24 Hours of Food- Nonstop Consumption

Our New Year's Eve celebration got off to a rocky start. We planned to go to Blue Ribbon, but when we got there a little after ten they told us the wait for a table would be three hours. We went outside to figure out what to do and it was rather tumultuous. We finally decided to go to Bread, a popular restaurant down the street. We got there and it was closed, but there was a place next door called Room 18 that looked fun and the wait was five minutes. We ended up getting the best table in the place, in the front, with a booth in the window nook. It was great food-filled fun. We made friends with the owners, some silly middle aged asian men, and the waiters, very cute 30 year old hipster boys. There were plenty of people there and it was a terrific New Year's celebration. Good food and good drinks and good people... the perfect way to ring in the new year.

Note: I had to hold up all of the food to Mitchell's shirt because it was the only thing in the restaurant that reflected enough light for a picture to turn out.


Room 18 Sangria

Sangria is sangria to me. I didn't know that it is a Mexican drink before tonight. It had lemons in it that I thought were slices of orange and I bit right in. Oops. It was sweeter than most sangria and also more potent.


Room 18 Spicy Crab Rangoon

We originally decided to try a fe different kinds of appetizers, so we would have a wide range of food options and it would be kind of like a party. What am I saying, it was a party. Anyway, we started with edamame, which I couldn't get a decent picture of, and spicy crab rangoons. The edamame was good, but the crab rangoon was amazing. The sauce was so spicy, I was impressed. The crab tasted like cheese, and the crispy fried outside was yummy. We ended up just ordering a few rounds of those.


Room 18 Champagne

At midnight the party really started. That is code for: free champagne on the house. Ariana made fun of me for calling it bubbly. That's what it is! It tasted like cold, carbonated apple cider. Maybe that's what champagne is, I don't really know.


Room 18 Apple Crisp

We decided it would be appropriate to have dessert to start 2007 off right. The apple crisp was so good. There was a lot of whipped cream, which is always a good thing. There were slices of fresh green apple on the top that were also good. Usually I don't like fruity desserts; I'd rather just have chocolate. But this was so good, I would get it again in a heartbeat.

So that was the rest of New Year's Eve, the rest of this entry is January 1.


Diana's Peanut Butter Sandwich

As it was a very late night, we slept in very late as well. We made peanut butter sandwiches when we got up. I call it Diana's not because she made it, but because she arranged all the ingredients for us to make them ourselves, which is really better than making it. It was good, some skippy peanut butter and that wheat bread I was telling you about before.


Murray's Sesame Bagel with Jalapeno Cream Cheese

I'm trying to get creative angels of these bagels for you guys, I hope you're enjoying them. Today's bagel was the best I've had so far. It was warm and fresh like the others, but this one was larger than the others, the halves were perfectly symmetrical, and the cream cheese had more jalapenos than the average day.


Homemade New Year's Feast

For New Year's dinner, Ariana and Diana prepared black eyed peas with bacon, corn, green beans and STEAK. It was the first steak that I'd had in six years and it was so good. I had no idea steak tasted like that. I am going to eat steak all the time now (maybe). I shared mine with Mitchell because boys should eat meat and I am afraid of cholesterol. Everything else was great too. The corn had lots of French butter in it. The green beans were decent, but I haven't been a big fan of green beans since that rough experience on Thanksgiving. And the black eyed peas were terrific with the bacon. It was interesting, I could tell how the bacon seasoned the peas, but the pieces bacon lost its flavor in the process. I feel lucky already.


Tasti D-Lite

After dinner and cleaning, we decided we ought to take a walk. It was so nice outside once it stopped raining, and we were all wanting to get out since we had stayed inside most of the day. Naturally our first stop was Tasti D. He had just cleaned out the machines for the day so we had to choose from the freezer. I chose Snickers. It was okay once it started to melt a little, but the first half of it was rough to eat. Tasti D is whipped air in the first place, eating it frozen solid was quite a challenge. The texture was just all wrong, But it got creamier as we went on. It didn't taste like Snickers, it just tasted like peanut butter.


World Famous Pizza & Restaurant Cheese Pizza

As our walk continued, we started passing a lot of pizza parlors. Finally I gave in and got a slice. Ariana got a free garlic knot because the commented on the server's playboy earrings and he wanted her to shut up. We took it with us as we walked to the Empire State Building. It was really good. The best part was the sauce, which Ariana got a cup of and drank. The crust was decent. It was perfectly crispy but the flavor was lacking.

I have had a great food day for first day of the year. Hopefully this day is a sign of good things to come.