Brunch at The General Public

Raise your hand if you love brunch!!

Silly me, of course you do. So let me tell you about a great Houston brunch!

This Father's Day, Jon and I brunched with our families at The General Public, a super hip bar/restaurant located in Houston's City Centre area.

(Who said brunch was just for Mother's Day, ammiright?)

They were offering half priced bourbon and burgers for Dad's Day, which appealed to several members of our party, like my carnivorous husband.

Ermm, I totally posted that picture thinking it was of a burger, but upon closer inspection...that's chicken. I guess it really has been a long time since I've eaten meat?

But I'm getting ahead of myself!

To start, we split the avocado farm bread, as well as the burrata & pistachio farm bread.

The avocado farm bread was topped with extra virgin olive oil, an herb salad, and - you guessed it - avocado. I thought this would be my favorite of the two, and it was really light and lovely, but I could have used more avocado and less salad (huh, more fat, less greens, SHOCKING.) in the ratio. Still good! Just not my favorite of the two.

Because my favorite of the two was INSANE. The fresh burrata smeared on top of the pistachio crusted baguette was HEAVEN. The chilled burrata was creamy and silky, and the pistachios were seriously meaty. Like, for a second I was all, "You guyssss are you playing a trick on me? Is there meat in this????"

Y'all, there wasn't. It was just hearty yet delicate, earthy, and SO GOOD. So good, in fact, we ordered one two more for the table.

For my main course of food I ordered the Shakshuka (too bad no one recorded me when I ordered it because it was all kinds of mispronounced, and I sounded like a total tool).

I'd been wanting to try shakshuka for a while, and this seemed like a great opportunity to give it a whirl! And it was seriously delicious. The dish consisted of crushed tomato, toasted cumin, smoked paprika, soft poached eggs, and a  buttered baguette. And while it looks simply like spaghetti sauce with eggs, it is so much more than that! Juicy, acidic, and sweet, the flavors swirled wonderfully together to make a perfect dip for the baguette. The element that really stood out to me was the cumin, and not because it was overpowering (which is often the case if you aren't careful with cumin - I've certainly made that mistake a few times), but because it was such a perfect unique, playful complement to the rest of the dish. And I mean, you could throw a poached egg on a lizard and I'd eat it.

....that's not true.

I also got to sample my sister Emily's side of hash au gratin - crispy potatoes with green chili cream and parmesan cheese - and they were so sinfully good! Rich, indulgent, cheesy, hearty, delicious taters - It was all I could do to restrain myself from eating her whole side!

The General Public is a really cool Houston restaurant. The food is fresh, delicious, and affordable, and the industrial/masculine themed interior was pretty darn cool. I definitely recommend giving their brunch a try!

Brunch lovers unite!

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Vacation Days: Charleston, South Carolina

"I thought Charlotte was in North Carolina...?"

"It is, Mom. We are going to Charleston."

^ This conversation took place right before getting on the plane to Charleston for my bachelorette party!

(...in other news, my mother has officially disowned me.)

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year everyone, since I haven't posted since 2016! I'll be all married and stuff in, oh, A MONTH, and blog life will be back to business as usual after that.

(Well sort of, since Jon and I decided that now would also be a good time to build a house. You know, since life is so calm for us at the moment.)

Last month, some of my favorite people in the whole world got together for a super fun trip to Charleston to celebrate my final crazy (they're not crazy.) days as a single woman! I caught an early flight out of Houston with my mom, my friends Lindsey and Danielle, and Jon's mom, Rosemary.

Snapchat: newishcityhou

My amazing sister and woman of honor Emily booked us rooms at the Hyatt House, a hotel that's located in historic Charleston on the main strip, King Street. And fun fact, they save a buck by swapping out wall decals for actual furniture!

Just kidding, that was only in the hallways. But that's my friend Heather proving that, despite what the world may tell you, you too can actually sit on large sticker benches!

When we walked into our room we were greeted with the world's MOST AMAZING CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES, roses, and a bottle of bubbly from my brideswoman Alice Ann and my sweet friend Sherz!

(We missed having them there with us, but this certainly eased our sadness).

Those of us who had arrived (my flight crew, plus Em and Heather) walked to lunch at a teeny, adorable restaurant called Five Loaves Cafe. I enjoyed their mediterranean garden burger and a chardonnay.

Then the rest of the gang arrived: my fabulous friend Christy, my brideswoman Courtney, and my bridesman L.J.! We set off walking down King Street (seriously, we were in such a central awesome location) and grabbed drinks at Charleston Beer Works.

After drinks, it was time for dinner! My sister made us reservations at Indaco, a rustic Italian eatery located off of King Street.

We ordered the burrata and ricotta toast for appetizers, and they were to die for! For my main course of food, I ordered the black pepper tagliatelle without the pork tesa. Our server seemed concerned about my vegetarian modification, but I ordered it, and it wasn't bad!

Then we decided to WIG OUT and hit up the bars!

Photo: Emily

(and by bars I mean one bar, Prohibition, because I was out way past my bedtime.)

The wigs were a hit, and it was so much fun! In fact, I'm planning on walking down the aisle in mine........

The next morning my mom and I woke up hours before everyone else (are you sensing a theme here?), and we enjoyed the FREE OMELETTE BAR at our hotel, OMG.

Then we all hopped in Ubers and headed to GORGEOUS Sullivan's Island, where my friends appeased me and endured pretty darn cold beach yoga!

(Mad props to Lindsey for teaching the class)

(Also, we lasted about 10 minutes and were like "okay, that was nice, get me to alcohol").

Photo: Rosemary

We received a tip from one of our Uber drivers that Poe's Tavern is the place to go on Sullivan Island. Well, you don't have to tell us twice.

This spontaneous, no-frills meal was easily one of my favorites of the weekend. The food was simple and delicious, and the Edgar Allan Poe decor was seriously cool.

We shared chips and queso to start, which was a delicious app, and I had my second yummy veggie burger of the weekend! (Fun fact, I actually had a third one the next day at home in Houston because I like to live on the wild side).

Then we went back to our hotel, freshened up (Read: NAPPED.), and took a walk down beautiful King Street! But not before stopping at the nearby Revelator for some awesome coffee. Seriously, this place revived my faith in and love for cappuccinos!

After tooling around town, it was time for a bevvy at Wine & Company, a lovely wine bar that basically looks like my dream house inside.

After a few glasses of rosé, we headed back to the hotel for the actual bachelorette party! I won't go into the nitty gritty details, but know that it involved toilet paper, underwear, a Jon-themed trivia game, wine, and snacks!

(Also Heather decided to move on from sitting on fake furniture to drinking fake champagne, which I assure you is way more fun than it sounds).

After these girls and guy went wild, we went to The Grocery, where Courtney had made dinner reservations for us.

Here was another meal in Charleston that I absolutely adored! The atmosphere was cozy and rustic, the service was fantastic, and the food was dynamite. We were given some complimentary, crusty fresh bread, and I ordered the roasted beet salad to start.

This sweet, light lovely salad was wonderful! I then ordered the cabbage gratinee, which was unique and incredibly enjoyable, followed by an off-menu vegetarian platter that our server recommended.

The platter contained a bunch of their vegetarian sides: roasted cauliflower, roasted carrots, brussels sprouts, the beet salad again (I wasn't mad about it), and something else that I don't remember because it's been too long, but it was all delicious!!

Then we were off to the bars (....bar), but not before hitting up Jeni's Ice Cream!

I've heard many-a rave review about Jeni's, and their creamy, flavor-popping ice cream did not disappoint!

After the bars (...bar), we went back to the hotel to rest up before our flights back the next day!

Charleston is an AWESOME city, filled with fascinating history, beautiful scenery, a great bar scene, and killer food. It definitely gets my glowing endorsement as a fantastic bachelorette party destination!

I mean, just look at that! (and pretend it's 80 degrees and not 42...)

1 comment bars, charleston, coffee, dessert, dinner, food, fun, pasta, restaurants, travel, vacation days, vegetarian, wine

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Vacation Days: West Hartford & Beyond

Hey there, stranger!

Yes, it's been almost a month since you've heard from me, and it's due to three things:

1) I'm planning a wedding. If you haven't gathered from this blog, I am a super Type A, organized planner of a person, and whenever people had previously told me how stressful and difficult and crazy it is to plan a wedding, I always thought, "I believe it, but how bad is it really?" Well the Wedding Planning Gods are now laughing their faces off at me, because y'all? It's seriously a lot of work. It's fun, don't get me wrong! But a massive time-suck. Bear with me through these next six months. (Because eek! I decided it'd be a good idea to only give myself SIX MONTHS to plan a wedding!)

2) I'm quietly cleansing. Well I guess it's not so quiet since I'm announcing it on my blog. I did a lot of traveling last month that entailed eating indulgent (albeit DELICIOUS) food, as well as *slightly* over-imbibing some of the alcohols. So I'm on day 10 of a modified vegetarian Whole30 (allowing myself tofu, beans, quinoa, and permission to not be a total spaz when I actually do go to restaurants) in order to clean myself out a bit. But only for 20 days because I value my sanity. (Also, my sister will be in town on Day 21, and we have champagne plans <~~~ Real reason). But this means I'm not really eating out at new restaurants a whole bunch, so there's a lack of content for the blog. Whomp whomp.

3) I traveled more than I was home last month. I'm still catching up on everything after a trip to Disney World, a work trip to New Orleans, a work trip to Vermont, and a trip to West Hartford, Connecticut.

What's that, you say? Can I share more about my trip to Connecticut? I thought you'd never ask.

Jon and I visited our close friends Lenny and Christy in West Hartford towards the end of September. This was tacked on to the tail end of our trip to Vermont. West Hartford is adorable and charming and filled with great food, restaurants, and bars. When Jon and I arrived, Christy took us to the laid back restaurant Max Burger for lunch.

I ordered The Grateful Veg with a fried egg on top and a side of baby broccoli. The restaurant's housemade quinoa-sunflower seed burger was topped with cheddar cheese, shaved red onion, roasted tomato, baby arugula, green goddess dressing, and avocado. This was one OUTSTANDING veggie burger, filled with unique textures and mouthwatering flavors! Lenny joined up with us after he finished work, and we headed over to happy hour at the open, airy, and pretty Max's Oyster Bar (same owners as the burger spot!). We enjoyed some bubbly champagne and oysters (I opted out of the oysters because, #shellfish).

After freshening up and hanging out for a bit at L and C's house, we headed out to dinner at the Italian restaurant Treva in West Hartford.

Our super engaging server was born and raised in Italy and full of fun, informative facts! We started off with a delicious bottle of red wine, and some of the restaurant's complimentary rustic bread with olive oil.

For our first round of food, we ordered the restaurant's burrata.

I adore burrata, and this one ranks high on my list. The inside of the cheese gave off a textured, almost cottage cheese-like consistency. The flavor was light and slightly tangy, and paired wonderfully with some roasted peppers and arugula salad. It was delicious!

For the next round of food, we split the arancini.

Another crowd-pleaser, these golden-fried rice balls were stuffed with luxardo cherries and more delicious burrata. The sweet/salty combo that resulted was lovely!

For my final round of food, I couldn't not order the restaurant's tonnarelli cacio e pepe.

(If you know of my love affair with Coltivare's version, you understand why).

Treva's version was a bit heartier, with thicker noodles and a more syrupy olive oil. It was smooth, simple, and really wonderful!

The next day was our day of hopping around (aka eating food around) the state of Connecticut AND Massachusetts! We started off with breakfast at Goldberg's in West Hartford (as recommended to me by my friend Lauren).

I ordered a jalapeño cheddar everything bagel with scallion cream cheese (say that ten times fast), and it was EVERYTHING. Fluffy, oozy, melty, tangy, spicy, and absolutely GLORIOUS, eating it was essentially a religious experience.

After that, we headed to New England Brewing Co. near New Haven to taste some local beers!

I'm not even anywhere close to being any sort of beer expert, but these beers were REALLY good. And the tasting space was small, but super fun!

After that we decided we hadn't had enough bread, so we were off to the restaurant Frank Pepe for some authentic New Haven pizza!

We ordered a tasty house salad, which meant the whole experience was healthy of course.

For our main course of food, we split two pies: One was half tomato pie/half mozzarella, while the other was half pepperoni/half mushroom, garlic, and onion. New Haven pizza really is in its own category of pizza. It's a thinner, crispier, slightly sweeter version of New York pizza, and I really really enjoyed it! The mozzarella pizza was a nice introduction to this style of pizza, but the tomato pie and the mushroom/garlic/onion versions were tied as my favorites. While other tomato pies I've had in the past had no cheese at all, Frank Pepe's version had a very small amount, which allowed the sweet tomato sauce to shine without being overpowering. And the veggie pizza was simply outstanding. The caramelized veggies were wonderful atop the crispy, almost-burnt crust! I even had some later that night (and maybe accidentally bit into a pepperoni that somehow ended up on my slice? Oops. I didn't freak out too much though).

After we had finished filling ourselves up on [more] bread and beer, we headed up (over? down? I'm terrible at geography) to Worcester, Massachusetts to see the band We & Mrs. Jones play at Nick's (fun fact, a scene from American Hustle was filmed there!). L and C's friend Madelyn is the lead singer of the band, and she is AWESOME.

Actually, we got to witness one of her final shows before going into retirement to have a baby! It was so seriously great.

I sipped on a sturdy martini ('natch), and we also ordered some food to share - a giant pretzel, along with a no-frills cheese plate. The pretzel came with a side of - wait for it - CREAM CHEESE, which seriously completed my life. The cheese plate was massive, and really just what we needed (MORE CARBS).

The next day, Jon and I headed back home to Houston, but not before stopping at Total Wine, the rest of the country's response to Spec's. And it was glorious.

And that concludes our trip! It was a whirlwind of an awesome weekend with great friends, great food, and great fun in West Hartford and beyond!

I should probably have some more bread now.

Leave a Comment bagels, bars, beer, breakfast, burgers, dinner, drinks, food, hartford, italian, lunch, new haven, pasta, pizza, restaurants, travel, vacation days, vegetarian, worcester

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