The Flying Banzini - A Review

 The hubs and I have entered the very adult world of starting the process for buying out first home.  We have been casually looking for a little while but its been in the last couple of weeks that we really amped up to actively looking. 
That means that we try and schedule a few viewings each weekend.  Last Sunday we had 5 houses to see, 2 open houses and 3 set up though our Realtor.  All of that house viewing can take a lot out of you, so we thought it best to load up on yummy carbs before we started our day. 
The Flying Banzini opened a little bit ago and I have been curious to try it ever since.  Located at: 1242 Wellington St W Ottawa, their website describes their food as:

 "Our chefs prepare lofty roast meats carved onto our own soft buns, pressed and grilled as paninis, or as the feature topping on artisan pizzas. And, despite our love for lofty roast meats, you can choose from a unique variety of remarkable vegetarian selections."

That just sounds yumm to me.  So I spend the week getting more and more excited about going for lunch there.  Sunday finally arrives the hubs and I check out the menu and see if I have gotten more excited for the idea of the resturant or if it is going to fulful my excitement:

Many choices it was a little difficult to choose

The basket of fresh baked warm buns for the soft sandwiches

The hubs settled on one of their soft bun sandwiches with pulled beef, chipotle mayo and provolone cheese, and I picked the Leave Your Hat on paninis with: crispy pork belly, spicy onion jam (I switched it our for Dijon mustard) cucumbers, tomato, spinach red peppers and cheddar cheese. I made it a combo with the house salad with lemon, honey, thyme dressing on the side.  We also ordered the bacon and orange cheesecake to try as a starter.

The hub's pulled beef soft bun sandwich with tomato relish/salsa on the side

My pork belly paninis with garden salad, lemon honey thyme dressing and tomato salsa/relish

My first reaction when seeing all this food was WOAH.  Than it was Oh Yes, Yum.  The food was amazing.  It tasted better than it looked.  The food is all prepared onsite (they were cutting a big piece of roasted meat at one point) and you can tell the difference.  

It was a little pricy (about $30 for all the food) but I would say a great place to go to once a month maybe once every few weeks.  

The resutrant was a little busy and we didn't actually get our bacon cheesecake before the meal (which I was a little upset about just because I was really hungry).  However the cashier ended up coming over and apologizing, refunding out cheesecake money and giving use 2 tokens for free cheesecake.

These babies = free dessert

Well that just blew my mind.  That was possibly the BEST customer service I have ever had.  That made paying $30 for our lunch completely worth it.  I love to contribute to personal business where the owners are invested in their clientele. 

So with our free cheesecakes waiting the hubs and I ordered 2.  He got New York Chocolate and I got New York Black Cherry. 

The selection that was available when we were there.  So many yummies to choose from

The cheesecakes were very yummy, rich and true to the flavours posted.  However they are very small (think 2 bite brownie size) so keep that in mind when ordering.  They were out of a chocolate coffee flavour I really wanted to try hopefully they will have it next time.

All in all I would say this is a great resutrant.  I would classify it as a date, or get together place rather than a quick bite drop in.  But the customer service is amazing and the food is great.  

If you are in the Ottawa area stop by and let me know what you got and how your experience was. 

My Week (Mar. 24-30)

This week has been a little crazed for me.  I have been wrapping up stuff at work so that was really my main focus. However it is never healthy to purely focus on work so I did try and squeeze in some fun time.

I swung by Micheal's on Friday to get my contribution for craft night (gold and silver paint sharpie pens).  While I was there I checked out the flower section so I could update my "winter" vase with something a little more spring like.  Well all the spring flowers were 40% off and I had a 20% off coupon that also worked on sale items also.  That was a deal too good to turn up.  So I grabbed a bunch.  I couldn't stop there though, I went and checked out the decorative vases and picked up a pretty blue one for 60% off (40% off sale and my 20% coupon).   

I worked on Saturday to help meet deadline but I also had my craft night, so the lil sis met me at work at 430 to pick me up and take me back home so I could skip the bus ride (the hubs needed the car so that he could get out of the house for craft night).  So to thank her I treated her to dinner.  We tried out a sushi place that has undergone some renovations and now you order with an iPad.  It was pretty cool, but I prefer my regular place.

The lil sis ordering on the fancy ipdad

The lil sis enjoying the first of the food to arrive

So much good food it, I was very stuffed when we left

Than it was off to craft night/girls night where everyone had a great time sitting around chatting and making sparkly galsses.

I had to 'try out' my new sparkle glass.  Sorry it's a really bad picture the glass looks much cutier in person. 

 On Sunday the hubs and I had a date day with lunch at The Flying Banzini. A FABULOUS sandwich and cheesecake place in Ottawa.  I will be doing a separate post on the restaurant but if you live in the Ottawa area head over to the Westboro/Hintonburg area and grab some grub.  You will not be disappointed.  

The hubs getting ready to enjoy his pulled beef with provolone on a soft bun.

After our great tasting lunch we headed out to a couple open houses and met up with our Realtor to look at a few more.  Grabbed some groceries where I just had to pick up some gorgeous orange and yellow tulips.  Hey maybe if I buy them Mother Nature will finally get the message that it's spring out and stop with the snow storms.

Now it feels like spring (if you ignore the snow)

The great 7cms of snow that we got last night. 

That was my week, crazy busy at work but I was still able to make a little time for fun.
How was your week? What do you like to do if you are trying to fit in some "fun" time?

This weeks message:

You cannot control the wind, but you can direct the sail. 

 

XOXO

Girls Night In/Craft Night

My second Girls Night/Craft Night was a great success.  It all started last month when I figured out that I was only seeing some friends maybe once a month, and that I was always going out for dinner to hangout with them.  That gets really expensive and is just a bad idea if you are trying to live on a budget and save money.   

I was reading a blog where she said that her and her girlfriends used to do Margarita Friday's but with getting married and having kids they had switched to monthly craft nights.  I thought this was a GREAT thing.  I have a TON few crafts that I have saved on Pinterest so I thought I would steal borrow the idea and start doing a monthly craft night also.

Everyone hard at work. 

How I work it is that everyone brings their component to the craft, a part of the supplies needed and a food item.  I added the food item 'cause who doesn't want to eat/drink while hanging out with the girls.  Everyone gets to have a blast and the cost stays less than $10.

That brings us to my Saturday night.  This month I really wanted to try this post for DIY Glitter Wine Glasses so that was my bases of craft night.  So I sent out the evites and invited everyone to make sparkly glassware. And it was a success!!!

Everyone said they had a great time, and we really spent more time sitting around the living room chatting about life and stuff than we did actually making the craft.  And really that was always my goal of the monthly craft nights.

Taking a break to smile.

 I can't wait to see what we do next month, and who is able to show up.
Do you have any monthly get togethers that you try and do? 

Fiscal, the end is near...

It is now the last few days of the fiscal year 2013/2014.  I only have about 2 more days of craziness at work.  But it feels like 2 very long days away.  I think I had forgotten how crummy it is working with a large deadline, and this one is not nearly as crazy as last years.

However that being said it has still been a little rougher than a normal week.  I am working approximately 44 hour weeks leading up to March 31, and last night my normal 9 hour days have flipped over to 12 hour days.  Now I will admit that the switch over to 12 hour days is my own choice, but I know how much work needs to be done before the 31st and so I can't justify working normal hours.

With all this extra work  I have been extra a little more touchy, and the hubs has been extra awesome.  He has been making the dinners so I can just come home and sit around and relax.  And when I am extra cranky he does everything he can to make me laugh.  All of this is something that he never gets proper recognition for and more often he gets the brunt of my annoyance.  I do really appreciate all that he does and it makes me really grateful to have such a great partner in life. 

The bright side is that fiscal is only 2 days away and after a day at the office on Saturday I have a fun girls craft night Saturday night and a couple days off to do my nails and just be lazy.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel and with a couple more cups of coffee I will be able to reach that light.
 

As the end draws near this is what a typical day for me looks like.  This is how I make it through deadlines.

Do you have crazy deadlines at work? What do you do to make it through them sane?