Abbreviated Weekend Reads 2015 edition v5 and Tea for Two

It’s a three day weekend! What are your plans?? I’ve already sorted out what I’m going to eat for the next few days, at least through Wednesday. Why, you may ask? Well, Tuesday of next week is Fat Tuesday aka Mardi Gras and since I’ve historically given up meat for Lent, I’ll be doing a meat tour of all of my favorite dishes. I already have a lunch rezzie for Monday so that I can have prime rib 🙂 I started my tour a few days ago so it will be almost a week of meat all the time. I honestly don’t eat that much of it but when you’re faced with the prospect of not eating it for the next 46 days, I kinda want to stock up! I still eat fish but certainly no bacon for me. I will savor it more when I return to eating it on Easter (which also happens to be my birthday this year!).

In the meantime, I’ll just be content to check in on my Weekend Reads!

• So I’ll be drooling over these pictures for a while and I don’t even like sandwiches! These aren’t your typical banh mi. Maybe it’s telling me that I need to book a flight back to Vietnam.

• All you DMVers who like to brunch, DC Eater released their heat map for the hottest places to partake of your share of waffles, pancakes and savories – enjoy that bacon for me! I’ll actually be trying a place down the street from me that made the list so look for a new blog post soon.

• I’m fully on board with all of these fashion tips from InStyle magazine’s Special Project Editor. Throughout my life, people have said that they wanted to go shopping with me or just shop in my closet and the fact of the matter is my wardrobe is pretty basic. I actually didn’t start wearing jeans until I was in 6th grade because EVERYDAY I wanted to wear skirts to school. I usually go high end on my accessories (shoes and purses) while wearing non-designer labels for just about everything else. As the fashion editor noted in her closet, we both have a substantial amount of J Crew. I’m also a fan of Target, H&M, Nordstrom, as well as shopping online at the discount sites RueLaLa & Gilt. No matter what you wear, confidence is always the best accessory.

• Speaking of clothes, New York is abuzz with NYFW while last week, Paris was showing their collections. I manage to get away with a lot with my fashion choices in my industry so I’m sure that one day I will use the DCCC as my runway for one of these street styles!

Thanks for reading/sharing and check out my visit to the Mandarin Oriental for tea.

All of this pending cold weather makes me want to snuggle up and drink more tea. I usually drink a pot a day and my teapot usually holds about 4 cups of water. I think that’s more than usual, right? I’ve now increased that to 2 pots a day! I need to balance that out with water so that I’m not drinking that much caffeine, but I like my black tea!

And sometimes, I like it with champagne 🙂 After #Election2014 was done, I started on my mantra of #lesscampaignsmoreculture so I made reservations for a group of my friends to join me at the Mandarin Oriental for high tea. It was my first time there for their tea service and I really don’t know why I waited so long. I like the ambience of the Empress Lounge, where you can have a view of the Southwest waterfront and a serene garden while basking in the sunlight of the comfortable lounge chairs. Just don’t forget to make a rezzie!

They offer their service with just tea or with an additional up charge to include champagne and a cocktail. At that point, I was going for the whole she-bang. I thoroughly enjoy that the Mandarin has an Asian inspired menu for their cocktails and it went well with both the savory and sweet treats.

I think it might be time to get in another reservation! Drink up!

Mandarin Oriental
1330 Maryland Ave. SW
Washington, DC 20024
(202) 554-8588

— MXM