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ursamajorI'm in love.
Well, I mean, I'm in love with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hyounpark, yes, we established that months ago :) but I've found perfection in a used bookstore on the country roads of western Massachusetts. With comfy chairs and sofas to curl up in, free wireless, and a homestyle cafe attached; a river bubbling up just down the hill from it. The owner had both doors open to let the mild spring breeze sweep through yesterday, and it felt wonderful and calming.
*
When we decided to go to Amherst this weekend, he asked if we should go out Friday and stay overnight. I replied, "Nah, that'd be overkill; let's just go out Saturday. Besides, we've got Restaurant Week reservations."
Which we did, at Brasserie Jo. Service was a little uneven, and the prix fixe didn't look that exciting to me, so I went back to the regular menu and ordered garlic-butter escargots. Ladies and gentlemen, they have got that one DOWN. The sauce was so incredibly tasty that I kept dipping my bread into the leftovers. The steak tartare was good, though slightly odd - they'd shaped it into the form of a hamburger patty, and the pommes frites came along American-style in one of those old-style metal milkshake containers. And then île flotante for dessert, an airy cloud of sweetness that I have yet to be able to duplicate at home (particularly at that scale).
And then the next day, we had Bub's (which Hyoun had never been to!) and Antonio's; walked around campus and marveled at the lack of triples for frosh and how shiny-new Stearns and James looked and where the hell did the wood paneling in the South and North libraries go and how they got rid of the Fishbowl and THEY'RE PUTTING FREAKIN' ELEVATORS into Pratt and Morrow.
Nightcaps at Black Sheep (the cream puff of doom for him, a demure cinnamon-white chocolate chip cookie for me) and Judie's (we have popovers!), where of course I ran into Rikita and Deby; and then it was time to go. Winding our way down 9 to 202 to 181 to 20 to 32 to the Mass Pike (and until you hit the pike, all of those routes are 2-lane curves that we can navigate practically by feel now) to 95 to 9 again, past oishii's and then home.
And we still missed Bueno and DP Dough's and not even enough room to stick in tea rolls from Fresh Side or AmChi (which I still regard with a great deal of suspicion - if you're sticking the town name in something, that's automatically suspect to me - but apparently, AmChi gets their veggies from the same farmer I do in season, so maybe it's not so scary) and Pasta e Basta and the Crazy Noodle place that replaced Nancy Jane's and the new breakfast cafe Lone Wolf and there's even an AFRICAN restaurant there now.
I love Pioneer Valley Food Runs. :)
Well, I mean, I'm in love with
hyounpark, yes, we established that months ago :) but I've found perfection in a used bookstore on the country roads of western Massachusetts. With comfy chairs and sofas to curl up in, free wireless, and a homestyle cafe attached; a river bubbling up just down the hill from it. The owner had both doors open to let the mild spring breeze sweep through yesterday, and it felt wonderful and calming.*
When we decided to go to Amherst this weekend, he asked if we should go out Friday and stay overnight. I replied, "Nah, that'd be overkill; let's just go out Saturday. Besides, we've got Restaurant Week reservations."
Which we did, at Brasserie Jo. Service was a little uneven, and the prix fixe didn't look that exciting to me, so I went back to the regular menu and ordered garlic-butter escargots. Ladies and gentlemen, they have got that one DOWN. The sauce was so incredibly tasty that I kept dipping my bread into the leftovers. The steak tartare was good, though slightly odd - they'd shaped it into the form of a hamburger patty, and the pommes frites came along American-style in one of those old-style metal milkshake containers. And then île flotante for dessert, an airy cloud of sweetness that I have yet to be able to duplicate at home (particularly at that scale).
And then the next day, we had Bub's (which Hyoun had never been to!) and Antonio's; walked around campus and marveled at the lack of triples for frosh and how shiny-new Stearns and James looked and where the hell did the wood paneling in the South and North libraries go and how they got rid of the Fishbowl and THEY'RE PUTTING FREAKIN' ELEVATORS into Pratt and Morrow.
Nightcaps at Black Sheep (the cream puff of doom for him, a demure cinnamon-white chocolate chip cookie for me) and Judie's (we have popovers!), where of course I ran into Rikita and Deby; and then it was time to go. Winding our way down 9 to 202 to 181 to 20 to 32 to the Mass Pike (and until you hit the pike, all of those routes are 2-lane curves that we can navigate practically by feel now) to 95 to 9 again, past oishii's and then home.
And we still missed Bueno and DP Dough's and not even enough room to stick in tea rolls from Fresh Side or AmChi (which I still regard with a great deal of suspicion - if you're sticking the town name in something, that's automatically suspect to me - but apparently, AmChi gets their veggies from the same farmer I do in season, so maybe it's not so scary) and Pasta e Basta and the Crazy Noodle place that replaced Nancy Jane's and the new breakfast cafe Lone Wolf and there's even an AFRICAN restaurant there now.
I love Pioneer Valley Food Runs. :)
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