The Happy Tummy List

Ciao Bella! For our adventure earlier this month, we decided to try  The Red Hen restaurant, located in the cozy Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, DC. The restaurant is situated on the corner of the street (at 1st St and Seaton Pl NW) and almost impossible to miss. One of the fascinating things about The Red Hen is that they only save a few of their tables for reservations for parties of up to 8 people, so keep that in mind if you plan to check this place out. On this beautiful and cold Friday night we sprinted from work and arrived there at 5:25pm, which was perfect because the restaurant opened at 5:30pm. There was a small group of hungry folks waiting outside for the restaurant to open, which was entertaining until we felt that brisk wind in our faces. As soon as the restaurant opened their doors, we were immediately welcomed by a friendly hostess and sat down at table with really heavy chairs (both of us found it incredibly funny that the chairs were so heavy). After s...

It has been a while since our last post, but so much has happened! Simone is now a married woman! Simone and Joe tied the knot in earlier this month and are now Mr. and Mrs.! The wedding ceremony was beautiful, and the reception was a really great time. Now that things are mostly back to reality, we are excited to get back to our blog! Our next adventure is a couple of weeks away, so until then, we wanted to share another recipe with you that you may want to make at home. And the best part of this recipe? It is easy, delicious, and all of the cooking is done by the crockpot! This blog post is all about Slow Cooker Jambalaya. We both really enjoy jambalaya; and in fact, it is one of Simone's favorite dishes. Simone is a subscriber to Budget Bytes and received a Slow Cooker Jambalaya  recipe one day and could not resist! After reviewing the recipe, Simone decided to add two more boneless, skinless chicken thighs because hunger is real. This recipe yielded a lot more food than exp...

It has been a while since we've published a blog post -- sorry, friends! With the start of a new academic year, a new job for Damien, and continued wedding planning for Simone, we have both been a bit swamped lately. But we have definitely missed our blog and are excited to be back! At the very end of August we ventured out into Washington, DC for brunch at Boqueria . Boqueria is located in the Dupont neighborhood of DC on M St. NW and is a very popular restaurant that offers fresh Spanish tapas. We are grateful that we had a reservation for brunch, as it was packed when we arrived and was busy for the entire time that we were there. We would highly recommend making a reservation if you decide to check this place out for brunch. Boqueria has two options for brunch: a Bottomless Brunch option and an A La Carte brunch option. We opted to partake in Boqueria's bottomless brunch. Our Review: Since Boqueria offers tapas style dishes for brunch and we shared everything, it made ...

Summer is slowly winding down and we can't believe it. Fortunately, these are the perfect days to enjoy some of the best things about summer and the DMV, and one of those things is brunch. On the very last day of July we ventured into Washington, DC to enjoy brunch at Takoda , which is located at the beginning of the U Street corridor on 7th Street and Florida Avenue NW. Upon entering Takoda, we ventured upstairs to the main dinning area to be seated. There is a beautiful beer garden and roof top area for drinks and food as well, but it was too hot and humid outside so we opted for the downstairs dining area instead. If you enjoy the outdoors, a beautiful city view, and fresh air, then grab a seat upstairs on the rooftop which is open year-round - it is definitely beautiful up there! Simone's Review: Our waitress was incredibly sweet and offered us the Mimosa specials when we sat down. The mimosas are half priced ($6) during brunch, so we opted for individual mimosas versu...

Earlier this month we ventured out into Washington, DC for some happy hour and dinner action at Mulebone , which is located on 14th Street NW (right across from Busboys and Poets). Given its location, Mulebone is within a relatively short walk of the U St. Metro Station, but we drove and lucked out in finding a parking spot directly across the street from the restaurant (Simone almost cried tears of joy!). We planned this #HappyTummyList adventure weeks in advance, but neither of us could have imagined that we would be reeling from the news of the vicious murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille that day. In many ways, this happy hour gave us a space to talk through these incredibly tragic events and support one another. It is really difficult to comprehend how and why these atrocities are happening in 2016. Seriously, #blacklivesmatter, y'all. But thankfully, Mulebone provided us with a great venue to enjoy some delicious food and drinks. And in much needed and fantastic...

The semester was over and it was time to PARTY! We headed down to the Navy Yard area of Washington, DC (right by Nationals Park) to Truckeroo in May for some tasty fun in the sun. Truckeroo is a monthly, outdoor festival held on Fridays in the warm months of the year featuring approximately 25 DC-based food trucks, tasty drinks, and live music, and it is free to enter! We both had the day off, and it couldn't have been a nicer day outside (finally!), so we really lucked out! We arrived to Truckeroo a little before noon and thankfully there weren't too many people there, which meant we had the time and space to really enjoy the experience. After scoping out all of the food trucks that were there, we decided to go to  Swizzler first. Both of us had seen Swizzler pop up on a few Instagram accounts that we follow, so we were excited to finally get to try them. We ordered the Leonardo Dog Vinci and the Feast Mode, and shared the Parmesan Truffle Fries. The fries were great, bu...