Tag Archives: restaurants

TON of Fun at Taste of the Nation Hartford – Part 2

In case you missed it, my Taste of the Nation (Hartford) overall intro and libation recap post went up yesterday! I’m now going to move on to my two favorite parts of the event (and they’ll probably be yours too) – the food and the PEOPLE!

The Food

Some restaurants go with simple white-tablecloth-covered booths, and others go all out. Mill Restaurant Group (responsible for one of my favorite cocktail spots, Market Grille in Manchester) was at the all-out end of the display spectrum!

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MRG’s food quality was all-out as well in both aesthetics and taste! Check out these awesome chilled soup shooters served on slate…

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TON of Fun at Taste of the Nation Hartford – Part 1

As we continue to mourn the tragedy at the Boston Marathon this past Monday, I know many hearts are still heavy. I’m continuing to blog about “typical” topics today, and hope that this post will provide some distraction for those whose minds remain troubled and disturbed by the attack.

I feel like comparing my (now) two Share Our Strength Taste of the Nation experiences – last year I went to New Haven and this past Thursday I went to Hartford – would be silly because the obvious answer is that I had the best time this year. So that’s why I will be splitting this into two posts, because as I’ve been working on writing this for the last several DAYS, I’ve realized that one post will be way too long and crash everyone’s Internets with all the photos.

When glasses attack!

When glasses attack!

But that’s because of how much I’ve grown as a blogger! Both events had crazy amazing food and drink and not enough time (or stomach room or blood alcohol tolerance) to try everything.

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WIAW: Additional Florida Edition

Oo bet that title confused you just a little bit, huh? Stay quick on your feet folks, because this post will be speedy. I miss blogging so much and have not felt at all satisfied with what I have had time to post which is not much. I had a nice chat with my girl Meg about this yesterday – I also miss reading and commenting on all of YOUR wonderful blogs. But it also doesn’t do me any good to place stress on myself and try to make time for everything, because then what I do end up doing will suffer. I would rather do a few things to my best ability, and right now my top priorities are school and (alas, as much as I hate to say it) work. Hey, I gotta pay the restaurant bills. I have so much more than just FL vacation food recaps to share – there’s a lot of feelings associated with that food and the vacation and my birthday. I hope I will get to go deeper into that soon.

For now though I’m going to quickly use What I Ate Wednesday to recap my eats during my latest vacation to Florida. Alas I haven’t even had time to upload my camera photos so I only have Instagram photos to share for now but will try to share camera pics later when I discuss my feelings on the vacation food/drinks. I’ve recapped FL eats before in this photo-dump manner and it seemed to work well! So let’s get this Jenn-hosted party underway. I landed in Florida on Sunday afternoon 3/24 after some bothersome flight delays, and wasted no time stocking our condo with…provisions.

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Birthday Dinner at Max Downtown

Thanks for putting up with my spotty blogging the last couple of weeks! I hope now that the pre-vacation work rush and during-vacation relaxation has passed, I will get back into my routine, including regular blogging!

I still have some Max Restaurant Group establishments to cross off my list, but I selected their ritziest, Max Downtown, for my 24th birthday celebration dinner. My birthday was on 3/22 and this dinner occurred the weekend before that, but vacation and a last MBA semester typically result in late recaps such as this post, so forgive me!

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I (obviously) invited my parents to this special dinner, as well as my best friend Lidia! My dad was kind enough to me and my mom off while he ventured out to find downtown Hartford parking (hey, we were cold!) so I had some time to take some shots of the restaurant’s lovely interior while we waited.

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Barcelona Meets Mendoza: Wine Dinner

Last week (Wednesday 3/13) I had the pleasure of attending Barcelona Wine Bar’s latest wine dinner at their West Hartford location – La Vendimia de Mendoza. Funny enough, it fell on the same day that the new pope – from Argentina – was chosen! Fancy that.

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The moment I arrived I knew it’d be a wino’s dream evening. The menu listed SIX different wines that we’d be sampling. Keep in mind the event came with food too, and only cost $45 per person (plus tax and gratuity)!

ALL THE WINE.

ALL THE WINE.

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For Love of Fairfield

I’ve already showed Kaitlin (of For Love of Carrots) my turf, and the time came this past weekend for her to show me hers – Fairfield County! I visited her from Saturday evening to Sunday afternoon and she showed me a great time. Then again, I knew she would since our tastes are so similar! Prime example number one – we both wore black tops, black shoes, jeans, and statement necklaces to dinner.

Saturday Night

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I borrowed the necklace from Kaitlin, the queen of statement necklaces!

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MIMM: Weekend Edition

It occurred to me yesterday while I was in a bit of a late afternoon funk that my weekend as pretty darn marvelous. So let’s focus on the positives on this Monday, with Katie‘s weekly celebration.

Marvelous is…Huffington Post Women‘s Twitter account tweeting my National Eating Disorders Awareness Week blog post on Friday morning. Um, holy. For them to think I’m worthy of a spot on their feed is a true honor. And all of your reactions in the comments and on Twitter were marvelous as well. Thank you!

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Judgment Day is April 5 at CT Cookoff!

Ah, the moment I know many of you have been waiting for…the giveaway winner of the Albion Go Long Crew tee! I wore mine again last night to Group Power!

Hot pink, ball out.

Thank you for your enthusiastic, thumbhole-lovin participation. The winner (chosen by random.org) is…

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Millwright’s Tavern Tuesdays!

Thanks to the local foodies who entered my Taste of the Nation Hartford giveaway! Out of 44 entries, the winner is…

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Kristen of Been There, Run That! Congrats and I will be contacting you about how you will receive your two free passes to the April 11 event.

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Taste of the Nation Hartford Giveaway!

I can still remember the first time I read Bobbi’s Taste of the Nation recap several years ago when I first stumbled upon healthy living blogs. Then I noticed other bloggers doing recaps too of the same event, just in their areas. To me, attending a Share Our Strength Taste of the Nation event just screamed “I AM A BLOGGING FOODIE!” So when I had the chance to attend in New Haven last year, I was over the moon and ended up being far from disappointed.

I couldn’t make it to the Hartford tasting, so I did a blog post spreading the word about the great and tasty cause. I had the chance to interview committee members, and this year I am actually working with them directly to once again promote this year’s Taste of the Nation Hartford on Thursday April 11, 6-9pm, at 960 Main Street.

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