For the very first time since we’ve moved in together (that’s 4 years now!), Allan and I decided to decorate our little apartment with Christmas decorations. And let’s face it, when I say “Allan and I”, I really mean me, since Allan would much rather be playing video games than doing holiday decorations Plus, I’ll be honest — I’ve been suffering a little bit from wedding withdrawal, and I’ve been dying for an excuse to do floral arrangements, place settings and entertaining

Over the past two weeks, I’ve decorated our home space, the common room at work, and my parent’s house. I’ve been elfing it up this year for some reason! Normally we do Christmas completely over at my parent’s place as they have space to do the big tree… and while Christmas will most definitely still be over there, we are having my folks over for Christmas breakfast this year and wanted to prep the apartment in advance. I decided to do a silver and champagne Christmas theme with red accents.

 

We hosted a holiday dinner party this past weekend with Trev & Crista and Mat & Ali and managed to find some space for our pop-up table. Seating 6 around this table in our apartment is difficult, so swapped our normal computer desk for a “rolly” desk that we can roll into a different room when we have people over. Awesome! Then it was time for new place settings! I also did all the floral arrangements with fresh roses and Christmas greens.

Low flower arrangements with large red roses and berries.

I really like the way our place settings turned out and I think they are versatile enough to use all year round. Or do you think it would be too much for normal entertaining?

Here’s a silver wreath we used to bring some festivity to our kitchen.

And my favourite… a fresh wreath with peppercorns, pinecones and tons of greens… smells so good!

Our side table was replaced with some silver Christmas trees and mercury glass candle holders…

… a couple other accents here and there with reindeer and more candles.

The aftermath of our dinner party with some holiday decor on our coffee table and a festive throw blanket.

I find cooking for 6 people really hard to do with plated dinners, so we did quite a bit of prep the previous night. I learned how to clarify butter for the first time (awesome for searing scallops at an extremely high temperature). I also toasted the pumpkin seeds, prepped the chocolate decorations and the veggies to give the pasta some colour.

The next day, we put the kobe-style marbled beef short ribs in the oven for four hours and got the butternut squash soup going. Some photos of our prep with making the sage sauce, and the minted pea puree.

Allan did a really nice job with the striped raviolis. We did beet-coloured ravioli for the butternut squash filled ones, and spinach-coloured ravioli for the wild mushroom filled ones.

First course: Butternut Squash Soup with Roasted Pumpkin Seeds and Pumpkin Seed Oil, finished with a Parmesan Crisp … we always seem to make this one when other people come over! (recipe)

Second Course: Seared Scallops in a Minted Pea Puree with Applewood Double-Smoked Bacon

Third Course: Braised Beef Short Rib in a Red Wine Reduction with Cauliflower Puree and duo of Wild Mushroom and Butternut Squash Ravioli in a Brown Butter Sage Sauce (recipe)

Fourth Course: Tiramisu Cheesecake with Chocolate Decoration and Strawberries (recipe)

Overall I think our dinner party went well and our apartment is looking festive! I think we’re all set for the holidays…. can’t wait for Christmas! Can you believe it’s only 2 weeks away now?

What are your holiday plans this year? Are you going to decorate your place?

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One of the things I feel most polarized about (no pun intended, ha ha) our trip to New York was not bringing my Nikon DSLR. It was great not having to carry it around and truly be able to enjoy our trip and experience, but at the same time, my little point-and-shoot didn’t take nearly as good photos.

I really do think that our lunch at Mario Batali’s Del Posto restaurant was the highlight of the entire New York trip for me. Yes, even more than going to Kleinfeld Bridal, amazingly Batali’s Del Posto is a fine dining restaurant located near Chelsea Market in New York. It’s an absolutely gorgeous space and yes, the food is exquisite.

Kim, Greg, Allan and I decided to go for lunch there as the lunch menu is significantly less expensive than the dinner menu, with a prixe-fixe menu of 3 courses for $29. Although it’s not listed on the menu, you can actually add an extra course and it’s only $39 for 4 courses. An amazing deal for the quality of food.

The amount of food we went through was ridiculous. We started off with an amuse bouche of a traditional Italian egg drop soup, some crispy accompaniments and of course some freshly baked bread.

I would say the appetizers were the real standouts for me. The fresh harvest vegetables were perfectly crisp with a delicately flavoured vinaigrette. The fried calamari with capers was RIDICULOUSLY good. Wow! If you only order one dish at Del Posto, I highly recommend this one.

Next up was our first pasta dishes which were also very good. The pumpkin cappellacci with brown butter and sage was flavourful and melt-in-your-mouth delicious, and the garganelli verdi al ragu bolognese was so so good — a real ragu bolognese is a treat.

Other dishes we tried included the beef rib eye, arctic char, slow-baked lamb and more pasta were executed with care, high quality ingredients, and tons of flavour.

Before we knew it, we were stuffed and it was onto dessert… way too much dessert! The chocolate ricotta tortino with pistachios and ice cream and the butterscotch semifreddo melon agrumata were sweet, rich of flavour, and fresh without being too heavy.

We were also treated by the chefs to a “chocolate tree” which was stunning.

Lunch is finished off with complimentary petit fours including various salted and sweet caramels, chocolate pops, and truffles. Wow, what a good value.

We walked out of the restaurant feeling happily full. Service was impeccable, the live piano playing was quiet enough for conversation but beautiful enough to create atmosphere, and the building itself with the staircases, columns and fresh flowers is just a pleasure to dine in. We highly recommend the lunch at Del Posto for the value and quality of food and service.

After lunch, Allan and I rushed off to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to explore the famous museum and take in some art.

I thought MoMa was amazing. Not only is it a cool space to walk around in, but the variety of art was very impressive.

The architecture section was probably my favourite. I loved the miniatures they had of some of the most incredible architectural buildings around the world.

My only regret is not having more time to explore!

It was a busy day but it was about to become an even busier night! We rushed over to Buddakhan to meet up with a whole bunch of friends from different walks of life all the way from elementary school to university.

Buddakhan is a large restaurant/lounge inside the Chelsea Market and is also the place where Carrie and Big had their rehearsal dinner in Sex and the City! I couldn’t believe how many people they could pack into the lounge section and the restaurant section.

The dining room is BEAUTIFUL and would be lots of fun for a birthday party or large group at the communal table. Most of the tables were in the upper floors or around the communal table.

Allan and I waiting for friends to arrive and our table to be set.

Although the atmosphere was super trendy and fun, I was a little disappointed by the food for the price. It was good, but not fantastic, and quite expensive overall for both food and drink. Not to mention the service was very slow so it took us over 3 hours to finish our meal.

I think the dessert was probably the highlight. I loved the creative designs and it was very rich and flavourful.

But the best part was the people! It was nice to meet new friends and see many old friends from elementary school, high school and university. Our friends are starting to get engaged and married now too, so it was wonderful to celebrate that with them.

We then walked over to a different area of town (I wish I could remember the name!) and had a mini pub crawl. We started out at the Biergarten. It was busy but lots of different kinds of beers!

Then it was over to the Brass Monkey where we stayed for a couple hours and had some drinks, dancing and catching up to do.

Lastly we headed over to Griffin Nightclub where our friends managed to get us in and secure a private bottle service box for us overlooking the entire club! It was really cool, and Allan and I definitely felt spoiled!

Except we were a bit suspicious if they had watered the booze down…

That being said, the music was really good and we had a lot of fun going out clubbing in New York!

Pretty soon we were off in a cab back to our hotel…

… and of course, ended the night, as always, with a New York slice of pizza.