Sweetiekins Life

In January, we took a weekend trip to enjoy some good eats in New York City.  We went to some of our favorite spots: Joe's Shanghai and Lady M.  We also tried some new places like Sushi Seki, Schmackary's, and Tony's Di Napoli. Right after landing, we headed straight to Joe's Shanghai.  They had a relatively new location in Midtown West, which is near Times Square where we were staying. This location was definitely swankier than the one in Chinatown we usually go to.  Apparently, it's "The Center of Exotic Specialties."  I don't know about all of that - I just wanted some xiao long bao (soup dumplings)! We ordered some crab and pork soup dumplings.  They were delicious!  I didn't notice any difference between these and the ones at the Chinatown location.  The real crab bits inside were SO good!  These are still the best xiao long bao on the East Coast, and second best overall after Din Tai Fung. After lunch, we hea...

It was the day after Christmas, and my parents agreed to babysit for us so that we could enjoy dinner.  Instead of going somewhere fancy, we decided to check out one of the highest-rated pizza joints in the area.  With 4.5 stars on Yelp, we figured it would not disappoint. We pulled up to Fire Works, which is located in downtown Leesburg.  The place was packed!  The parking lot was completely full, but we were able to find street parking close by.  I'm not sure if it was due to it being a holiday or if it's always like this. We ended up waiting about 40 minutes before getting a table.  That gave us plenty of time to browse the menu and watch other people's food come out. For our pizzas, we decided to go with the Quattro Carni and the White and Spice.  We were torn on which appetizer to get and followed the waiter's recommendation of the spinach dip. The spinach dip came out really quickly.  I slapped some on the pita-type...