Golden Birthday Extravaganza!

Seeing as it is my golden birthday this year - im turning the age of my birthday, 24 on the 24th - the fam decided to pull out all the stops and put together a surprise birthday celebration and man oh man was I surprised!

All I knew was the date of the festivities and the theme, golden dragon! Little did I know I was going to be blindfolded from the subway and escorted 2 blocks and up 2 flights of stairs to a strangers apartment with a private chef and an intimate group of my favourite NYC peeps! That's right I had a surprise 5 course dinner party with a private chef and waitress, basically I'm Oprah nee Joprah!

The Menu

Blood orange cocktails and Lemonade cocktails , red and white wine

Chives and Pork Dumplings & Vegetarian Dumplings with dipping sauce - I am a dumpling fiend! and these were amazing I love the texture of steamed dough and then lightly fried it so soft and crunchy.

Lemongrass Shrimp over rice Vermicelli - simple and refreshing

Pan Fried Scallops served with Parsnip Puree and Stir Fried Pea Shoots - The scallops were delightful, cooked just right, with the side of fried pea shoots and the puree it was the perfect combination of textures and flavours in your mouth. Dear lord I am still dreaming about this parsnip purée! It was fantastic the consistency was perfectly smooth, light and fragrant in flavour I went back for I wanna say fourth and fifth helpings, it was my birthday okay.

Sauteed Chinese Broccoli and garlic - As good as it sounds I was devouring it with my parsnip purée helpings.

Pavlova served with Cream and Berries - The cake! This was inspired by the Aussie in me gotta have a pav! It was delightful with fresh berries, cream and meringue I just noticed that the cake was red white and blue! It instantly made me think of my BFF Antoinette now I have to get her recipe to replicate this dessert for the looming slapsgiving!

Fortune Cookies - These were hands down the coolest fortune cookies I have ever busted open. Each guest wrote a fortune to me then the chef put them in hand made fortune cookies and I read each one and had to guess who wrote them. Here's a few

Respect your elders and be generous with gin - g-dawg

I'm basically rich - scoop dawg

When you smile the world smiles with you - Chris

This was hands down the best birthday present I have ever received! a special thank you to the Metcalfe-Klaw crew for putting it together, thank you to all the delicious guests for making it so memorable and to my cousin Zoe, events mastermind with all her awesome NY contacts leading to this, her biggest event of all thank you times a bajillion I'll never forget the golden birthday extravaganza!

Also a huge thank you to the host and chef Alexis Greene and Nana Pavelic! Checkout Supper Club NYC if you want to create a magical event like this!

Love the way you love!

~JBomb

Cheers to the freakin weekend

I'm behind on my blog and I realised I need to suck it up and merge events so here we go!

Our weekend consisted of drinking, shopping and eating I know we're wild and mixing it up like nobody's business!

Friday
We met g-dawg at Sarabeths on the upper east side for a spot of brunch, this place was pretty fancy and really delicious. We each ordered an iced tea and they bring it to you in individual pitchers so cayute! I had the farmers omelette with leek, ham and gruyere cheese and oh yeah I destroyed it. Stacey ordered the scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and cream cheese another great quote "these eggs have been impregnated with cream cheese" and she loved it. After the delightful brunch we bid g-dawg adieu and headed back to the apartment to schlepp our luggage to Brooklyn I'm not going to go into detail of the sh*t show that was getting 3 pieces of luggage on the subway during peak hr basically to sum up
-it was hot
-the subway line we were on broke down
-no cabs were available
- we had 3 bags with us plus backpacks

Moral of the story stick to the golden queen rule (created by twinny and I) when luggage is in tow anything is better than public transport!

So we made it to Brooklyn cleaned up and went to dinner at Fonda on 7th ave park slope (I blogged about it previously for a brunch) and it brought us back! We enjoyed pork and pineapple taquitos, hibiscus margaritas, mojitos, chile relleno de espinaca, pollo norteño and salsa.

Saturday

We roamed the streets and ended up in soho for happy hour with Zoe! To rejuvenate for the evening ahead! (See next post)


~JBomb

Gram addicts!

Hi my name is @jbomb24 and I am an instagram addict!

It started with some innocent verbal hash tagging with my cousin such as when something didn't go my way I would say #jbombproblems but I wanted more so when Stacey told me she was on instagram (yes i consider her my enabler) and I could use the iPad now dubbed the grampad I just can't stop! So feel free to follow me on there!

Our fave hash tags thus far
#refreshing
#mamaneedsacocktail
#(insert your name)problems

~@jbomb24

I'm on a boat

It has been my dream since April, yeah a long time I know, to ride the boats at the boathouse in Central Park however I resisted temptation because I knew this was something I wanted to do with my travel buddy Stacey! So the first day in central park had started off grey and I saw the rental shack was closed and i thought noooo the season is over I almost fell to my knees and cried in pain alas my dream of breakfast on a boat was shattered...or was it, I quickly asked the boathouse restaurant if they knew what the dealio was as it turns out they go by the first weather forecast of the day and seeing as it was grey they were shut so we came back on day 2 and we couldn't have painted a better day if we tried!

Granola, muesli, yogurt, OJ and fresh berries we did it up right. Turns out I have mad rowing skills like I shocked myself seeing as you have to sit backwards and be navigated by someone facing you and things can get a little hectic out there. So much fun I 100 bajillion % recommend this ps fellas this would hella impress a lady friend just sayin and it's $12 for an hr with a $20 deposit so if you don't like her that much make her row!

Then we headed to my favourite curry buffet brick lane curry on East 6th st and 2nd ave, $10 all you can eat buffet get amongst it!

After that we mosied down to soho to shop and then we headed to Chelsea to see the famous comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade for $5 we saw 2, 30-45min shows the first one was a monologue a true monologue about a man who graffitied moustaches on posters all over NYC and his arrest, friggin hilarious the second show was entitled lonely people and they were a sketch comedy trio who did all these skits about their lonely lives, they were so awesome!!! Unlike other comedy clubs in NY there was no sneaky food/drink order minimum just $5 to enter I can highly recommend!

Then believe it or not it was time for dinner! So we hit up this lovely Italian super grocery/restaurant complex called Eataly, could not think of a more perfect name. So basically it is a huge fancy supermarket with an individual deli section for everything ie. coffee, gelato, desserts, meat, cheese with 5 different restaurants specialising in a specific cuisine or product ie. seafood, pasta & pizza, meat & brewery, wine bar etc..

So we decided on the meat/brewery which was pucking amazing! And just so happened to be on a roof which is our new favourite place. We ordered the pork belly and rack of lamb with a side of smashed potatoes and brussel sprouts seriously melt in your mouth fantastico! Definitely hit this up on your way to the flatiron building even to just look around the space is magnificent.

~JBomb

The roof is where it's at

Today we walked through central park entering at 72nd st, Strawberry Fields making our way to 5th ave because women be shoppin! And I wanted to give Stacey a nice circular view of all of NY and the best way to do that is top of the Rockefeller!

Then we shopped a storm and I decided "mama needs a cocktail" so we went to 230 fifth avenue which has a roof top bar on the 20th floor, snuggies optional, we chose snuggies and some delicious cocktails I had a cucumber, ginger, mint mojito and Stacey had raspberry one with a side of chicken strips and meatballs.

Once we dumped our bags off at home and set up our Internet we met up with my cousin Robin, Josh and Zaney Delaney for a drink at Boqueria then onto Von in the east village area the second Stacey quote of the trip "NY Stacey loves a cocktail"

Oh and to top off the night we had a midnight feast of sausage rolls and a pastrami sandwich a complete food merge of my two nationalities! PS this was the first I have come across a sausage roll in the US I was rather excited!

PPS because of my new iPad venture the photos are not in story order I apologise, you have no idea how much this annoys someone who is all about chronological order gah! #jbombproblems

~JBomb

And so it begins..

Tuesday 8th Oct, I get on the subway all the way to JFK to make my very first chauffeur pickup at the international airport! That's right my lovely co-traveller Stacey Coppack aka scoppack has ARRIVED. After a 13 hr flight to Dubai then a 12 hr flight to NYC she has made it and is feeling alive and ready to pound the concrete jungle, music to any tour guides ears! (that's me)

So I give her the rejuvenation kit I have made consisting of baby carrots, red bull, water and sea salt Lindt dark chocolate, they don't call me a superstar for nothing know what I'm sayin.

So we're staying on the upper west side and we mosie down broadway making hard core life decisions such as where are we going to go for scoppacks first NYC meal and then after seeing Lincoln centre on 60th & Amsterdam it hits my favourite place to eat the hideaway! (Check previous posts for their awesomeness) so we head down to TriBeCa and get us some grub.

One of the things I love most about Stacey is that she just tells it like it is. So when she receives her first American meal, a burger and fries and a deliciously potent cocktail she recites "I think America and I are going to be very happy together" one of my favourite quotes thus far.

I ordered something new on the menu, a fried chicken and buttermilk biscuit sandwich I literally cannot verbalise how delicious it was! Hats off to the lovely chef Nicole if I could take you back to oz if I could!

So then once we're fully nourished and a little bit lubricated I take Stacey to the mecca of NY tourism Times Square The best time is at night when the lights are luminous and you could almost have a seizure. Then it was time to hit the hay as the next few days were choc a bloc full of fun, super organised fun haha.

~JBomb