The weekend found us back in my hometown for all of its delicious eats that were desperately missed. They are actually always desperately missed and we have a hard time trying new spots because we want to make sure we visit our favorite spots, and with us being there for less than 48 hours, we don't have much time.

First stop was Sakura 6, a Japanese restaurant, and we always go for the Vegetarian Dragon Rolls which is avocado, seaweed, brown rice and sweet potato. So delicious and light, and extra yummy when dipped in Soy Sauce. Next we walked over to our usual pastry shop for Andrew's favorite chocolate treat, but as it has happened of late, they were sold out (I might have to pre-order them next time we go down). So, as a consolation we headed over to Van Leeuwen, which is an ice cream joint that has Vegan options. It is a cute spot and with all the light colors it is nice and bright, which makes it attractive and enticing. They make their ice cream from scratch in Brooklyn and use hormone, antibiotic free and fresh ingredients, which means their prices are high, but worth the product you are getting. Come to think of it, I am pretty sure I saw their ice cream truck hanging out in Williamsburg this past Summer (they have 6 trucks & three shops between Brooklyn and Manhattan). We tried the Mint Chocolate Chip, which tasted pretty similar to Stewart's Mint Chocolate Chip, which used to be a house favorite prior to moving away from Cow Milk. Side Bar: If you ever make your way upstate and are past Albany, you will see the Stewart's Gas Station everywhere. I highly recommend pulling in and trying their ice cream as it is delicious! Not Vegan friendly though.

Saturday morning we set our alarms for 7:35am and by 7:52am we were out the door and on our way to Five Leaves. My brother decided to stay out and sleep over at a friends for the night and so I started the morning phone calls, also known as his alarm to get his ass up. I did five in a row, stopped for a couple of minutes, and then continued another four times. I decided this was enough to take me look like the ultimate nut job, but Andrew said I had to complete it by calling a 10th time. Of course my brother picks-up. He arrives late, but in exactly 9 minutes like he texted us he would. Side Bar: It is a sibling trait for us to not pick the common rounded numbers like 0 or 5 when setting alarms or claiming how long something may take. I can't tell you why I do this other than I simply find this is the only way to give those other numbers some more use. So, I will continue to set my alarm for 4:34am. I ordered the Moroccan Scramble without the sausage and Andrew ordered his Ricotta Pancakes with banana, blueberries & strawberries. It was the perfect amount without feeling stuffed.

The afternoon was spent heading to the Brooklyn Flea Smorgasburg, which was incredibly windy. All the vendors had either just the metal framing of their tents up, or nothing at all due to the wind blowing everything over. We ordered Chick Pea & Olive's beet burgers and I studied them some more to compare to the sample my mother and I would try to make later in the afternoon. We headed out shortly after due to us thinking something was going to fly and hit us, but it was a sunny day so we took a short walk through the neighborhood to check out some menus and stopped to check out the many artists at work. Not sure if it was "paint a new mural Saturday", but it seemed like on every corner new work was going up. Such amazing work and I always envy seeing any artist working on such a large scale. I always struggled the larger the frame, so to see these works of art that were 20 feet + is just incredible. We stopped by Andrew's pastry shop again, but as expected, the chocolate pastry was sold out. No fear, we had a plan B this time. We drove into the City to pick-up some goodies from Eric Kayser at the Flatiron location. One of the treats I picked up was a Strawberry Pastry with Pistachios. I have stolen one strawberry out of it, but I plan to eat it tomorrow as an evening treat with my tea.

So, overall restaurant wise we got our fill in and thankfully with the weather being in the 60s we could walk around everywhere and enjoy the outdoors (unlike Lake Placid where it was in the 30s and snowing again). Our next trip down probably wont be for a while until a couple of friends have their Master & Doctorate graduations (they fancy huh?).

Beet Burgers a la Mama Bear were delicious and we have some extras to make tomorrow, so pictures to follow on the creations and the recipe. Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Sunday and start of Passover!