Good morning!
Ben and I had ourselves a good ol’ fashioned evening out last night. :) We started with happy hour at our favorite British Pub, Royal Mile.
Royal Mile is chill, cozy and they have a great selection of beer.
TGIF – I say!
I ordered a Blue Chimay.
This is Ben’s favorite beer of all time and now I know why. It’s absolutely delicious! With 9% alcohol, though, you only need one.
Only one Chimay, that is. Other beers are not off limits!. ;)
I tried this Wells Banana Bread Beer next, and it was AWESOME! I mean, it didn’t taste exactly like banana bread, but it was fruity and banana bread-ish. Yummy.
After a couple hours, and a couple beers, we were STARVING. Lucky for us, the Italian American Heritage Festival was taking place just a couple blocks away. Wheee!!!!
I HEART the Italian American festival. You are always guaranteed some great people watching, great music and GREAT food.
This year it took place on one of the bridges downtown.
Iowa has suffered from some terrible, terrible flood damage this summer. Downtown has seen the very least of the damage, but you can see how high the river levels are. 8O
Rising water aside, we were ready to chow!
We walked past the bocce ball tournament area, the music stages,
Crowd involvement!
past the neighborhood folks sipping on bottles of wine.
It was PACKED!
For an “appetizer,” we hit up the Tumea & Sons Restaurant tent. The line was super long, and when the line is long, the food is usually good!
We asked what their specialty was, and the girl working said we had to get their seasoned, house rolls.
Whabam! Holy moly – flavor city!
Soft, chewy and packed with spicy, zesty Italian flavor. We gobbled.
For our entree, we located the Cosi Cucina tent for some pasta.
They were handing out samples of Zili Cucina Pasta, which I could have eaten by the bucketful, it was so amazing,
but we decided to share a large order of the Smoked Chicken Pasta.
No words. Ok – creamy, but light. Smokey and savory. This was sooooooooo good!!!!!!!
We stayed and chatted with a couple friends we ran into,
then called it a night with, what else, mini doughnuts!! So necessary. So incredible. The best mini doughnuts I’ve ever had, actually! Like a mixture of a cake doughnut and a fried, un-glazed one. Spectacular!!!
It got to be about 8:30 and Ben and I felt ourselves turning into pumpkins.
So home we headed! What a great way to wrap up our week!
Well, I’m on the hunt for breakfast, then I literally have nothing to do this morning. Love it!
See ya!
your local festival looks like it can rival one we’d have in hoboken…in a good way. :) that chicken penne dish alone looks drool-worthy.
I LOVE food festivals!
Those seasoned rolls do look amazing! My FI is Italian, and all your pictures made me crave a good old dinner at Grandma’s!
I love that watch, too! I want one :)
I love it, looks like so much fun!
I’ve seen that banana bread beer while out shopping before (TJ’s maybe?) and been dying to try it!!! I think I’m going to have to go pick some up :)
The Italian food festival looks amazing, so glad ya’ll had such a great night!
Looks like the perfect way to end your week. Love, love the bridge in that picture. Just beautiful! Have a great weekend…
I would love to go to a festival like that. YUM!
So much fun! I live in my City’s little Italy so I get to take part in Italian feasts every weekend!
I need those two beers in my life! Lucky girl.
Those rolls look amazing…like a savory version of a cinnamon bun. Oh, how I miss real Italian food!
Can we get a close up of that watch on your wrist…it looks really nice like tortoise shell or something…?
Now I’m craving Italian food, especially those mini donuts. Enjoy your morning! I love it when I have nothing on the agenda, but sadly those days are few and far between.
That looks like so much fun, and I love the happy hour beer selections…I’m 100% a beer girl at heart and Chimay is awesome!
I hope you enjoyed your morning of nothing!
I love Tumea and Sons! Haven’t been there in ages, since I don’t live in DSM anymore.
That role and the pasta look amazing! I am hungry for lunch now and we just finished brunch! Ha:-)
The Italian mini-doughnuts are called sfingi-pronounced (S-FEEN-GEE). My family is Italian and my nana & my great nana who was born in Sicily used to make my cousins and me homemade sfingi when we were little. My city, Rockford, Illinois, has their Festa Italianna next weekend and we always have to get the sfingi tent early in the weekend because they are known to run out by Sunday evening.
I have a friend who always orders a beer with banana syrup added. Can’t convince myself to try it… but banana bread beer, that I could do!
The mini doughnuts look like zeppoles…they are my absolute favorite dessert at Italian festivals!!
Love the photos!
And I’m curious… what brand/designer is that blue/white striped top? It’s great!
Italian doughnuts are the greatestttttt! Love ’em!
OMG!! send me one of those seasoned rolls!!!
what a fun night!!!! banana bread beer sounds amazing! i absolutely used to think i hated beer because i was used to only natty lite and keystone from college parties but you’ve inspired me to try new flavors and i had a blueberry beer at a brewery that tasted sort of like blueberry pancakes! yum!
you and ben are so cute together :)