NYC Adventures: Celebrations at Beetle House

On Thursday, I took a day off so Baros and I could go to his Greencard Interview.  For anyone who doesn't know, Baros is from Turkey and when we got married he was on an artist visa.  Together, we decided to apply for his Permanent Residency here.
So from the time we got married (November 2017) we've been busy.  We filled out lots of paperwork (Baros mostly did everything but I helped) and did a ton of waiting.  We've waited for notifications, work permits and most recently for our interview date.
Happily, our interview was this past Thursday and it went really well.  We had all our paperwork in order and hundreds of pictures ready as evidence. It was a stressful kind of day.
We got dressed up and went to Newark.
We waited some more and then just as quickly as the interview started, it was over.
Our case was accepted and Baros is now a Permanent Resident here in the USA!
Once his greencard is in hand, we'll be able to travel wherever we like and have even more adventures together.
I'm so excited and I know he is too!
First thing: TRIP to TURKEY!!  Baros will see his parents for the first time in almost 3 years and I'll get to meet them in person for the first time.
I don't think excitement quite covers the emotions we're feeling.  It's incredible and relieving and wonderful!
So on Thursday, after our interview, we went home to drop off our crazy heavy bags (soooo much paperwork!) and then we head into the city for a celebration!

Beetle House - Downtown Manhattan

It took us a while to decide but we finally chose Beetle House.  We've been talking about going there for ages but it never felt like quite the right moment! 

This is Halloween!  This is amazing!

We're both huge Tim Burton fans so it has been on the agenda for a while. Baros had been back when it first opened but I'd never been.

We're giant nerds.

I've seen many, many Burton films: Edward Scissorhands, BeetleJuice, Batman Returns, The NightMare Before Christmas, Batman Forever, James and the Giant Peach, Corpse Bride, Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children, Sweeney Todd, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sleepy Hollow.  I love them.  I think Baros has missed a few that I've seen... but we can always watch together now!  I love re-watching.

So Thursday seemed like the perfect night! We could celebrate in true nerd fashion.

Since it was a Thursday night we were able to walk in without a reservation, but if you're going on a weekend, I would definitely make that reservation.  It's a small restaurant so I think it gets crowded quickly.  Even for a Thursday it was pretty busy!  We got the last table in the front.  It was a dark corner facing the bar so I really liked it. <3

The atmosphere was lovely.  It really felt like you were entering a Burton world!

The best thing is that when we walked in we were greeted by The Corpse Bride. She was great and actually came to check in on us and chat with us periodically through the evening. It was lovely and we even got to take a picture with her during the evening.

What a lovely bride! She didn't even try to steal my hubby!

The food was also pretty delicious. However, we weren't careful when we were reading the menu online and didn't realize it was a two course pre fixe menu.  There were two price choices $35 or $45 dollars per person.  So you chose an appetizer and a main course.  The main courses impacted the overall price (most of the vegan, vegetarian or light meat dishes were the lower price option).  It wasn't really a problem, but we also weren't expecting that.  We would have gone hungrier if we had realized.

We decided to share the Brains & Chips (guacamole, black tortilla chips and plaintain chips) and the Nightmare Wings for our appetizers.  Then we also got the Chesire Mac & Cheese and the Edward Burger Hands.  We stuck to the $35 options, for budget but also because they sounded pretty delicious.

Gotta love Jack!

The Brains & Chips was pretty tasty. It felt like a well done Guacamole although the pineapple was extremely mild and not abundantly flavorful.  It was delicious but the pineapple wasn't super present (not a bad thing at all).  It used to be served in a skull but the manager told us that people kept stealing them! so I'm a little sad that we didn't get the full experience.
The Nightmare Wings weren't crazy spicy.  They were tasty and pretty meaty (we had an experience not too long ago with really sad wings, so these were awesome).  Definitely enjoyed them!

The Back of the restaurant

The Cheshire Mac & Cheese was delicious and creamy. The stewed tomato reduction and the salted honey butter crumb topping were really amazing.  We only ate half (we were happily full by the end of our meal) and took the rest home with us to eat the next day for dinner.

The Edward Burger Hands was pretty amazing too (sadly not served with scissors anymore... also due to people).   It's an 8oz burger with pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, roasted red peppers, smoked bacon, a sunny side egg, and siracha aioli and it was served with the best sweet potato fries I've had in a while.  I'm not always the biggest burger fan but this was juicy and perfectly cooked.  The egg was perfect too.  The most difficult thing was splitting the burger in two!  It was a challenge but I did it! Since the egg was perfect it got all over the place, but we used the amazing bun and sweet potato fries to sop it all up.

To drink, Baros got a couple of IPAs and I got a new drink called The Corpse, recommended by the Corpse Bride herself.  I don't know what was in it since it's not officially on the menu yet, but it was delicious! It was a super cool drink that came out bubbling!  It was such a lovely effect and very yummy.  I think it was vodka, but I honestly don't remember since I didn't see it in writing.

Bubble, Bubble

We had such a great night! The bartender/waiter, the corpse bride and manager were all amazing.
The manager came to check on us a couple of times and even showed us the new cookbook. It is really cool so we decided to nerd out and get ourselves a copy.

It has some beautiful food and drink recipes as well as party ideas and I can't wait to try some of them!  The Giant Peach Salad, Frog's Breath & Nightshade Risotto, Hallowpeno Honey Cheddar Cornbread and the Sriracha-Roasted Butternut Squash Death Soup sound particularly amazing to me so maybe in a couple of months we'll even have a Burton themed house party.

What was also lovely is that we got to meet one of the chefs that contributed to the book.  Chef Chris Binotto just moved to NYC from the LA location so he was kind enough to come out of the kitchen and have a whole conversation with us and sign our book.  It was pretty awesome!
He told us that we should come back in the next few months because he'll be helping to revamp the menu!  Apparently, he's got some new tricks up his sleeves.

Our brand new signed cookbook!  Next time we should remember to get a
picture with the chef!  He was pretty awesome!

We will definitely be back after such a wonderful experience!

After finishing our meal, we grabbed one more drink at a nearby bar called Burp Castle (it's really cool since it's actually quiet and great for conversation) and then we walked back to Port Authority.

Shockingly fun!

It was a long walk from the lower east side and took a lot out of me!  I've been on and off sick for weeks so by the time we got home, I was dead on my feet. I was exhausted and my sore throat and cough came back!  When I woke up the next morning, I was feeling pretty poopy, so I had to take one more day off to recover.

Even so, it was a great day!  I spent the rest of the weekend recovering and relaxing with hubby so I'm a happy camper.