Hello, friends!
I hope everyone had a great weekend. The highlight of mine was attending my friend Ben’s wedding!
I didn’t get any photos of the bride and groom since I figured I’d leave that to the professionals, but we had a blast celebrating with them. It was great to see my high school girlfriends Jenny and Lara, too!
The music set up for the wedding was really cool – Ben is really musical and so are a lot of his friends, so he actually organized his friends into mini-bands and let them all play at the wedding, in between breaks with a DJ. Matt got up and played guitar for 2 songs – his group brought the house down playing Al Green and Bruno Mars.
Other fun adventures over the weekend included a Saturday morning class at Crossfit Arlington:
We did a partner workout – between the two of you, you had to complete 100 push presses, and at the top of every minute you each had to do 3 burpees. Whew! It was harder than I thought it would be – my arms got tired fast. We finished with a jump rope and abs workout. I was definitely sore yesterday!
And the other highlight was seeing my friend Ashley! She was in town for the weekend so we met up for lunch on Sunday in Eden Center, which is an Asian shopping center in Falls Church (VA) that has over 120 restaurants and stores. We got lunch at Rice Paper, a Vietnamese restaurant.
Appropriately given the name of the restaurant, we both ordered the rice paper wraps. Mine came with grilled shrimp and grilled pork skewers, basil, lettuce, some shredded veggies, and thin vermicelli. I didn’t realize it when we ordered but they actually bring all the ingredients to the tableside and let you put them together yourself – fun! Reminded me of making my Fresh Thai Summer Rolls!
Sorry for the blurry photo – I forgot my camera so I was using my phone. 
In addition to all the ingredients, they brought the rice paper with a little hot water tub that you dunked it in to soften them, right before stuffing them with ingredients.
Pre-rolling up:
Here is Ashley with a finished roll. Success!
Delicious and fun lunch!
After lunch, we decided that while in Vietnam Eden Center, one should get Bubble Tea.
Have you guys ever had Bubble Tea? The most traditional version is a tea base mixed with fruit or milk, with small chewy tapioca balls (“bubbles”) in the bottom. The straw is wide enough that the tapioca balls make it through! I had Bubble Tea for the first time back in 2003 when I visited Jenny in Taiwan (her family was stationed there for a few years for work). It’s delicious!
I had the coffee bubble tea yesterday. YUM! Sweet but tasty.
Such a fun day – I can’t believe I’d never been to Eden Center before. It’s a really cool place to check out if you’re in the area and you like Asian food! You really feel like you’re in another country.
Time to get back down to work! I have a bunch of AnneTheRD clients lined up today and tomorrow, I’m exhibiting at a health/wellness fair on Wednesday, and then on Thursday we leave for Italy (!!!!) for my grad school BFF Elle’s wedding! So excited! More on that later.
Have a great day everyone!
Weekend Adventures originally appeared on fANNEtastic food on May 13, 2013.
The post Weekend Adventures appeared first on fANNEtastic food.