Dating in Dallas

Hello my lovely followers, I want to thank you for sticking with me even though I rarely post these days. Life has been a whirlwind, after getting married, moving, and other life realness blogging got pushed to the back burner.

I have to admit I’ve missed blogging terribly, I’ve missed the routine and creativity and the ability to interact with all of you fine folk. So in an attempt to be more diligent about posting I figured I would start blogging about date days/nights. Since those are my favorite days. Dane and I share quite a love for food and drink, so I have a feeling this blog will pretty much write itself.

To start off the series I figured we’d start with the most important meal of the day: Breakfast! In order to break up routine the hubs and I have decided to try one new restaurant every other date. We decided to do a breakfast date at Yolk.  We’d been eyeballing this place for a while and finally took the plunge today. img_3428img_3427my handsome husband’s second love is coffee and yolk got this snob’s slurp of approval

img_3429I’m boring so it was just water for me. But how cute is that carafe?img_3432img_3430IMG_3437.JPGDane’s meal was The Yolk All Star Combo that he upgraded the pancakes to have the Nutty Monkey Pancakes. The eggs were cooked exactly how Dane likes them, bacon was crisp, the sausage was well seasoned and didnt look like a skimpy dog treat (a common occurrence at many a breakfast joints) the maple syrup had been warmed which is always a nice bonus and the pancakes were fluffy and packed full of peanut butter, banana, and chocolatey goodness. No complaints to be had here.

IMG_3435.JPGThe Yolk’s Chicken and waffles. A bacon waffle, fried chicken, and sausage gravy…Does it get any more southern than this? Well if the chicken had been better yes. Now I thought the waffle was perfect, crispy outside and cloud like fluffiness inside, the sausage gravy was good, but my biggest complaint was against the chicken, the breading wasn’t quite crispy enough to hold up to gravy (a true southern sin) and the seasoning fell a little bit flat. As a Texan I can be bit snooty when it comes to southern staples like fried chicken. All in all I enjoyed my meal, but next time I’d probably just order the waffle sans chicken.

Dane and I certainly enjoyed Yolk, the waitstaff is friendly and attentive, but doesn’t come by your table every two seconds, the interior was fun and hip, and the servings are large so if you wanted to split an entree it could easily be done. I would say Yolk would be an excellent casual breakfast date spot. You don’t feel the need to get too dressed up but if you want to impress your date and wear something a little nicer you absolutely could. The environment isn’t romantic so its very much a no pressure date. Which can be needed sometimes.

So will Dane and I be going back? Yes we will. We enjoyed our time there and the food was pretty good, we’re excited to explore the rest of the menu and see how that stacks up against what we ordered originally.

Again thank you guys for sticking it out and bearing with my dry blogging spell. Let me know if this is a series you’d like to keep seeing. If you’re familiar with the Dallas region be sure to share what recommendations you might have. We’re always looking for more Date night ideas. Cheers!

 

“We’ll Always Have Paris”

WARNING! this post contains a lot of pictures! If you have very little patience for people who feel the need to over-document events in their life this post is not for you!

Hello Guys! Sorry I’ve been MIA for a while, but I have a good excuse…I was helping plan my 20th! Ya I guess that may not be a great excuse…but it’s my party and I’ll slack off if I want to. So normally I never do anything terribly over the top for my birthdays, but for my 20th I wanted to do something with a bit of umph, a fun, slightly glamorous, but still laid back-ish in style party. So I decided I would throw a French (Parisian) inspired dinner party, with some of my closest friends. I had such a blast planning, cooking, and spending time with my great friends! I am sort of a foodie so this party was the perfect excuse for me to cook all of the fussy dishes I wouldn’t normally prepare, like French Macaroons, those are some work! But lucky me I have a loving family so I didn’t have to do a lot of the work on my own. So enough talking I am sure you would much prefer to see what my party looked like so here ya go.

We strung up lights and set the table in the living room, so we had plenty of space.

This is the gorgeous flower arrangement my mother put together, might I add she said she has “never done arrangements before”. So even without training or practice my mother puts Martha Stewart to shame!

These are the awesome posters that we found for 60% off!

We decided to even decorate the front door area!

Our adorable little sandwich board. PS mommy wrote this! How cute is her handwriting?

Now for my favorite part…the food! These are the French Macaroons.

The gorgeous red fondant raspberry cake my mommy made me. Isn’t she just the best?

The delicious cheese tray.

Tapenade in endive leaves.

Our entire cocktail menu. Bloody Mary’s, tapenade in endive, cheese tray, and prosciutto wrapped around cantaloupe and asparagus. It was all incredibly delicious.

Quite possibly the most delish dish I have ever made…Boeuf Bourgingon and mashed potatoes. It was so good my mother who really detests beef, loved this meal like crazy!

Tea and coffee break. I of course had tea yummy 🙂

Then onto dessert cake and Shirley Temple’s.

Gifts! My sweet mommy got me real pearls for my 20th! Cute thing was when she gave me my gift I was wearing my fake pearls 🙂

This necklace was given to me by my very best friend (we’ve been inseparable for the past 11 years). This necklace is either from the late 50’s or early 60’s. And I am not ashamed to say when she gave me this I got pretty choked up.

I also got some other fabulous gifts too, I made out like a bandit, I received some lovely perfume (which I am wearing right now) and some great cards and cash (you can never go wrong with cash is all I am saying).

My great friends and lovely family honestly made this one of the most special birthday’s ever! I love you guys.

So I hope you guys enjoyed my post! And if any of you want the recipe to anything feel free to ask. Have a super happy Monday and a great Valentines. Love you!