Date Night: Knicks Game - Madison Square Garden - Midtown, NY - Wednesday 4/2/2014

His Take: Remember how I mentioned that Ariana got me Knicks tickets as my anniversary gift? Well here we are!  I was as excited as a kid in a candy store once we arrived at the world's most famous arena, MADISON SQUARE GARDEN.  Quick tidbit, I have been a Knicks fan as far back as I can remember watching basketball.  The New York Knicks were my first sporting love.  I grew up watching plenty (and I mean MOSTLY) bad Knicks teams.  I remember the Ewing Knicks, the Sprewell/Houston Knicks, the Marbury Knicks, and most recently the David Lee Knicks (yes they were that bad that David Lee was the marquee player).   I grew up hating the Bulls (I HATE MJ), the Pacers (I HATE REGGIE EVEN MORE), the Celtics (honestly who likes the Celtics anyway), the Miami Heat (PAT RILEY) and finally the cross town rival, New Jersey Nets.  Tonight's game was perfect, it pitted my Knicks against the now Brooklyn Nets. Any who back to the game, we got to the Garden with a boat load of people and made our way to our seats, Section 212, Row 16, Seats 10 & 11.  On our way up, the Knicks were kind enough to be handing out orange "NY Made" T shirts, which were awesome, even if was an XL and fit me way too big.  We found our seats and our view was great, a little to the left of center court, but we could see the whole court.  After finding our seats I went and fetched us two beers, you cannot go to a game and not enjoy a nice beer.  $11.50 for a twenty four ounce Stella Artois in a plastic cup with a straw? Sure why not!  Ultimately we had two beers each because its a mission to get to and from your seats to the beer stand as well as the bathroom!  The game was amazing, and I got Ariana into basketball!  She took a liking to Tyson Chandler, naturally the tallest guy on the court, the complete opposite of me.  We cheered and screamed along with the couple next to us, because at a Knicks game and you are cheering for my Knicks, you are my friend.  The Knicks beat the Nets by nearly 30 so as any fan knows, this made the game 100000 time better.  We really enjoyed every minute of the game.  Even the half time show was funny.  Nick Cannon came out to pull some stunt of him making a full court no look shot, and rather than cheer him on, the garden faithful booed him and chanted "we want Mariah!"  I left the game smiling from the game and the amazing time.

After the game we looked at the time and it was still early!  It was my suggestion that we walk to Times Square and just enjoy the beautiful weather.  We ended up going into Dave & Busters and playing some games.  This made the night even more enjoyable!  It was half price game night, so all the games cost half the points they usually would.  We played plenty of games and we both hit a ticket jackpot on each game!  We could not decide on what prizes to get, because Ariana hated everything except the sweets (which she could not eat) so I picked Ninja Turtles ball and a gold fish ice tray (don't judge me, it looked kind of cool). We left Dave & Busters and got home around midnight.

I cannot, and I can not stress this enough, CANNOT wait to go to another Knicks game next season with Ariana.  Unfortunately this season was cut short and the Knicks missed the playoffs.  What a perfect gift, and what an amazing time.  Ariana is now a Knicks fan and maybe she will enjoy sitting and watching the games with me.  If you are a couple who are into sports, or even if one of you is into sports, head over and watch your team play.  If not, go check out the Knicks at Madison Square Garden and enjoy visiting a landmark of NYC.  And always remember, Lets Go Knicks!!


Her Take: So for our anniversary, I got Nicky tickets to the Knicks Nets game at Madison Square Garden. He was so excited and I was too because I had never been to a basketball game before. I thought the seats I got were pretty good actually; we could see everything! The game started at 7 so we grabbed a quick slice at San Marco pizzeria around the corner from my house and then hopped on the train. Nicky was so excited he basically took the plate under my pizza to throw out before I was even done! Anyway, after reprimanding him about that and also telling him to relax a bit on the train after he got stuck between the closing doors of the C train, I pushed some lady out of the way with my hips so we could get off at our stop! We got to MSG at 6:30 and as we walked in, the place was already mobbed. We went through security and metal detectors and finally headed up the escalators where we received free "NY Made" t-shirts (mine fit me like a dress.) We got to our section and we quickly migrated towards the BEER! We got two Stella Artois and went to find our seats. Thank goodness we got there early because once we sat down our row filled up!

All in all, the game was soooo much fun!! We ended up having two beers each, lots of laughs and a lot of fun! and the Knicks won! :) Nicky (and I) had a great time and he was so happy and I was glad that I got him the perfect gift. After the game ended we walked outside, me with my NY made dress on, and we started walking towards Times Square. Apparently we always end up there, I haven't gone to Times Square this many times until we started dating!!

We ended up in front of Dave & Busters and decided to go in! Plus it was half off games Wednesday! So we went up, realized how packed it was, ran to get a card and started to play like the big kids that we are! It was a great time, we both love playing games and we get so into it! We were there for a couple of hours and we won like 892,435,742,582 tickets! So Nicky got a stupid TMNT ball and some other random thing and we headed home.
We got home around midnight, we had an amazing time!! the entire night was a lot of fun!! I would love to go to another game! :)

 I actually won 500 :)

Date Night: Virgil's Real BBQ - Times Square, NY - Monday 3/31/2014

Her Take: For our anniversary we wanted to celebrate with some BBQ! There were a couple options but we decided on Virgil's because it was close to FIT, right in Times Square, so I could meet Nicky after school. We had both been craving good BBQ, so we were excited to try this place. We got there early, even though we had reservations for 6:30. We were seated quickly in a corner and it felt like we were in time-out. We wanted to exchange gifts right away because we were both giddy and excited so we did and I got a beautiful bracelet made in Italy and I got Nicky Knicks tickets. :)) The waiter came right away and asked us if we were ready to order, when we obviously weren't so we said if we could have a minute. He came back in literally one minute so we rushed our drink and food order. I got a pineapple mojito and Nicky got a some Ciroc punch. We put our gifts aside and as we were about to make a toast and cheers, our appetizers came out, holy fast! We ordered Trash Ribs and biscuits. Nicky had most of the ribs and I attacked the biscuits, and just as we were halfway into our apps, our entrees came!! SO FAST AGAIN! REALLY? That annoyed me. I let it slip the first time when the waiter was rushing us to order, and let it slip when the apps came fast, but the entrees too? come on, we wanted to enjoy our time and eat slowly and look into each others eyes and be romantic, but this place was not made for that. They were too rushy rushy. We put aside our apps and decided to try our entrees. I ordered the combo with pulled pork, brisket, corn bread cheese grits and mac and cheese. To be honest I was kind of disappointed because I wanted good BBQ and mac and cheese!! the mac and cheese was ehhhh the grits were alright, the brisket was hard to cut and eat and it was cold, and the pulled pork was dry; definitely needed more sauce, so I put some BBQ sauce on it, but it was still eh.
They came 8423984 times to ask if we were done with our food, no sir i'm just taking a break since you threw a hundred pounds of food at me at once!! Then when we wanted the waiter's attention, he was nowhere to be found. Anyway, we decided to wrap our food up and take it home and we ordered another round of drinks just so we could sit there a while longer. We literally ate in a half hour. I don't mean to rip this place apart, but the service was eh, too many people working and asking if you'd like anything wrapped and they give you no time to eat, they want you in and out! I don't like when restaurants throw the food at you and then give you the check right away, it make you feel like you aren't welcome and like they area throwing you out. The food wasn't terrible but it could have used a little more TLC. I think my favorite part was the biscuits...
Atmosphere I would give it a 6 out 10, service a 5 out of 10 and food 6 out of 10. It wasn't a good place for an anniversary, it's more of a "hey lets grab a QUICK bite" (emphasis on the quick)

His Take: Happy Anniversary to me and my wonderful girlfriend Ariana.  We decided to head out and celebrate our 1 year anniversary!  What better way to celebrate then with food and drinks.  I have to admit I was really craving BBQ/Southern food.  I Yelped some places and came across Virgil’s.  Ariana met me there and inside we went.  Virgil’s is really easy to get to and it is located right in Times Square which is an added bonus.

 

I had made our reservation for 6:30 PM on and naturally we arrived early.  We got to Virgil’s at about 5:50 and the hostess sat us right away.  The place was fairly empty but as our dinner progressed more and more tables came in.  We sat down and were immediately handed our menus.  Our waiter seemed like a nice guy, my apologies but I forgot his name!  Since it was our anniversary, we exchanged our gifts before even opening the menus.  Side note, Ariana got me two Knicks tickets to the upcoming game on Wednesday and I was super excited (more to come on that later).  Any who back to dinner, we started out just by ordering drinks while we looked over the menus.  I ordered a fruit punch drink that had Circoc vodka in it, and it was excellent.  Finally we ordered our appetizers and entrees.  We settled on an order of Trash Ribs with a side order of biscuits for appetizers.  Shortly after we ordered them, our appetizers came out (which was nice because I was hungry!)  The Trash Ribs were excellent, the meat was tender and fell right off the bone, and the ribs were covered in Virgil’s trash sauce.  The portion was a good size, Id say about 8 ribs that me and Ariana split accordingly.  The biscuits were your classic biscuits that came with a side of whipped butter.  Now here comes my first complaint with Virgil’s, we were still eating our appetizers when our waiter brought our entrees.  We did not want to send our entrees back in fear that they would get cold.  We literally only finished about half of our appetizers when the main course came.  For our entrees, we both ordered the Virgil’s combo, mine being Brisket and BBQ pulled chicken, with a side of mac and cheese and mashed potatoes, and Ariana’s being Brisket with BBQ pulled pork with a side of Mac and cheese and cheese grits.  The dish size was huge and full of food.  The BBQ pulled chicken was delicious and typing this now I could go for some more!  The Brisket was just OK, and I have definitely had better.  The Mac and Cheese was good, baked mac and cheese just a little bit to go with the food.  The mashed potatoes were good, but then again its kind of hard to mess up mashed potatoes in my eyes.  And yes of course with dinner we doubled up on our cocktails and ordered another!

 

All in all I was satisfied with the food at Virgil’s.  I was a little disappointed that we were sort of rushed in and out, literally dinner took maybe 40 minutes in total.  Also I regret choosing this place for an anniversary dinner, but it is definitely a nice date out.  I would go back to Virgil’s for some more BBQ food and drinks, but I would hope that they let me stay and digest and enjoy their good food!

 

Date Night: Alligator Lounge - Williamsburg, Brooklyn - Monday 3/17/2014

His Take: St. Patty's Day! What do we do?!? DRINK!  OK so Ariana was having a rough day and really wanted to go for a drink, like really bad, so being the wonderful boyfriend I am (and frankly you don't really need to twist my arm to go for a drink) we went for a drink.  I suggested we go to The Alligator Lounge.  I will start by saying this, the first time I went to The Alligator Lounge, I HATED IT!!! But the more I went, it grew on me and I really like it there now.  Little did we know that Monday nights at the Alligator Lounge is TRIVIA NIGHT!  The way it works here is teams of however many players answer 4 rounds of trivia, and the top 3 scores win a prize.  1st prize was a $30 bar tab, 2nd prize was a $15 bar tab, and 3rd prize was a grab into the mystery bag.  Today being St. Patty's Day, all the questions revolved around the Irish and St. Patty's Day.  This trivia game was awesome.  Also in between the trivia rounds they ask shot questions and random prize questions.  Name the artist who was nominated for three awards or something like that! GREEN DAY!! Winner winner chicken dinner, I won me a free green "bite me" T shirt!  The coolest thing about The Alligator Lounge is that with every beer or alcoholic beverage you buy they give you a free coupon for one mini personal pie of pizza (toppings extra).  I mean the pizza is not great, but when you are drinking and having a good time, free fresh made pizza is a nice touch.  I had a special type of a loaded corona, which I have named a Lee Corona (after the bartender who first made it for me).  A Lee Corona consists of a regular corona but you fill the neck with Bacardi orange and orange juice.  give it a mix and bam, a new twist on a corona!  It's basically a corona with a shot of alcohol in it!  A few of these and I promise you you will be off your ass.  Team #hashtag signed up for trivia and boy did we enjoy ourselves.  The rounds got a little difficult but it was cool.  They asked all kinds of questions from music and bands to questions about Lucky Charms cereal!  After sticking it out through the whole game Team #hashtag came in second place!  There was a couple there that was also playing trivia that we became friends with because each team switches papers in order to grade the answers.  Ariana and I headed over there just to kill some time and next thing you know we were there for a few hours enjoying shots and drinks.  After winning our $15 bar tab, we treated the other couple to a shot in celebration with us!  We left here pretty drunk and had a good time.  We also enjoyed quite a few pizzas!!!  The Alligator Lounge continues to grow on me, and we will definitely head back.  For a random Monday night (well it was St. Patty's Day) we had a great time, always is when it's date night!!!

Her Take: Monday Blues, I was having a bad day- one of those days where you just need a nice, cold beer to relax you. I had class till 5 and asked Nicky if he wanted to meet me in the city for a drink after he got out of work. I had completely forgot that it was St. Patrick's Day soooo bad idea! When I got home I asked him instead if we could grab a drink around the neighborhood later on after dinner and he said yes. I REALLY needed that drink! Nicky suggested Alligator Lounge and I said yea sure! We had been to Alligator Lounge a few times, its like a neighborhood dive bar with a brick oven that holds activities each day of the week- nothing fancy, just a hangout spot and it just so happened that Monday night is trivia night! We came on the perfect day! We arrived at around 8 o'clock for an early drink so we could get home early as well. Of course it was packed but luckily we found a spot at the bar. Nicky got a loaded Corona, with Stoli orange and orange juice in the neck and I started with a Lagunitas IPA. With each drink you get, you receive a ticket for a free pizza, yes that's right free pizza with each drink!!
The solo lady at the bar got up and left so we quickly took her seat and the one next to it and just in time for Trivia! The host (with an awesome game show voice) handed out papers to fill in our teamname, the #hashtags, and our answers and told us that the questions would be related to St. Patty's Day and the color green. There was a whole round on irish artists and we had to guess the bands and the song title from a few seconds played of the song. We were awesome at this round, we listen to a wideeee variety of music ;) (U2 and the Cranberries I love ya!!) In between rounds the host asks questions were you just need to shout out the answer and who ever shouts it first wins a free shot or free green t-shirt that says "bite me." The answers had to include the color green and the last question was who was nominated in the tony awards or something? Nicky shouted out GREENDAY!!! and he won the t-shirt!! of course he did, as if he needed any more tshirts! But yay him! :)
Nicky ordered another Loaded Corona and I got a Stella Artois and then he went and got two pizzas and we attacked them as we answered the trivia questions. And to be honest, the pizza wasn't bad at all!
Good thing we wanted to be home by 10:30, it was 10 and we still had 2 more rounds left, we weren't going anywhere!! at the end we had to switch papers with the team next to us, and the couple we switched with were such nice people and they said they were rooting for us! We handed in our papers and the host started from 14th place, saying the number of points and the team names! He was at 3rd place and still had not called our team's name, we made it to the top 3!! Turns out we won second place, which meant we won a $15 bar tab!! yay!! The first thing we did was tell the bartender we won 2nd place and that we wanted 4 shots of whiskey, two for us and two for the sweet couple next to us! They were surprised but happy. After that we decided it was time to go home! Nicky had work in the morning and I had to go home some time right? We stumbled drunkenly home and laughed at the night we had, it was a fun unexpected night, those are always the best!!
Alligator Lounge is always a good time and its always a good choice when you're bored at home or when you really just  NEED A BEER!! You'll meet cool people, have great and cheap drinks, eat decent pizza that's FREE and have lots of laughs!