Hu Kitchen and Oceans 8!

This is a rather belated post, but so be it – it’s been so busy recently I keep forgetting write it up!

My SURP pals and I recently discovered $5 Tuesdays at AMC theaters! (Actually $6.75 with fees… but hey, still not too bad!) Considering movies in NY are otherwise pretty egregiously expensive, we would make Tuesdays work whenever we wanted to see something. Normally I’m not much of a movie theater person, but there’s actually a number of movies out right now that interest me – Oceans 8, Incredibles 2, Mama Mia, etc.

On this occasion, we went to check out the new Oceans 8 movie! I really enjoyed it. The movie features quite the line-up of well-known celebrities – even I, as someone who generally isn’t too up-to-date on pop culture, recognized quite a number of them. I’ve heard a few criticisms that the movie doesn’t really have a plot, which is true to some extent, but I still thought it was a fun and engaging movie. And by featuring 8 formidable and intelligent women, it’s rather empowering. By far my favorite line would have to be:

“You are not doing this for me. You are not doing this for you. Somewhere out there is an 8-year-old girl dreaming of becoming a criminal. Do this for her.”

Iconic! I honestly really love this quote.

Before attending the movie, a few of us went to check out a restaurant my friend Anita had heard good things about – a place called Hu Kitchen. Famous for their chocolate, they also have a pretty cool menu. Their philosophy is “Get Back to Human,” so it’s a lot of reasonably healthy wholesome foods, cooked in creative and delicious ways. I got a make-your-own bowl. For those of you that don’t know, I am an incredibly indecisive person, and I also love trying new things. As my dad knows well, if we had three different kinds of ice cream, I wanted a scoop of each. If I go to a restaurant repeatedly, I almost always try a new thing (until I’ve tried everything), before getting the same thing for a second time. Hu Kitchen catered to this incredibly well! For the bowl option you’re supposed to choose a base (from five options), a protein (from three options), and then add toppings. I asked the guy if I could have all of the bases, all of the proteins, and all of the toppings, and he actually said yes! What a nice guy! Better yet, his presentation of the multitude of things in the bowl looked beautiful!

While it looked pretty though, it tasted even better! So many delicious flavors combined together. I also got some almond cream stuff on the side, that was really delicious. The only thing I might not recommend to eat there is a matcha smoothie my poor friend Dan was mistakenly advised to order (he’d never had matcha before). I’m a fan of matcha, but this was pretty bitter even for me, and Dan was strongly not a fan. Oh well, live and learn!

We picked up some fun chocolate for the movie (cashew butter and vanilla cream chocolate, to be specific) and headed out to enjoy the movie. The chocolate was delicious per expectation, and the movie was a blast. What a great night!