Tag: Alcohol

Food Alert: A Weekend in Grand Rapids.

Yes, you read that right, it’s our time to shine! Grand Rapids has a lot different options when it comes to food and drinks and there’s always something new coming. Even though I’ve lived here my whole life, I’m not even close to trying everything, but it’s one place at a time. Follow me into a two day foodie/drink weekend! #GREats

On Saturday, I met up with my friends at Butcher’s Union for some food and drinks before work. Butcher’s Union is one of my favorite places to go, it’s so cute in there and the servers are always friendly. We enjoyed some Brussel Sprouts for our appetizers, which is my favorite appetizer there. Then I got the White Chicken Chili. (Yes, I only got soup to eat. If you don’t remember in the last post, I really don’t have much stomach room haha) I did wash it down the a nice Watermelon Mojito. It was the perfect drink to end the summer weather and season with.

On Sunday, I went on a food and drink adventure. Every place was so good and I had very good company! 😉
It started at Royals, this cute little brunch diner. It was a recommended by another one of my friends and he was not wrong at all. The food there was very good and the drinks sounded delicious! I unfortunately went out to brunch hungover, so I wasn’t ready to start off with some drinks at our first stop.

Our seconds stop was to one of my favorite rooftop bars here in Grand Rapids, Haute at New Mertens Hotel Rooftop Bar. It’s has the perfect view 360 view of our downtown and the drinks are always good. The menu changes through out the year, so it’s never the same drinks, which makes it so fun to come back. They are open besides during winter, but a cold fall night? No problem, they have space heaters, fires and before the pandemic, blankets. There’s just something about having drinks while the sunsets in downtown.
This visit, the drinks are customizable spritzers. You choose your base, then they add champagne and fizzy water and there! Your drink is born! We got the Lillet Blanc.

We went to a candle making bar after the Haute, then decided to check out this new restaurant for dinner that opened called Tupelo Honey. It is so cute inside and out and the drinks and food are just as pleasing! We couldn’t have a Sunday funday without a mimosa, so we each got the Sweet and Tart mimosa size mega of course! A grapefruit with blueberry puree mimosa. It’s exactly like the name, very sweet and tart. They also use paper straws here and WE LOVE THAT. I really wish I wasn’t so hurt cause I definitely would have ordered another drink to try. This won’t be my last time here though, but let’s get to the food!

So everything sounded so delicious, we went in on Tupelo Honey. In the video, are only the appetizers that we ordered. We got the Fried Okras, Crispy Brussels, and the Mac & Cheese Bites. They were all so good and mouth watering. I’ve just discovered Okras this year, so I had to those, but the Mac & Cheese Bites were my favorite. Who just doesn’t like mac & cheese??
Everyone that has gone here recommends their fried chicken, so for the main entree I ordered their Fried Sweet and Spicy Chicken sandwich. It comes with a potato bun and have NEVER tasted any buns like it. Please use potato buns for every sandwich and burger now! These buns will change your life. Anyways, the honey sriracha on the sandwich was really good. It lives up to the hype!

I was so full this day, when I got home at 6 pm, I took a big food coma nap. I’m pretty sure the nap lasted 4 hours. I had a lot of fun though and it was such a fun adventurous day with my friends. Three things that I love, my friends, food, and drinks. It’s all just L O V E. Like I mentioned before, there’s so much more for me to try here in Grand Rapids, so expect more of these! There’s so many places already and there’s still more coming in and I think it’s so awesome. Very lucky to be in a growing city! I love Grand Rapids, I really do. Until next time though!

FUN FACT: Grand Rapids is also know as Beer City in the United States! We have tons of breweries here, so I’ll introduce some of my favorite places to you guys soon!

SALLY ♡ T

Food Alert: Orlando, Florida

For the past few weeks, I’ve been eating waaaay to good for my own good. Just food and drinks after another. I LOVE FOOD, but I do not have a big appetite and get full off of a couple of bites. It’s so hard to be a food lover when you can only eat a few bites. Maybe one day it’ll all change and I can just stuff my face, but let’s get into the yummies!

Let’s start off with some of the food that my boyfriend and I ate. We started the trip with some pizza from Flippers Pizza and they did not disappoint at all. We got their Hog & Honey pizza which had ricotta cheese and local raw honey drizzle. That combo was just the best that I have ever had. I was way too excited to eat it, I didn’t even take a picture like I usually would haha. If you are in the area, try it! I love trying new pizza combos.

The second day, we went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The food everywhere in this park smelled so yummy and I wish I could have eaten everything! One thing that caught our attention was the Satu’li Canteen at Pandora – The World of Avatar. What a hearty breakfast we had that day. We got these Na’vi cultured or inspired protein bowls where you choose your base, protein and then sauce. I got a potato base, steak and a creamy herb sauce and my boyfriend got the same, but with a noodle base. It was so delicious, the sauce was filled with flavored and you didn’t need much of it for the whole bowl.

Next and probably not to your surprise, but we decided to get some nice cold alcoholic beverages! You can find this drink stand in Asia, right next to the Expedition Everest ride. It was in the early to mid 90’s with the craziest humidity, so you bet we got a lot of cold beverages or ice creams. Plus, who wouldn’t enjoy some booze at Disney World? That’s pretty much the added bonus of going to Disney as an adult.
I enjoyed a nice snow leopard lemonade and my boyfriend got a delicious Yeti slush. I couldn’t gone about the day with out a boomerang cheers!

After a day at Animal Kingdom, we got some all you can eat Korean BBQ from Izziban Sushi & BBQ. That was our second time there, our friends took us there on our previous trip to Orlando. There’s only like one Korean BBQ place where I live and it’s not all that, so you bet I was happy dancing while cooking all the foods. I think Korean BBQ is just so fun too. I don’t want to say I like playing with food, but I like playing with food. All the meats where seasoned and sauced so deliciously, my mouth is watering right now just typing about it.

The third day in Orlando, we went to Universal Studios as well and I experienced the wizarding world of Harry Potter. My dreams came true and I’ll post all about that soon! Even though I was skeptical about how the Butterbeer would taste (I’m not a butterscotch fan), I just had to try it while walking down Diagon Alley. I was actually pretty surprised at how much I liked it! The Butterbeer is a non-alcoholic beverage and is pretty much a butterscotch-vanilla soda. A nice cold sweet drink to have in the Florida heat and under that dragon fire!

We went to King Cajun Crawfish after Universal Studios and it is the best and I mean T H E B E S T seafood boil that I have ever had. If you know me, then you know that I literally thrive when eating seafood boils and it’s the only thing that I can just eat so much of. This location that we went too, it was also vietnamese owned as well! (Love supporting my culture and people) Seafood boils are my absolute favorite. We got the Shabang flavor with a medium spice level. King Cajun Crawfish is so flavorful and their flavoring is more spices or a sauce than oil like most places I’ve eaten at. Another thing is that the day after eating the seafood, I did not wake up feeling super thirsty like after every other place. The spice level was actually a medium and you could taste it too. It was just perfect. I’ve been craving it everyday after since! It is a MUST every time we’re in town now.

Now, we can’t forget about dessert…
This place was right down the street from the seafood boil and if you’re a matcha lover, what are you doing cause you need to go now?! Matcha House Tea & Creamery, the mother of all matchas. Their menu is insane with different drinks and ice creams. Everything sounds and looked so good, tooo bad we ate so much seafood before or I might’ve gotten three different sundaes! The one we got was the Matcha-Lover. DELICIOUS, perfect dessert after a boil. Matcha ice cream, with coconut jelly, mochi and lychee fruits, topped with strawberry pocky sticks.

For our last day, I hope you didn’t expect anything less. We literally had two lunches from two different places, one right after the other. Our first place was Krungthep Tea Time. They are known for their teas and their Thai Twist sandwiches. Why isn’t there one by me? The universe hate me. These sandwiches were so flavorful, Panera Bread could NEVER. I chose the Thaiger is Crying and my boyfriend got the Larb sandwich. Bon Appétit! Now let’s talk about these gorgeous colored ladies to the right. Their teas are just stunning in color and they taste absolutely amazing. The one on the left is the Honey Lemon Anchan and the right one is the Lychee Anachan.

Our second lunch and last dish of the blog, Korean fried chicken. We found Chi-Kin on accident actually. It was the place right next door to Matcha House Tea & Creamery and we just couldn’t leave without trying it. Funny enough, we actually talked about finding some Korean fried chicken before we knew about this place and said that we would save it for another time. So it was just fate that we came across Chi-Kin. Korean fried chicken just hits differently and the flavors are better than our usual American ones. We got the sweet soy and gochujang sauces. Top tier chicken wings, I’m telling you!

Everything we ate on the trip was just so amazing and satisfying. I cannot wait to go back to Orlando for everything else we didn’t go too and to eat the same things again! My mouth has been watering this whole time typing and my stomach has been growling and craving. Food from anywhere else then where you live is just automatically better. (But I do have a post coming up on some good eats here in Grand Rapids, so stay tuned!) You can find pretty much all these places on Instagram and just admire the presentations on there. I pretty much find a lot of the places off of Instagram for trips or even when I want to try something new at home. That’s where I found the majority of these food places and drinks! My personal pictures and videos do not do any of the food justice, I might just have to invest in a camera that will! Hope you enjoyed my list and if you have any recommendations in Orlando let me know and I’ll definitely add them to my list for next time!
Also I would like to give credit to @seigeyourday for his “Cluck Yeah!” mural that I used.
Stay hungry guys ♡

SALLY ♡ T

Drunk Thoughts: New Series.

So I’m going to do this series on my blog called ‘Drunk Thoughts’ every few months or whenever I feel like it. I’ll talk about whatever comes to mind, after drinking and probably listening to music while I type. Be prepared for spelling mistakes, non complete sentences, random shit, you know the deal. Welcome into my sad boi hour head and straight into my big ass, emotional cancer sign ass heart. ♡ I wanted to be real with ya’ll, so wtf not? AND it helps me direct my emotions somewhere, perfect. You can laugh at me, while I try to find peace within, everyone wins. This is how I am in real life anyways, I never was trying to make this blog something I wasn’t. I drink, this is me.

So I drank two mugs full of mimosas that were 80% champagne and played my spotify playlist, which just happens to be the Chilombo (Deluxe) album by my girl Jhene Aiko. Starting mid way at Born Tired, which is one of my favorite songs on the album. I just chugged the last half of my cup after the first intro paragraph. So here we go.
Currently, in my life I’m doing good. I’m relaxed, not stressed, enjoying less work. Earlier this year I was probably in the worst mental state that I have ever been, so for me to be where I’m at now, i’m really happy and proud. I can feel myself healing. I know it might sound weird, but I can feel everything just getting better. Things are starting to click like they were before. It’s not so much self love because that never left me, but being able to accept and forgive or at least acknowledge it and not letting it sadden me like before. “Even with void, I choose to fill it with joy” <- Jhene just sang that and i’m living for it. To more joy that’s to come.
Honestly, I’m scared how things will be once my job fully opens back up. I was working crazy hours being a manager and that fucked me up mentally along with what was happening in my personal life. I don’t want to go backwards from where i’m at now. So dreading how things will be is an understatement, but I am working on it and getting myself out of that. I just have to deal with it a little longer, but I’ll stand my ground more and do whats right for me.
I sacrificed myself and some parts of my life when accepting this manager position for a bigger picture. I said I’ll just work hard so I can get to point b quicker. I did what I had to do for this bigger picture, but I lost myself from it and allowed the consequences of it take over. Did I recover? Yes, but for myself still working on it. Would I do it again? No, fuck ass no. I love myself and will never want to be in that mental state ever again. I was actually abusing alcohol at the time and I really fell into a dark hole. Of course me being prideful, I didn’t want people to know I was actually screaming for help with every drink I drank. I pulled myself out of that and i’m no longer drinking to fill anything. I’m pretty fucking proud, but this is the only place you will hear about it, because i’m still too prideful to share, but I should acknowledge my strength. I did it. I don’t want sympathy, empathy or anyone to bring it up because it still reminds me of the pain, but just know i’m okay now. I’m doing fine, i’m happy and still working on myself.

“It ain’t perfect, but everything’s beautiful, beautiful now. Maybe I’m the miracle, waiting for the miracle.”
SALLY ♡ T