"Gone are the birds that were our summer guests." - Longfellow

When we got back from California, we just had a couple weeks until B's 30th birthday.  His birthday fell over Labor Day weekend, so we decided to have a Mexican-themed party at his parents' shore house on Long Beach Island.

For appetizers we had homemade shrimp ceviche and stuffed peppers.

For dinner and dessert we had tacos and tres leches cake catered from a Mexican place at the shore.

We had a great time tubing and hanging out.

Thanks so much to my in-laws for lending us their home and throwing such a great party!

For his birthday B got a giftcard to Alla Spina, a new Marc Vetri Italian gastropub.  Its a little bit in no man's land, 1410 Mt. Vernon Street (14th a few blocks north of Spring Garden), but we were headed to a concert nearby so it worked out perfectly.  For starters we split the housemade pretzel bites and the poutine.

The pretzel bites were good, but Alla Spina's spicy beer cheese has nothing on the spicy beer cheese served with the pretzel bites at Bierstube.  The poutine, on the other hand, was amazing.  Its served with guinea hen leg bolognese and mozzarella curb.  Yum!

For dinner we decided to split one of the paninis.  To our surprise we also received a complimentary "burgamo"- Alla Spina's double cheeseburger.

Both were good, although the burger, sort of an upscale version of the Whopper, was extremely messy.

At the end of the meal we concluded that Alla Spina has some solid bar food, and the menu some interesting twists, its a little out of the way to travel on the regular with all of the tasty gastropubs within walking distance of our place.