summer menu.
We moved onto the main course which consisted of two entrees, as my friend and I each ordered an entrée and split them. We ordered the pork chops served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes, sautéed apples, walnuts, raisins, and mushrooms and the pan seared halibut with lobster risotto and juilenne vegetables in a roasted red pepper sauce. The pork chops are not something that I would normally order, but I thought that I would branch out and try them.
I will admit that I was already full from bread and sangria by the time that the entrees came, but I ate anyway. I devoured the halibut and lobster risotto. They were to die for!! I was too full for the pork chop and mashed potatoes, so I decided to ask for them to be boxed up and taken home. I did try a bite of the mashed potatoes and was disappointed when they tasted like instant. I ended up eating half of the left over pork chop for dinner the next night and it tasted great with the apples.
Although I was beyond satisfied, we went for dessert! We had the Copa Piropos on the house for my birthday and the Churros de Caramelo. The Copa Piropos was fresh berries with creme anglase and vanilla bean ice cream drizzled with imported argentine dulce de leche. The Churos were stuffed with ccaramel and served with vanilla bean ice ream and drizzled with Dulce de leche and hot chocolate ganache.
No, this isn’t a food blog, but this meal was so delicious that I couldn’t leave it un mentioned.
The service was great and my friends and I enjoyed our time together. Needless to say we left the restaurant stuffed! Next stop was home to sleep off the food coma and get prepared for the next day’s birthday month festivities.
Chicago Stalker
When making our arrangements for our Chicago trip, I told my friend that there were only two things that I wanted to do during my stay in the windy city. One, meet up with my British boyfriend, Chris Martin, of the band Coldplay, and two, scout out for my other boyfriend, Chicago native, Bill Rancic.
I don’t watch any TV now, but in college, I had cable for the first time and my own TV for the first time, and became a TV junkie! I discovered Bill Rancic when I watched the very first episode of the Apprentice with Donald Trump. I LOVED him! He was so smart, ambitious, hard working, and of course, good looking! Anyway, he became famous by marrying an E News anchor and having a reality show with her. I’ve never seen the reality show, but found out through the Twitter grapevine that Bill and his wife had opened up an authentic Italian restaurant in Chicago.
When I told my friend about the restaurant, she was super excited, as she is a fan of the reality show. We made reservations and the place is so popular that we couldn’t get in until 10:30.
That just meant that I had plenty of time to do other things. I spent the morning in the hotel lobby drinking mimosas and catching up on some stuff on the computer. Then I decided to venture out for a shopping trip. Normally, I don’t shop anywhere that I can get at home, but I had a DSW birthday coupon that was set to expire before I was going to get back home. So, I found a DSW on State that didn’t have the boots I wanted, so I walked a mile and a half to the next one, sight seeing along the way. I found my boots, and lucky for me, the shoe store was in the same mall as a Whole Foods where I found, yes, you guessed it, Crispin!!
After my afternoon excursion, I headed back to the hotel where we had happy hour and then headed out to a FANTASTIC wine bar, Bin 36. Bin 36 was not only a wine bar, but it also had a wine and cheese shop, and dining area. We sat at the bar and enjoyed wine flights, and hand crafted cocktails with some of the most talented bartenders in the city. I even left with a recipe to take home…Lychee Cucumber Cooler was a refreshing summer cocktail served over ice with lychee liqueur (very hard to find in Kansas City), house infused cucumber vodka, and freshly made lemonade)
We headed out to our dinner reservation with hopes that there would be a Bill Rancic sighting, although, I had been Twitter stocking all day and didn’t get any indication that Bill was in Chicago. In fact, according to Twitter, he was spotted in Corpus Christi at a speaking engagement. Anyway, although it was 10:30 at night, it was CRAZY busy. There wasn’t an empty seat in the house. We started with one round of drinks, then a second round of drinks, and then the waitress took our appetizer order. At first, I appreciated the way that she gave us time to enjoy a leisurely dinner, but then I realized, she was just too busy to be too attentive to us. appetizers consisted of bruschetta and truffle garlic bread!!! Truffle anything??? YES PLEASE! It was to die for! Then came the Brussel sprout chopped salad. For the main course, I ordered the lobster ravioli. I will say that there is a lot of hype surrounding this restaurant, but everything that we had was amazing.
The highlight was the gelato flight that they brought on the house to celebrate our birthdays. Three hours later, we waddled home, full and satisfied, but without any Rancic sightings.
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