Sunday SUPER Funday

Even though my New Years wasn't super exciting, Sunday definitely made up for it. A very close family friend has a friend who knows Bryan Voltaggio (aka the older brother and second place winner of Top Chef) and got a reservation at Bryan's restaurant Volt. Volt is actually only about 20-30 minutes from where my parents live and since everyone in my family loves Top Chef our friends invited us to go with them. Apparently because of the show it is pretty hard to get reservations lately so we were very lucky. We opted to go for brunch since it is expensive and the brunch is very reasonable ($25 for 3 courses.)

We had a large group (12 people) so we sat in this super cute private dining room. The restaurant is in an old mansion and has very chic antique meets modern decor. As soon as we sat down we saw Bryan walk by and then he was outside messing with a hose in the "yard." Of course we were all acting like idiots, giggling every time we saw him so he probably thought we were insane. He seems like a shy guy (like he did on Top Chef.) He was also a lot shorter in "real life."

The food was AMAZING. The cocktails were AMAZING. The service was AMAZING. Seriously, it's probably my new favorite restaurant.

When we were done eating my mom's friend asked if Bryan wouldn't mind coming in and saying hi, so our waiter went to check and told us all to come back for a little tour. Bryan was in the kitchen making rolls and let us get a picture of the kitchen, we asked if he wanted to get in it and he seems surprised. Definitely shy but very nice...I told him we were all big Top Chef fans because I couldn't think of anything else to say!

Anyways, here are some pictures...

So this is the first time I posting pics of family/friends but I figured what the hell.

From left to right we have my sister, my mom, sister's boyfriend (R), me, my brother, my mom's friend who came instead of my dad (he had to go to a wake), K, the family who got the reservation (their kids and daughters boyfriend) and B.Volt (my new nickname for him since we are BFFs)

B.Volt making something


The kitchen as seen from the chef's dining room

My first course, goat cheese ravioli in a brown butter sauce with mushrooms and butternut squash. So yummy!

Later that evening K and I went to see "Avatar" in 3-d, which was a very cool movie. In terms of plot it is basically "Dances with Wolves" meets "Fern Gully" meets "Pocahontas" but still worth seeing. It's very exciting and visually stunning. Waaaay better then "Sherlock Holmes!"