Boston Restaurant Week 2011

Hi all!

As I promised, I'm making a post about Restaurant Week in Boston! I know there are Restaurant Weeks in NYC and Toronto, so maybe after reading this you will be encouraged to find one!.

I believe Boston have Restaurant Weeks every summer and winter. Last winter Restaurant Week I went to Sibling Rivalry, which I wasn't very impressed by. Not because of the quality of the food, but cause of the quantity of the food(I'm a big girl, I eat a lot.). I remember my boyfriend and I went to get pizza after cause we were still SO hungry.

As much as I was excited about this summer's Restaurant Week, I was also nervous about how full i will be!(as silly as it sounds, since they are 3-course meal dinners)

The first restaurant we went to was Asana on Bolyston St. right next to the Prudential Center. We went per request by our friend Katie, and we were not disappointed!.



Us at Asana

 Even though the name Asana sounds Asian, it is in fact an American cuisine. From the restaurant week menu I chose the Jonah Crab and Watermelon Soup as my appetizer, the Summer Squash Risotto as my main meal, and the Strawberry Panna Cotta as desert. My friends got different things from the menu so we all got to taste each other's food. Katie chose the Georges Bank seared scallops, which was FAB! My desert came with tomato basil ice cream which was very questionable. It had a true tomato basil taste(by that i mean it tasted like I'm actually eating tomato basil...if that makes sense.)

I wish i took pictures of the food, but being a fatty I am, I was too busy eating ;). Overall I highly recommend this restaurant for special occasions.(It's a little too fancy for everyday dinner!!!)

The point of Restaurant Week is to experience the high scale restaurants around your city at a low cost. So we decided to go to the Top of the Hub ;) located at the top of the Prudential Center(top of the hub...get it?)

The view was AMAZING since we went during the sunset(and of course i forgot to take pictures :( )



This is some what of the view from the restaurant and us :) 

 I decided to go with the regular menu while my friends went with the Restaurant Week menu. I chose the Linguine All'Aragosta, which had stewed lobster which I LOVE. From my friend's Restaurant Week 3-meal course, we shared the appetizer which was the Boston Bibb Lettuce Salad. It sounds so simple but the dressing and the bleu cheese in it was delicious. She also let me share her main dish which was the Pan Seared Salmon with Risotto. I wasn't a big fan of the salmon but the risotto with grilled shrimp salsa was amazing. My boyfriend got the Linguine and Clams for his main meal and I loved it so much I was keep regretting not getting it..sniffles.

For desert there were only two options which were Coconut Panna Cotta and Chocolate Pound Cake. 

Coconut Panna Cotta

Chocolate Pound Cake

None of us was a fan of the chocolate pound cake since it was very dry. However the coconut panna cotta was the bomb!!! We also ended up ordering many fruity drinks which all of them were very very delicious ;) 

Restaurant Week is still going on in Boston, until the end of this week, and I HIGHLY HIGHLY  recommend you to go to one. There are lots of restaurants participating and you can check them out here: http: www.restaurantweekboston.com

Now I'm craving Steak...

Past Weekend

Hi everyone!,

Today's post is not anything about nails or makeup but about this past weekend when my roommates sister, Shama, visited from Toronto.

We had a great time going out to eat at different restaurants and looking around Boston :) and I wanted to tell you guys about a few of the places we dined in.

One of the places we ate while she was here is called Ristorante Damiano- located in the North End and it truly was amazing.

                                            Shama and I at Damiano's waiting for our food (nom nom)

Damiano's concept is that you order different small plates of food and share it with everyone. So if you're not a good sharer I suggest you practice sharing before you go ;) (I'm not a very good sharer myself but didn't have any problem! tehe)

Here are the small plates called 'Piattini's' we got:
-Spicy Shrimp
-Puttanesca
-Risotto Caprese
-Pumpkin Ravioli
-Garlic Shrimp
-Aglio Olio
We can read the menu on their website: http://ristorantedamiano.com/

We shared six Piattinis and a bottle of wine among 4 people and it was plenty of food! I wish I took pictures of the food but oh well!

After dinner we headed to the infamous Mike's Pastry for some macaroons and cupcakes! It was PACKED as expected but I managed to get 3 almond macaroons, 2 pistachio macaroons, 3 chocolate macaroons and 3 crucantis. They are about $1.50 per macaroon but it is totally worth it :)

                                                                   Mike's Pastry in the North End!


The next day we went shopping on Newbury St. and stopped at this small cafe called Piattini Wine Cafe for an early dinner. (http://www.piattini.com)
                                     

Us at Piattini Wine Cafe

                                       
                                                                          

                                             Cranberry Kiss Cocktail and Sam Adams Summer Ale ;) 

Shama and I both just got  Caesar Salad and My roommate got Gnocchi. The food was great but the drinks were AMAZING! I really recommend going there for small bites of meals and some cocktails :)

It was great having Shama over the weekend that I got to eat at such good restaurants!hehe

Its Restaurant Week here in Boston and I'll be posting a blog soon about the places I went!

Til then BYE!

xo, Garam

Orly-Basket Case

Happy Saturday-almost-Sunday everyone!!!!!

I'm just sitting at my apartment waiting for my friends to come back from work so we can all go out! woohoo! I thought i'd write a blog post while i was waiting since i haven't written one in a while.



 This is my BEAAUUUTIFUL fwiend Helen aka Cooks with her newly painted nails! I love doing my friends nails and this day she agreed to be my model for my blog ;)

This color is by Orly called Basket Case. I personally love Orly and their consistency. Also their nail polishes never get thick and they stay like their original consistency for a looong time. I feel like OPI nailpolishes get thick very quickly.

                                                                            Orly-Basket Case

This picture is without bright lights with a flash on and it truly justify the color in real life.

This is under a lamp light and the color looks washed out a little bit.


This is sucha pretty color for the summer, just a true pinkish coral that goes with any skin tone :) and Cooks did really love it :)

Have a great weekend!
xo Garam

L'OREAL Colour Riches leGloss

Hi Again!

I had a free day again today because i was sent home from work AGAIN for my conjuctivitis. It was kind of annoying cause I went all the way to work and had to come back and it was like 120 degrees outside. legit. So with my free day, I had lunch with my friends at Wagamama and ran some errands. I've been hearing about these new L'oreal Color Riche lipglosses, and been wanting to try them! I was in Walgreens anyways so I tried looking for them but could not find them until i spotted them on the very top shelf...like why would you put it up so high?

Anyways, I was only gonna get ONE but i ended up buying TWO cause ...i'm an addict.

                                                       Left-Violet Attitude, Right-Golden Splash

I picked up these two colors the top one's without flash and the bottom one is with flash. The Golden Splash color really caught my eyes since I've been in a coral kick lately! It's a perfect light coral with a good amount of shimmer. Violet Attitude is not the color that I usually go for but this color reallyyy called my name! It's sucha pretty deep pink with a hint of lavender.

 Golden Splash looks true to color on your lips, but Violet Attitude doesn't show the lavender tone when applied on the lips. I think it'll be very pretty on top of a nude lipstick.

These are how the applicator looks like. Just a classic plastic applicator, which I think is very sanitary compared to the brush applicators..you're pretty much putting all the germs back into the tube!

I'm VERY pleased with these lip glosses! they are not sticky at all!(i promise!) they literally feel like lip balms. They also have a very pleasant vanilla cupcake smell to them :) I got mine for $7.99 each but I'm sure you can get them for cheaper outside of the city.

I highly recommend you to try these out! I wanna go and get more!(but i shouldnt..)

Bye!
xo Garam

Battle of Nude Polishes!

Hi Everyone!

This is my very FIRST blog post and i'm still very confused about the blogpost website and how to work it, but hopefully this works! Normally at this time of the day, I'm usually making chemotherapy at work BUT, today i woke up with a swollen eye, which happened to be a conjuctivitis(which is AWESOME). So I wasn't allowed to work at the hospital and was sent back home. With a whole day to myself, i was bored OUT OF MY MIND and decided to finally make a post on my newly established blog! YAY.


I picked out all of the nude nail polishes i own and did a little bit of comparisons. Hope you enjoy :)

From left to right: The Face Shop-BR801, Essie-Ballet Slippers, Essie-Demure Vixen, Essie-Sand Tropez, Zoya-Vivienne

                      Milani-Bare in Mind, Milani-Bare Necessity, Orly-Kiss the Bride, Missha- L04J03, Baviphat- #1


And here are some more pictures by brand...

                             Essie-Ballet Slippers, Demure Vixen, Sand Tropez

 I must say Essie polishes are my favorite nail polishes and all three of these polishes are awesome! The middle one, Demure Vixen, is not very 'nude' but it goes on very sheer and has very pretty blue duochromes. Ballet Slippers is just such a classic color and Sand Tropez looks amazing on tan skin.

                                           The Face Shop-BR801

 The Face Shop is a Korean brand and their nail polishes are only A DOLLAR! and the pay off is pretty great. The Face Shop recently launched their US website!  http://www.thefaceshopusa.com/

                                                                 Milani-Bare in Mind, Bare Necessity 

These colors are from Milani's Bare collection and they are great fall colors! Bare in Mind has a slight shimmer to it and it makes your nails look so nice and clean :)

                                                                                       Zoya-Vivienne

I got this Zoya nail polish online without searching for any swatches and I kind of regret buying it. To get the color, you need three coats and it ends up being very thick. And the color is not that unique.

                                                                                  Orly-Kiss the Bride

This is one of my roomate's nail polishes and to be honest, i've only worn it once on my nails so I can't tell you much about it. But i remember it looking very whiter than the bottle. I love how Orly nail polishes go on though :)

                                                                                      Missha-L04J03

                                          Baviphat- #1

Missha and Baviphat are both Korean cosmetic companies. Missha has a US website but I'm not sure about Baviphat because I'm sure they are pretty new in Korea. I've always loved Missha polishes and this color is just a great fall nude color. I don't really care for Baviphat polishes, I just love their packaging :P

Hope you guys enjoyed my first post!

xo Garam