Amalfi Coast

These days, I’ve been thinking about the fun Ken and I had on our honeymoon. I never posted all of the photos from the trip, so I’ll spend some time this week highlighting our European adventure. We started off in Amalfi, after flying out of Chicago on Monday after the wedding. I can’t believe it’s been four months already! Time flies when you’re having fun.

For our honeymoon, we wanted to do some relaxation and some exploration as well. Amalfi is great for relaxation because it’s not a very large town and you can just stay in your hotel if you want, or you can explore the nearby towns (Sorrento, Positano, and Capri, the island not too far away). I was very nervous about going to Amalfi because I get car-sick/sea-sick very easily (one of the reasons I love living in New York – you can take public transportation everywhere); the roads are very narrow and the drivers there can be very aggressive.

Getting to Amalfi was a little difficult; we originally had a flight from Chicago to New York to Paris to Naples, however, we had problems with the flights and ended up getting re-routed to Rome. Our hotel was nice enough to send someone to Rome to pick us up and drive us to Amalfi (around 4 hours by car). The views when we arrived were breathtaking:

Delta lost our luggage and we ended up having to walk into the town square to pick up some local t-shirts, toothbrushes, and necessities. It was a short walk from our hotel to the town square (Amalfi is very small and you can explore it by foot in one day if you’re a fast walker). The main area of town is very lively at night and during the day has a lot of tourists:

Of course we had to stop for gelato – this time, mint chocolate chip:

The main attraction in Amalfi is the Saint Andrew’s Cathedral:

You can sit outside a cafe and enjoy the scenery of the town and people watch as they enter the cathedral:

We had a very relaxing stay in Amalfi and were able to also visit Sorrento and Positano during our short stay in Italy. More on those towns this week!

Green Valley Grill

On Saturday night, Ken treated me and my mom to dinner at Green Valley Grill, a popular restaurant in Greensboro. We were originally going to eat dinner at home but decided to go there because Ken said it felt like it was a zombie town (because we literally hadn’t seen one other person the entire weekend in Greensboro!) Here’s me and my mom at dinner:

For dinner, I ordered the short rib sliders with truffle fries:

Ken ordered the salmon (wrapped in a grape leaf) with polenta and zucchini:

And my mom ordered the whole snapper that was pan-fried with a cornmeal crust, potatoes, and spinach:

My favorite dish was Ken’s – his salmon was tender and a simple dish that was done well. My mom’s fish was also good, but the cornmeal crust was too tough. My short rib sliders were a little too dry even though they were topped with melted blue cheese, but the truffle fries were very good.

We had so much fun in Greensboro even though we only spent one full day there – I can’t wait to go back in November!

Crafted

After spending the afternoon at the High Point Furniture Market, we drove back to Greensboro and had a late lunch at Crafted, a taco joint in downtown Greensboro. My mom read that the restaurant was relatively new and wanted to take me and Ken there for their tacos (although I wanted to take Ken to Cookout, he wanted to go to Chik-fil-A, and I also wanted to get baby back ribs from The Fresh Market – too many places to visit on such a short weekend trip!)

We started out with their applewood smoked bacon that’s candied and has a spicy chocolate dipping sauce:

There was way too much sugar on the bacon (we peeled it off), but for $7.50, this was way too expensive for hard bacon bits.

Next, we had the grilled avocado with chorizo, pico de gallo, and cheese with tortilla chips:

For our main entree, we ordered the lobster taco (the Beanie):

This was a cold taco with small bits of lobster meat (I think I had a piece that was slightly icy because it was SO cold I couldn’t even eat it). This dish also had some pickles on it, which I thought was not a great addition to the taco. I wouldn’t order this if I went back.

We also ordered the bowtie taco, a fish taco with roasted corn and honey mustard:

The fried fish was nicely crisped but the rest of the dish was too sweet and really not edible. I think we must’ve ordered the wrong dishes because everyone speaks so highly of this restaurant; if we come back again during our next visit to Greensboro, I think we’ll stick to the original fish taco (with cilantro, radishes and avocados) instead of the fancy tacos.

High Point Furniture Market

Over the weekend, Ken and I flew to North Carolina to visit my mom and to visit the High Point Furniture Market. I’ve never been to High Point’s furniture market before, but twice a year, buyers and exhibitors from all over the world descend on High Point for a week to buy the newest trends in the furniture market. Here are some cool items we saw at market:

An industrial coffee table made of copper pipes:

Beautiful baby furniture with velvet tufted fabric:

A great display for diffusers – a beautiful alternative to the wooden chopsticks you usually put into the diffusers:

Different types of flowers on the diffusers:

These were all made out of glass – looks so pliable even though it’s all made out of glass:

A cool velvet chair that would make a nice accent piece in our apartment:

A glass vanity that reminds me of a House of Harlow zig zag cuffed bracelet:

Dining room sets:

And silk flowers:

There are 12 floors of furniture, accessories, lighting, and all types of interesting goods. We had so much fun walking through the convention center but were dead tired after spending the day there!

Rosemary’s

One of my coworkers said that she went to a new Italian restaurant in the west village, Rosemary’s, and said that I should give it a try. I was in the process of finding a restaurant to go to with Joe and we ended up having dinner at Rosemary’s on a busy Friday night. The food was very good – good enough for me to go back the next week with Sarah, her fiance, and Ken.

We went for brunch on Sunday morning and ordered a little bit of everything to share – we started with the focaccia with pork and pickled vegetables:

This focaccia choice was flattened on a panini press (when I went for dinner, we just ordered the plain focaccia that was topped with sea salt). This option was greasy, fatty, and so delicious. We also ordered the house-made mozzarella with sea salt and basil:

The mozzarella was very chewy (a little too chewy) and there also wasn’t anything to eat the mozzarella with (no additional bread!)

The chopped salad had olives, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, and tomatoes from their rooftop farm:

I ordered a breakfast plate with mushrooms, poached eggs, and potatoes with rosemary:

Sarah ordered the eggs in purgatory, a dish that included tomatoes and sunny side eggs with some of their freshly baked bread:

Ken and Josh both ordered the salmon focaccia with freshly shaved fennel, marscapone, capers and dill:

We all enjoyed our brunch and had such a fun time catching up – I was telling Sarah that I’m cleaning out my closet and she said she wanted to come by to pick through some of the clothes I’m selling (I literally cleaned out my closet and got rid of 50% of it!) – good thing I mentioned it!