nattysbestlife

L’ours Bakery + Eatlay Chicago- Biata

March 6, 2019August 7, 2020by nattysbestlife1 Comment

I was off on Valentine’s Day this year and had the perfect day! It started with a coffee at L’OURS BAKERY COFFEE. Definitely a cute coffee shop centrally located in Little Italy. It was pretty large, great work space for those who want to study or work from home.

Later that night I finally got to go to a popup restaurant at Eatlay Chicago called Biata. The restaurant concept was the Italian Alps: MELTED CHEESES AND WARM WINES! I was pretty much in heaven during dinner!

The decor and ambiance was beautiful, super cozy and warm, literally felt like we were in a cabin.

The warm wine was yummy! I didn’t think I would be a fan of warm wine, but I was quiet pleased with it. The cheese/ food was absolutely amazing. It was very rich and CHEESY but that’s my favorite, so I wasn’t complaining.

Desert wasn’t an option after a meal like that, I was way to full to have anything else! Definitely a great experience!

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Chicago Food Crawl

S.K.Y.

March 5, 2019August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

Since it was restaurant week, we wanted to try a new restaurant and S.K.Y. was on the Chicago Top 50 restaurant list. Although they didn’t have a restaurant week menu we wanted to try it anyways.

We started with drinks and appetizers. Everything was family style and we placed our whole order at once and the kitchen timed it out for us. We started with cornbread madeleines and black truffle croquettes.

We then got Maine lobster dumplings, pasta regu which was an off the menu special and organic fried chicken, which seemed to be a crowd favorite when we looked up the menu.

We had saved just enough room for some dessert. We decided to get a green tea dessert served with caramel donuts, some of our favorite things in one dessert.

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Chicago Food Crawl

etta

March 4, 2019August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

While my cousin was in town from Seattle we all decided to have family dinner at etta. I had been wanting to try this place for a while now so I was super excited to go! The restaurant is located in Bucktown, so it’s a further trip for us, but well worth it!

The minute we walked in, we loved it. It was very aesthetically pleasing. We had 9:45pm reservations, but it was packed when we walked in so had to wait. However they were nice enough to give us complimentary champagne while waiting for our table.

We started with the fire-baked focaccia served with ricotta honey & truffle, and the spicy meatballs and ricotta pillows (2 orders) which I would highly recommend! Then we followed up with 3 pastas, 2 pizzas and 2 proteins for the 6 of us. The menu is intended to be family style, so it’s a great place to go with a larger group! I think it was safe to say we ordered too much food.

Everything came out as it was ready, and it was fresh and tasted amazing. They timed it well in the kitchen, we had exactly enough time to enjoy each plate before the next one came out. I think that this may be a summer date night spot in the near future.

Unfortunately, we were too full for dessert but the dessert menu looked very good.

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Chicago Food Crawl

Vol. 39

March 2, 2019August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

It’s always nice to find a new spot and fall in love with it! We decided to try Vol. 39 and walking it we appreciated the ambiance, definitely our vibe. Their charcuterie menu looked awesome but we had dinner plans for restaurant week, so we stuck to drinks. They had an extensive Old Fashioned list, and one that stood out was the Vol. 39, a $35 drink. I got a classic cocktail, and I couldn’t resist and he got the Vol. 39.

We decided to stay for a second round, and the bartender created a nice floral cocktail for me, off the menu.

We loved this spot and can’t wait to come back! I think the next time we are going to try the small plates.

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Cooking with Natty

Egg fried “rice”

February 28, 2019August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

Today I decided to make egg fried rice without rice. I substituted the rice with Green Giant Riced Broccoli and Cauliflower mix. They have a variety of different riced veggie combos, just use the one you want. The whole bag of “rice” has 80 calories! That’s what makes this recipe so healthy and low in calories.

Ingredients:

Low sodium soy sauce
Sesame oil
3-4 eggs
1 package of microwavable frozen mixed veggies
1 package of riced veggies
1 onion
1 garlic clove

The prep time was about 15-20 minutes! Warm up the sesame oil in a pan, add the chopped onion and garlic and cooked it for about 5 minutes, turn down the heat right before the onion becomes caramelized. In a separate pan cook the riced veggies, this also takes about 5 minutes. Add the microwaved veggies to the onion/garlic mixture. Push this mixture to the side of the pan and use the other half of the pan to scramble 3-4 eggs (I used 3 this time). Once the eggs are cooked, add the riced veggies and add soy sauce to taste. I didn’t add salt to this recipe because the soy sauce is enough sodium for me, but if you feel you need to add salt, just salt to taste.

It is a very simple recipe and tastes amazing. We ate right away, but I am excited to make this again on a Sunday and use it as my lunch for a few days!

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Chicago Food Crawl

The Violet Hour + Pub Royale

February 27, 2019August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

We always love to plan elaborate date nights, and we try to hit up as many spots as we can in one night. This time we decided to start at The Violet Hour. A speakeasy I have always wanted to go to. A friend had mentioned that it is quite inside, but it was surprisingly loud that evening, there was even loud music music playing!

Our next stop was dinner, we went to Pub Royale since it was in the same neighborhood as Violet Hour. They had good Indian food as well as Indian fusion food at the restaurant.

We started with an order with the vegetable samosas and the lamb dumplings.

For dinner we split the Pub Royale burger. It was a pretty good burger with spicy pickles and masala aioli.

The desert menu had chai tea dulce de leche donut holes, so naturally we had to order it, also one of the more popular drinks on the menu was a dressed up Hamm’s, which was an interesting twist on beer.

We had a successful date night to say the least!

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Travel

Weekend Rendezvous in New York

February 25, 2019August 26, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

I absolutely love New York, it is a fun city to visit but I don’t think I would be able to live there. I think it is just too crowded and too busy for me. I decided it was time to have a quick weekend trip to New York. There were flight delays to New York, as per usual, and I was miraculously able to get on the 5:10 pm flight after work since it was delayed. Fortunately I didn’t have to wait for my 8:35 pm flight which had been pushed to 10pm!

I landed in New York earlier than anticipated, and was able to enjoy Friday night. I dropped my bag off at the hotel and met friends at Buddakan. The evening was filled with good food and good company.

We decided to continue the night and go out for 1 more drink at The Empire Rooftop. We were one of the only ones on the rooftop, it was beautiful. They had the rooftop enclosed for the winter so it was nice and cozy.

The next day, Saturday, was a beautiful and sunny day. I made my way to Best Bagel and Coffee in New York to get an everything bagel with jalapeno cream cheese. Later that morning, we met friends up for brunch at Baar Baar. The indian fusion food was one of my favorites from the weekend! I don’t usually like fusion restaurants, but they did a good job. There was also a DJ there!

The rest of the day we had a food and drink crawl around the city! Our first stop was Mr. Purple, on the 15th floor of Hotel Indigo in the Lower East Side. The ambiance was amazing, also there was a hot tub on the roof that hotel guests could use.

Our next spot was dessert! We decided to go to Stuffed for some ice cream + donuts! After dessert we went to Holiday Cocktail Lounge for another drink, it was a dive bar walking distance from Stuffed.

At this point, it was time for more food. We went to Artichoke Pizza. NO JOKE… this is my favorite pizza in the whole world! We got the original artichoke pizza as well as the vodka sauce pizza. Not sure which one I liked more actually. They were both amazing.

We had time for one more spot before heading back to our hotel, so we decided to go to The Belfry. It was beautiful in there, lots of mini lights and greenery. I had my first pickleback shot and it was shockingly good!

After The Belfry, we went back to the hotel and got ready for the evening. I met my cousin and her husband for dinner at Barbounia. We had a quick photo shoot on our hotel rooftop before heading to dinner. After dinner, we went to my favorite bar in New York, Park Avenue Winter. They seasonally change the inside of the restaurant, not just the decor, they paint the inside a different color! I have been to Spring and Summer as well and it is always so well decorated.

After drinks, we decided to meet our friends back up in Time Square. We went to Bar 54 on the Hyatt Rooftop. They actually just had installed heated igloos on their rooftop earlier that week. After that, we ended our night at Magic Hour before getting late night food and heading back to the hotel. The next morning, we met our friends up for brunch at Black Barn.

After brunch we decided to go hang out inside Restoration Hardware for the rest of the afternoon before heading to the airport. It was a great end to a wonderful weekend!

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Chicago Food Crawl

Tea Time

February 17, 2019August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

After coming home from Costa Rica, I wanted to take my sister out for her birthday since we missed Christmas Eve. She wanted to do a tea time so I decided to take her to The Allis in SoHo House. The Allis has tea time every afternoon. We decided to do the Sparkling Afternoon Tea. We got a tower filled with finger sandwiches, scones, a selection of fancy cakes, tea and a glass of prosecco!

After Tea Time, we kept the afternoon going, and went to a new bar down the street called The Darling. It was an adorable bar with great ambiance, and since we got there at 4pm it wasn’t too crowded.

A few weeks later we came back and I ordered the same drink I had gotten before, the Botanical Bees Knees. Ironically it came in a tea set since there is earl grey in the drink. We weren’t up in the ballroom that evening, instead in the library on the first floor located behind the flower wall. It was still a great atmosphere.

Tea time in Chicago was successful that day!

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Cooking with Natty

Homemade Donuts

February 15, 2019August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

First off, there are 2 different kinds of donuts, cake donuts & yeast donuts. Then kind you have that are fluffy and light are the yeast kind that I tried. PSA: yeast donuts take so much longer to make because you have to let the dough rise.

Dough Ingredients:

1 cup milk (I used 2%, but you can also do whole)
1/4 cup/ 1 tsp granulated sugar
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 packet)
4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
6 tbsp melted butter
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
canola oil for frying

Glaze Ingredients

2 cups of powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Warm the milk up, add 1 tsp sugar and the active yeast, let sit/ foam for about 5 minutes. In a bowl, mix the sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, salt and add the yeast mixture after the 5 minutes are up. Slowly incorporate the 4 cups of flour and knead the dough until it is smooth. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let the dough rise for about an hour. This will be a quicker process if you put the bowl in the warmest part of your kitchen.

After an hour, roll the dough into a half inch rectangle and punch out donuts. I didn’t have a donut cutter so I just used an empty can and a medal cap to cut out my holes. Leave the cutouts on a parchment paper, cover with a towel and let it sit for another 40 minutes.

Heat 2 inches of oil to 350 degrees and cook the donuts, about 1 min on each side. I cooled them on a cooling rack. I did 1/3 cinnamon sugar, 1/3 glazed and 1/3 glazed + sprinkles.

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Cooking with Natty

Homemade Focaccia Bread

February 11, 2019August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

Who doesn’t love bread? I LOVE bread, and one of my favorites is probably focaccia bread. I made it for the first time, and decided I am never going to buy focaccia bread again, so much better homemade.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves (2 tsp minced garlic)
1 tsp dry thyme
1 tsp dry rosemary
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 tsp honey
2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp salt

To make to oil: add the olive oil, garlic, thyme, and rosemary in a pot and warm on the stove for about 10 minutes. The oil should not get to a boiling temperature, just warm. The house smelled amazing in about 5 minutes, I just left it on the back burner on warm while I did everything else.

I used a large glass bowl, and added a the cup of water, honey and yeast together and let it sit for about 5 minutes while my oil cooled. I then added 1 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of the oil mixture into the water/yeast/ honey mixture. Finally add the remainder 1 1/2 cups of flour and salt to the mixture.

Knead the dough until it becomes a smooth texture, cover the bowl with a warm towel and let the dough rise for 1 hour. After an hour, preheat the oven to 450. Use a few tsps of the leftover olive oil to oil a 9×13 pan. Push the dough out into the pan. You can use your fingers to make craters on the dough. Pour the remainder of your oil mixture over the top of the pan. Let the pan sit for another 20-30 minutes before baking. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a cooling rack for at least 20 minutes before cutting the bread.