alphabet soup.

I spent my Sunday afternoon strolling through the LES and Alphabet City today and found some pretty amazing shops along the way.

Stopped into Teany for an afternoon beverage and snack. Teany is a vegetarian/vegan tea cafe started by Moby. They serve all these cute little vegan baked goods like scones, cupcakes, and muffins and a variety of different sandwiches, salads, soups, and the like. I ordered the BLT sandwich with vegetarian bacon on pumpernickel bread!

This is their Teanychino, which is absolutely delicious. A Teanychino is a blend of roasted mate, almond bits, vanilla bean, cornflower blossoms, and sunflower petals, steeped in (my choice of) soy milk. Yummmm, can't wait to come in the wintertime to warm up with this!

Afterwards we wandered athrough LES's cute little boutiques and shops.

Bought these cute pups from Dolce Vita. Totally amazing boot-thong sandal combo. Loves it.

We then managed our way into Alphabet City, where we popped into Alphabets, a small, quirky gift shop where I found tons of things that I am completely in love with.

Example 1. Sukie Box of Labels

I seriously feel that Sukie, cute little UK-based stationary-ish company, created this box of peel-and-stick labels JUST FOR ME. Two of my favorite animals are featured on these labels - owls and little hedgehog/porcupines (in my mind they are somewhat synonymous when illustrated)!!!! So adorable.

Example 2. Night Owl Paper Goods

Then I freaking discovered ANOTHER amazing stationary company, Night Owl Paper Goods!!! Why did no one tell me this company existed!??! Cuz I would have stopped buying cards from Hallmark a helluva longer time ago!!!! Not only is this company perhaps as obsessed with owls as I am, but they also utilize interesting, eco-friendly textiles like wood!

WTF. CUTEST HOLIDAY CARD EVER!?!??!?!? Happy Owlidays!??!?!?!??!?!! GOD, why did I not think of that one??

One of MANY cute wooden postcards available.

Purchasing this for me would pretty much be the easiest way into my heart. Who needs wining and dining when you have a spiral bound notepad with an owl on its wooden cover?

Example 3. Die-cut hedgehog Post-it notepad that I purchased for a mere $4.95. Apparently, it's really cheap to buy pure bliss now-a-days.

That evening we dined at Matilda, an inventive Tuscan-Mexican restaurant. There are many complex ingredients in their dishes, so I will just try my hardest to explain them in me-terms. Although I probably won't do any of it justice.

We began with the Prosejitos - which are basically mojitos made with Prosecco! Mine was also mango-flavored which added a wonderful sweetness! Very yummy, but made me sleepy because of the wine!!

This bread was honestly one of the most favorite parts of my meal, and I'm not usually big on wasting my appetite or calories on the starter-carbs. I'm also not the biggest fan of dipping my bread in olive oil, as I don't even like the taste of olives (and yes, that means I am also not a fan of martinis). However, this time the bread was home-made and had a wonderful corn-mealy taste to the crust. It also had this really wonderful sponge-y, dense, yet fluffy texture. And the olive oil was infused with jalapeno, which made it taste really really wonderful. It totally covered up the olive-taste and I couldn't stop dipping!

Next was the Rucola con Ananas e Ricotta Salata - which is basically arugula, pineapple, avocado, and cubes of ricotta. I wasn't in love, but R really liked it. It seemed like a weird mixture of ingredients to me, and I'm also not the hugest fan of arugula. So that didn't help.

This is their Tamalito Vegetariano, which is polenta, peppers, and mozzarella wrapped together in a corn-husk, on top of a bed of jicama. I wish that there were more flavors in the tamale. It's such an awesome concept and I totally think cheesy polenta is one of my favorite things. But the peppers didn't add enough umph to the dish.

Afterwards, we had the Salsiccine di Pesce con Farrotto, which was sausages made from scallop and monkfish atop a mix of farro grain, corn, and cactus leaves. It's been a while since I've even looked at a sausage, so to be able to visibly see the casing around the sausages was kind of unappetizing to me. The sausages also had an extremely fishy taste to them, which kind of bothered me. On the menu they described the farro mixture as risotto-like, so I was deeply disappointed when the grains were nothing like risotto. I did, however, enjoy the fresh crunch of the corn in the mix.

The Taco de Mariscos were probably my favorite dish that we tried. Tacos made with shrimp and monkfish are always a winner in my books!

Dessert was the tequila tiramisu and the mexican chocolate gelato. The tequila tiramisu was good and didn't have too strong of an alcohol flavor. The home-made gelato was, I'm afraid, fairly disappointing. It looked and felt more like soy-icecream...and when I'm craving gelato, that's not exactly the texture I am looking for.

I think I hyped the restaurant up in my head so high because the concept of the menu is so amazing. But at the end of the day, their food was mediocre. But overall, Matilda was a good experience (we got to meet the owner!) and I would probably go there again (and just eat the bread and order the fish tacos!!).