Andrea "W" R.'s Profile

And yet another breakfast joint I wouldn't dare visiting during the weekend in fear of a several hour wait...

The fab 4 (myself, colleen c, johnny t and jelena z) waited for about 10 minutes on a Friday afternoon so imagine how busy they get on Saturdays/Sundays. Yikes!

I found the menu to be a bit overwhelming, but finally decided on the whole grain pancakes. Pancakes yet healthy...kinda.  And just minutes after our coffee had been poured....our food arrived from the kitchen. Wow, if they are this fast I may give it a try on the weekend.

My pancakes were uh-mazing and the fruit/whip cream proved to be the perfect topping.  Other seemed to enjoy their orders as well, except for Jelena who mentioned she wouldn't order her healthy wrap next time. Noted- "healthy' multi-grain pancakes are the way to go.

Oh, and if you're feeling extra adventurous order a smoothie because I was quite jealous of Johnny's.  Maybe next time. ;)

Our latest Mexican restaurant comes from NY.  Say what? Last time I checked The Big Apple had a long way to go when it comes to good Mexican food.  Wouldn't a bagel shop from NY make more sense? Me thinks so, but color me wrong because it turns out Mercadito is quite good.

My friend and I arrived on a Thursday night and this place was hopping. This is apparently the new "it" spot in town so I'd recommend a reservation well ahead of time. Fortunately they had a lovely booth table waiting for us.

First up- drinks! Duh.  Friend knows where it's at and went right for a margarita, while I ordered a glass of wine.  The waiter tried to stray me away from the wine and towards the margarita section of the menu, but work awaited me later in the night....and I've learned the hard way that tequila is not my friend when there's work to be done.  My wine was good, but the taste of margarita I had was fabulous...next time I dine at Mercadito I'll be ready to get my tequila party on.

Next up- appetizer! Smart friend commented that the yelpers seemed to enjoy the ceviche and so scallop ceviche it was.  Um, awesome! One of the better ceviches I've had the pleasure of ordering.

The finale- tacos! Fortunately I had picked another pescatarian to dine with so the decision to split the shrimp and tilapia tacos was not a difficult one to make. The tacos were a big smaller than I had imagined, but both of them were winners! I'd order the same thing next time, although there were a few other types of tacos that caught my eye.

No dessert this time, but have to admit I was tempted to order one of their margaritas on fire (no joke).  I shall be back, but next time I won't be silly enough to say no to a margarita or two.

I seem to discover a Cru in every city I visit...and I love them all.  After some quick research on their website I've discovered the reason for this- they are all sister wine bars!

This Cru was a bit on the fancy side, but we made ourselves quite comfortable at a table for 4.  It just happened to be half price champagne bottle night (lucky us).  The champagne was delightful.  The only thing that could make the experience more perfect was a cheese plate (mmm). There was plenty of cheese on the menu to choose from, but soon after finishing our bottle we had to meet our colleagues at another bar.

Hopefully you're lucky enough to experience the Denver Cru for yourself, but if not they also have locations in Dallas, Austin and Houston.

While I've never been officially diagnosed, I'm known to be a bit ADD. And sitting thru any show for 3 hours can drive me absolutely bonkers.  When the show happens to have a slightly annoying host it can really drive ya insane.

However, it wasn't all bad at Lannie. The good:
* Our waitress (who had the most impressive cleavage I've ever seen) brought us a tasty bottle of champagne
* My colleagues bought me a tiara to wear and I LOVE tiaras (it's a princess thing). It was my lucky night cause those wearing tiaras were given a special shot from the bartender. Mine tasted like cough syrup. Ick
* Some of the burlesque acts were quite entertaining...my favorite was the ariel dancer.

I left with a few of my other ADD colleagues at intermission, but I was told that the 2nd half of the show was better.....or perhaps it was all that champagne that made it extra fun.

I've been reading the delish sounding reviews for Rioja about a year now and finally got to see what all the fuss was about during a recent trip to Denver.

The fuss starts with the bread.  A slice of lavender and a goat cheese roll for this carb addict. Um, yum!  I would have been happy eating just their bread for dinner, but the appetizers and entrees proved to be pretty tasty as well. .  For appetizers we ordered a bunch for the table- ahi tuna, flat bread pizza, calamari and some very interesting type of bacon.  Flat bread pizza and calamari were my faves- oh so good!

When scallops are on the menu I tend to order them...and I made no exception at Rioja. While not the best scallops I've had in my lifetime they were pretty good and I loved the side that came with it: hazelnut phyllo, carrot & parsnip puree. I want this to be the side for all my future entrees please.

I stuck with a glass of Riesling (pretty good), but I did get a sip of some of the martinis at the table...and next time I'll definitely be ordering one of those!

No time for dessert at Rioja (sad), but we did get to drink our dessert while watching a burlesque show soon after.

It's not just pilates anymore! And phew- I've been over the pilates craze for awhile now.  Pilates of Boca (West) has opened an attached room for a variety of other classes including xtend (ballet, core workout), boot camp and spinning!  And in my 2 days back home I managed to hit all of the above.  

Stephanie (the owner) taught my xtend and spinning classes and she's an unbelievable instructor. She also played great music during spinning, the key to any good spinning class.  I was excited to hear some of the songs featured in my new favorite show, Glee (i heart)! And Nicole's boot camp class proved to be a great workout that worked some new muscles. Felt those the next day- OUCH!

They offer all sorts of different packages, but my mom has opted for the $300/month unlimited class package. It seems a bit expensive to me, but she takes approximately 7 classes a week so I guess it's worth it.

$105/night was well spent here.  Townhouse is located right on the South Beach trip. It's also clean, spacious rooms and they have real down comforters. Oh, and I can't forget to mention their heavenly rooftop, but more about that in a bit.

And yes, it's definitely missing some of the luxuries you may find at the Lowes and other nearby hotels. A few examples:
* When I asked for a workout room they informed me they had 1 cardio machine (stairmaster or bike) in the hallway of each floor. He wasn't kidding- there was one right at the end of my hallway! I opted for a morning run on the boardwalk instead.
* While they provide shower gel and lotion in the bathrooms, no shampoo or conditioner. Not a big deal for me since I travel with my own (picky when it comes to my hair), but I"d imagine others would appreciate a bottle of shampoo

My fab colleagues and I took over their penthouse as meeting space for the week.  It was a comfortable room and it just happened to be connected to their uhmazing rooftop filled with ginormous water beds.  We'd run outside between meetings for a few minutes of sun. Quite heavenly for a Chicagoan like me to get such sun in November!

I probably wouldn't come back here if I was vacationing in South Beach, but it served our purposes just fine for this work trip.

Worried about celebrating your next bday? Visit this Costco in Boca Raton!

I arrived at 9:45am on a Monday morning and patiently waited outside among the elderly until they opened their doors at 10am.  I'm pretty sure I was the youngest person there....by at least 50 years.

I'll be paying them another visit before my 30th for sure!

Getting pampered makes me hungry! Who am I kidding? Everything makes me hungry! After a spa day at the Mondrian hotel my mom and I were ready for dinner...at 5:30pm. You know when you're ready for dinner at 5:30pm you've been spending too much time at the early bird specials in Boca.

Our options:
Joe's Stone Crab (yum)- 1 hr wait. At 5:30 on a Sunday? Insane!
Asia de Cuba- they don't serve dinner until 7pm

And so we ended up just down the street at Oliver's.  We tried our best to order healthy and settled on the grilled calamari and then the very thin chicken breast with a salad. The chicken breast actually did have a fancy name, but it's escaping my mind right now.

The grilled calamari was really good. The rings were very thin  and I loved the 2 sauces that came with it...so much that I dipped my bread in it as well (there goes the healthy plan). The chicken breast was a bit plain at first, but then put my salad on top of it...and it was quite flavorful.  

Our meal turned out to be much less expensive than Joe's and probably a lot healthier than anything we'd find on Asia de Cuba's menu. Thanks to Oliver for feeding us early bird special lovers.

Something very sad happened earlier this year.  My absolute favorite boutique in my hometown, Frayda K, closed their doors. Horribly sad.

A few weeks ago my mom emailed me that she couldn't wait for my upcoming visit to come visit because a new boutique had opened in Frayda K's place.  Welcome to Boca, Berlue!

It didn't take my mom and I long to run over to Berlue to see if it would live up to the Frayda K hype. Unfortunately, Berlue was closed on this Saturday because they were preparing for their grand opening celebration later that evening. They were also closed on Sunday and Monday (their usual schedule)...and I'd be leaving town on Monday night. So what's a gal to do? Show up at their grand opening party of course- duh!

We had the fam over for an early dinner that night and when the clock struck 7pm we were shooing people out the door because we had a party to attend!  However, my fellow shopaholic grandma is not one to miss a boutique opening...and so grams came along.

We pulled up to the party, walked the red carpet (they really had one) and even had our photo taken. Wow- they sure know how to throw a party! My grandma proudly commented that she was the oldest person at the party...and that my mom was lucky she came along or she would have been the oldest. I looked around and realized that if my mom and grandma had stayed home I would probably have been the oldest too. Yikes!

Since I had already had a homecooked meal (thanks mom!) and some wine at home I skipped the delicious looking appetizers and martinis and went straight for the cloths. I discovered some designers/brands most of us know pretty well- Betsy Johnson, Nicole miller, BCBG to name a few. There was one cool Betsy Johnson military jacket just screaming "buy me, buy me."

Besides the women's clothing I also found lots of men;s clothing (too trendy for my conversative hubby), mirrors, and accessories. It seemed to be a mish mosh of things and I found myself they'd just stick to the women's clothing.

The party was a bit too crazy to make any purchases (next time Besty Johnson), but I'd be up for checking out their merchandise during my next trip.  It's no Frayda K, but I'm sure I could discover a few things here to add to my closet.