Thursday, April 4, 2013

A taste of spring

A taste of spring on *sparklingly { http://sparklingly.blogspot.com }
{ Brunch at Balaboosta  |  30 March 2013 }

This past Saturday, after checking in on and rotating the marinating lamb for our Easter dinner party, I headed out to enjoy some of my favorite things:

+ Sunshine
+ Homey brunches
+ City strolls
+ Girl talk over cocktails

After months and months of frigid temperatures, the sun shined its little heart out all over the city and the temperature eke'd above 50 in the morning and hovered juuust under 60 for the rest of the day. To celebrate I met some gals for brunch—something that I will most definitely miss if and when we leave NYC, as I've yet to have the great, quintessential brunch experience in any other city.

My friends let me choose the place, which worked out well since I'd had my eye on Balaboosta, a Yiddish word meaning "the perfect housewife, homemaker, wonderful mother, cook & gracious hostess" for a while. How can you go wrong with that kind of philosophy, married to Israeli cuisine and a warm and cozy interior?

We snuggled three on the booth side and two on the chair side and ordered 2 Green Scrambled Eggs, 2 Shakshouksa's and the Braised Short Rib Hash (that was me), with frothy cappuccino's to start, Bloody Mary's to end and a chocolate mousse to share as the finale. With tasty dishes and great service, Balaboosta's definitely a keeper!

After we waddled out, we moseyed around Soho, ducking into shops here and there. There was a little shopping, a little manicure/pedicuring and just in time for cocktail hour we found ourselves in Gramercy, in front of this chic and classy little townhouse with a restaurant inside and seating outside—I haven't seen any sidewalk tables since lo back in September! We promptly set ourselves up next to a French Bulldog and had a plate of deviled eggs with jalapenos and lobster and a quartet of cocktails, two were springier (my Josephine Baker and my friend's Cucumber Martini), while the two gals feeling a little under the weather had The House's Spiked Cider for their scratchy throats.

Perfect Intro-to-Spring day, no?


A taste of spring on *sparklingly { http://sparklingly.blogspot.com }
{ Springy cocktails at The House  |  30 March 2013 }

7 comments :

  1. good for you... enjoying the day even with a big dinner to prepare!

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  2. too perfect indeed! no sight of spring here yet- though it is sunny but cold...

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    Replies
    1. I may have spoken to soon...back to the 30s/40s here. Sigh.

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  3. ha - waddled. sounds like a great time, wish i was there!

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