It was my grandparent's anniversary, so we decided to go somewhere special to celebrate. My whole family including my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins went to The Cookery. The Cookery is the sister restaurant of The Parlor which is once of our favorite places to go. When we got settled in the restaurant, I noticed that on one of the light fixtures above the table had hanging pots and pans. How cool is that? There were so many good choices on the menu that I split a few dishes with my mom and dad.

Our first appetizer was the meatballs. On the plate there were two giant meatballs with pomodoro sauce, parmagiano cheese, and parsley. The meatballs were really soft and tasted very homemade. The sauce gave it a nice flavor. The next appetizer was octopus. My five-year old cousin wanted to try this because she was excited to get to eat an octopus. My mom didn't want any of it! It was fried and had smoked tomato, pistachio, and chili. Surprisingly, it tasted like calamari. It was nice and crunchy, but tender on the inside. The last appetizer was a special. It was a brussels sprouts hash with a soft-boiled egg, soppressata (which is a dry Italian salami) and crunchy lisci (which was their homemade spaghetti). I was excited about this dish because I love the brussels sprouts dish at The Parlor. The brussels sprouts, the lisci, and the egg all made sense together. When you ate it, it was yolky and crunchy.

The first entree was the branzino. On the plate was a whole grilled fish, but they cut off the head and the tail because we asked them to. There were scalloped potatoes and lemon anchovy oil with it. It was very creative. The lemon was great with the fish. The last entree was a cauliflower ravioli. On the plate were cauliflower ravioli with lemon brown butter, garlic and parmigiano cheese. It wasn't what I expected. I thought it was too creamy and I didn't love it as much as I loved the branzino.

After we were all finished sharing our entrees, we made sure we still had room for dessert. The dessert menu came out and we decided to split some again. The first dessert was a cider doughnut bread pudding with apple butter and Jane's vanilla ice cream. The bread pudding tasted like an apple cider doughnut but was more moist. I love apple cider donuts and apple butter so this dessert was for me. The last dessert we had was a popcorn trifle with housemade caramel popcorn, whipped popcorn cream, and lemon zest. The lemon zest gave it a kick while the caramel corn gave it sweetness. So it was lemon zest vs. caramel corn in your mouth. I'm glad my grandparents had a great time and that my cousin was adventurous. We had a good time and I'd really like to go back. I would recommend The Cookery if you like The Parlor.

Recently, we went to The Parlor because my mom was running a half marathon and she wanted carbs before the race. The Parlor is a pizza place in Dobbs Ferry. It's a very unique pizza place because the pizza is made in a wood fire oven. We were sitting at a wooden table so if felt like a picnic. Next to the oven, they were projecting a movie onto the wall which was cool because usually it is on a screen. Another cool thing about The Parlor is that you get to cut your own pizzas with scissors that they give you instead of having them cut the pizza for you. Before we had pizzas, we had two appetizers. We had a brussels sprout salad that had fried brussels sprouts, rice krispies, chili honey, and parmigiano in it. It was crunchy because of the brussels sprouts and the rice krispies. I didn't even know it had parmigiano in it. All those those ingredients together taste heavenly. Next we had...wait for it....wait for it...wood fired oysters! The oysters were smeared with brown butter and had lemon and pickled parsley on top. When I had the oyster, the lemon and parsley hit my mouth and the brown butter was awesome + awesome = totally awesome (I'm a math and food expert). For the entrees, we had three pizzas. First we had the special which was an "After Easter" egg-sausage pizza. Let's talk about this pizza - it was yolky from the egg which made it taste like breakfast. The sausage was beyond good. The crust, I can't even begin to explain. It's crunchy because it's wood fired. Awesomely fantastic. It was my favorite one. Next we had a ramps pizza. Ramps are just like spinach but garlicky. I thought it was OK. The ramps were good but I didn't like the cheese that was on it. The last pizza we had was a margarita pizza with meatballs on it which was delicious. The meatballs were nice and soft. Last, we had dessert. My dad and I shared a salted caramel panna cotta with a bacon crumble on top. It was really good. The caramel was creamy and the bacon crumble was delicious. It was a good experience and I want to go again!