I found out that Friday’s is having a BYOB (Bring Your Buddies) Promotion. All you need to do is print out the coupon HERE, bring your buddies (to a participating Friday’s) and take $5 off each of your buddies’ entrees. I think would be a great reason to get together with friends! =) Hurry up and hit your nearest Friday’s location!
PS: I’m not in any way affiliated with Friday’s..just merely passing the word around to save a few bucks! =)
A couple weeks back after our Sail Boston/Tall Ships event, we walked our hungry selves to North End for some yummy Italian food. North End Boston is Boston’s own Little Italy with streets filled with various Italian restaurants and cafes. If you want authentic Italian food, this is where you should be going!
We settled for a quaint looking restaurant; Ristorante Saraceno on Hanover Street. Apart from feeling a little cozy, the food and the service was overall awesome. Prices was quite reasonable for their decent portion.
Here’s what we ordered and no sharing coz everyone was starving!! :
1) Petti di pollo al Marsala (Chicken breasts sauteed in Marsala wine) @ $13.95. This was what I ordered and it was good! Chicken breast was thinly sliced and pan fried to perfection. The sauce were loaded with sliced mushrooms and ham. This was my first time seeing ham in my Chicken Marsala. I do however appreciate that the waitress asked me if I was ok that there was ham in my dish. I think it would have been better if they were to use Italian cured hams. I would prefer to have some mashed potatoes or pasta with my chicken instead of the potatoes. Nevertheless it’s tummy and it filled me up! 
2) Spaghetti alla Vongole (Spaghetti with white or red clam sauce) @ $14.50. Hubby per my suggestion ordered this with white sauce (perhaps garlic butter sauce with a splash of wine). Yummy yummy in my tummy. The pasta was loaded with lots of fresh clams! I think there were surely more clams than pasta! =)
3) Melanzane alla Parmigiana (Eggplant parmigiana) @ $12.50. Seyda ordered this and I would have to assume it’s good coz she finished it. =) It was swimming in tons of tomato sauce which turns me off a little.
4) Lasagne al forno della Casa (Homemade lasagne) @ $13.50. Bobby ordered this and I would think it should be good! After all, it’s lasagna…I don’t think Italian restaurants could screw this up! =) And just like the Eggplant Parmigiana, it was swimming in quite a bit of tomato sauce.
5) Saltinbocca alla Romana (Veal scaloppine with prosciutto & fine herbs on a wine sauce) @ $16.95. Chris ordered this. As good as it sounds and look, this is one dish I’ll never try. I’ll never consume Veal.
Our lunch cost us $25 per person (that includes tips and a bottle of house Chianti). It was overall a good experience at Ristorante Saraceno. As much as I would like to go back for it’s good food and service, I think there’re many more Italian places in the North End area that’s worth a try!
PS: They may want to change out those 9 year old “Millenium Plates” they were using to serve us our entree. =)
Over the weekend, hubby and I went around looking for decorative stuff for our dining room makeover. We hit several stores including Ikea and JC Penny. We did not allocate a specific budget for this room makeover, just merely buying stuff which are affordable (and hopefully on sale) and fits in with our color scheme and idea.
One blank/white canvas wall has been painted “Gobi Desert” (that’s the name of the paint color which resembles light taupe, maybe?). We’re changing the curtains, adding some decorative pieces on the newly painted wall. And getting new light fixture. That was at least the basic idea.
I got some curtains that tie together some wooden furniture in the kitchen/dining and the new wall color. It was on 50% off and the color seem to work. At least it was true, before we scored some awesome bar stools from Ikea. Now the curtain seem out of place and will be returned to the shop. I’m on a mission to hunt down curtains AGAIN…something affordable and contemporary looking.
Oh yea, our new bar stools were originally $90 a piece…WE BOUGHT THEM FOR $41.90 EACH!!! We saved more than 50% for some good looking bar stools. It was never in the plan to change out bar stools we had, though I never liked them much for fear of toppling over once I get my butt on it. Though we got the bar stools and its cushion cover from the “As Is” corner, the only thing wrong with our new bar stools ($38.90 each) were that they were missing their packaging. There weren’t any blemish or imperfection on them and best part it’s all assembled! We paid $2 each for the cushion covers which was being discontinued. Again nothing wrong with them, just maybe the colors or fabric were being discontinued.
Here’s one of my new bar stool against my newly painted “Gobi Desert” wall! =)
We also found a big black frame with glass missing from the same “As Is” for $5. The missing glass was fine by me, as I do not like the glares from the glass. We bought some fabric from Ikea to come up with a new piece of artwork to hang above our fireplace. For about $10, we proudly created our very own (unique?) masterpiece which (we think) made our living looked larger. It’s about time we have a large piece of something above our fireplace. =)
I have more fabric which I will be framing up to make more decorative pieces around the house! Now all I really need is to find some matching curtains that will tie in the following colors; red, off-white, light taupe, black/black-brown. Other wall decorative accent pieces should be fairly easy. I forgot about a new light fixture that I wanna get and also a new backsplash for my kitchen… Hehe!
Oh yeah…….. I guess I now need to shop for more decorative accesories for my living room as well! =)
After viewing the sand sculptures and hanging out under a shaded area…. We headed for a scenic drive to more beautiful beaches of Massachusetts……. Seyda was kind to do the driving and drove us to Nahant where we had lunch by the beach. And since both hubby and I were “Massachusetts-Beach-Newbies”.. we drove along the coast and headed to Marblehead for a quick tour before returning to Revere where we parked our car. It was fun to finally “get-to-know” the beautiful beaches in Massachusetts.
Can you spot Brady here?? It looks like he was doing some agility course up the rocks!
We went to Revere Beach on Saturday to catch the annual Sand Sculptures Competition. Revere Beach which I found out was the America’s first public beach and is just minutes away from Boston.
The weather that morning was gloomy (and it rained the night before)…but by noon it cleared up and was hot and sunny!
Here are the sand sculptures we saw….. I had expected to see more and was slightly disappointed that there were only 8 competitors…=(.. I forgot to take notes on the name of the creations and the sculptors….
I love the “Bird Man” looking sculpture, but I think the Pyramid-Dragon one won second place. I found out that the sand sculpture was called "Ouroboros: Life, Rebirth, and Stuff" and the sculptor is Dan Belche.
The snowman-looking one is cute, but the “Broken Mirror” sculpture was one of my favorite and the winning sand sculpture. It was called “Mirror” and was created by Sue McGrew.
I kinda like the lizard looking sculpture too, however the wizard looking one called “Face Plant” by Dan Doubleday took third place.
It’s truly amazing how those sculptors could carved intricate details out of sand! And I can’t even manage a sand castle!! =P
