Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Summer is here in Houston!  It is humid and the temperature has been hovering around 90 degrees all week!  Since we're not completely disgusted with a little humidity and sweat yet, S and I took the opportunity to do a little exploring in Midtown this week.  We also started up our summer bowling league again (which leads me to an update on the new nailpolish).  And tonight we're going to another new bar on our list to celebrate a friend's birthday.  It's been a fun second half of the week!

Reef has been on my restaurant list for years now.  We've always put it off because it's on the pricier side.  However, this week I discovered that they have a happy hour special from 4-7 with $5 small plates and $3 off cocktails, so we jumped on it!  Reef was recently voted one of the best seafood restaurant in the U.S. by Bon Appetit magazine, so we assumed it would be kind of snooty and the small dishes would in fact be very small and we were pleasantly surprised that we were wrong!  We sat at bar in the attached 3rd Bar for the happy hour speical and everyone was very friendly and the atmosphere was classy but casual.  As you can see above, the small plates were actually quite large!  We shared 4 plates between us (for a grand total of only $20 in food!!) and we were quite full by the time we finished it all!  The food and drinks were both very good and we actually found upon reviewing the menu that the normal dinner prices are actually pretty reasonable as well.  We'll definitely be heading back here again!

After dinner we meandered across the street to Mongoose Versus Cobra, a bar with a very Austin-esque, hipster vibe.  They had a great drink menu, though, and a large selection of draft craft beers as well.  I snagged a couple glasses of their homemade house punch and S partook of two of their draft stout specials.  We also ordered the spicy pumpkin seeds to nosh on - be warned, they are VERY spicy!  I want to come back here with a group next time and order a whole bowl of the punch to share - it was yummy!

Yesterday we started up our summer bowling league again.  Since we're the defending champs we felt a little pressure coming back this year, but we're really trying to remind ourselves that we're just in this for the fun (and the beer!)!  Thursday night was the end of day 3 of my manicure and I have to report that the Formula X nail polish struggled a little with the stresses imposed by bowling.  The chips have grown at the pressure points on the three fingers that I use for holding the ball, but they're still fairly minor.  The fact that I have a nude nail polish on really helps to camouflage the chips, I'm certain that if I were wearing a darker polish they would be more obvious.   Overall, I'm still very happy with how the polish has been wearing on my other fingers, though!  Looks like I'll just be either sticking with nude polishes or painting my nails on Fridays for the rest of the summer though.

Tonight we're headed to Boheme Cafe and Wine Bar to celebrate a friend's birthday.  I think S and I are actually going to head there a little early and try to get some food too, because despite less than ideal kitchen circumstances it's gotten excellent ratings!  The rest of the weekend will include brunch at Revival Market, the first day of the summer hunt for squash blossoms at Canino Market, going to see the movie Chef (which I am very excited about!!), and finally just getting stuff done around the house.  I'm hoping to get the guest bathroom into a presentable mode by the end of the weekend and if I do, I'll be sure to post some updates on my progress next week!

What about you?  Any fun plans this weekend?

(top image from here)