Eating Our Way Through New York

This past weekend, Andrew and I headed up to New York to visit Melissa and Brad. We’ve been up there a bunch of times, but we’ve never stayed with them. It was SUCH a fun weekend.

Andrew and I took the bus up there on Friday night. By the time we got up there, we were starving, so we started our weekend of eating with a Mediterranean tapas place (which is my apparently my new favorite type of place. I think this is the fourth time I’ve been to one of these places in the past month), and stuffed ourselves silly with spinach and feta, hummus, pita, cheese, beets, brussel sprouts and plates heaping with delicious food. 

After a leisurely morning of TV and bagels, we headed out into Central Park and took a pleasant ride in the row boats. This is where Melissa and Brad got engaged! Sure, Brad is rowing the boat in that picture above, but don’t let it fool you. Melissa and I took the home stretch and rowed the boys back to shore. 

We grabbed a quick bite to eat in the park and then headed downtown and met up with Melissa’s parents for some dress shopping! It was a successful trip and we’re on the road to getting bridesmaids dresses!

Before dinner we took a stroll down The Highline which is an urban park built on an elevated rail line. It’s really cool. The paths are lined with plants and flowers and they’ve built in benches and viewing areas where you can relax and enjoy the views of the city.

It was really cool. It only opened a few years ago and it’s really a beautiful little oasis in the middle of the city. We walked for a while before heading back to Melissa and Brad’s to change for dinner.

And oh what a dinner it was. We went to Spice Market and shared some amazing Asian inspired food. I’m not even kidding when I tell you we stated with some salmon tartar, pork buns, almost burned our mouths off on some spicy Thai fried chicken wings (too spicy!), and enjoyed the refreshing spicy Thai slaw. That was just the beginning. We then continued to eat our way through cod with Malaysian chili sauce (so flaky, so delicious), soy glazed beef fried rice with kimchi, and chili-garlic egg noodles with shrimp. We thought we’d have leftovers, but I think we underestimated how hungry we were from our hot afternoon stroll. 

We ended the night with drinks at the bar in the NoMad hotel. We sat in a library room with bookshelves lining the walls from floor to ceiling and sophisticated drinks. I felt very trendy and hip. Then it was back home to prepare for our next eating adventure.

We woke up this morning after sleeping off our busy Saturday and got ready to hit up Smorgasburg. It’s this incredible food flea market with stall after stall of fun food. It’s like the greatest, most interesting outdoor food court. There’s lots of hip (it’s in Brooklyn after all) stalls with food ranging from BBQ to Japanese street food to ice cream to vegan quinoa.  

 We walked over the Brooklyn bridge to work up an appetite where Brad talked up the hash browns. I was ready to have a life changing experience with these hash browns, but once we actually got there I was overwhelmed by the options.

Andrew and I started by sharing maple bacon on a stick. I was expecting it to be kind of gross, but it was actually really tasty. I mean, it was bacon. On a stick.

For lunch I had chicken and waffles. All the food was freshly made. My chicken was so crispy and hot. I nearly licked the bones. I also had a raspberry limeade which was supremely refreshing on a sweltering afternoon.

Andrew had an enormous basket of fish and chips. The fish was light and flaky with crispy batter. Brad got his hash browns and after all the build up, they didn’t live up to his expectations. What a bummer.

Andrew capped off his culinary adventure with a glass of sambuca kombucha, which we all decided sort of tasted like vinegar. Also, apparently it does contain alcohol (still true when I actually refer to it correctly as kombucha, but not enough for it be considered alcoholic)! Andrew decided to finish his beverage before walking back to the subway, which I guess was a good call!

 Melissa and I decided to split a gigantic ice cream sandwich. It was a chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream and fudge swirl. It was an extremely refreshing way to end the day.

And here’s a picture of Brad photobombing me and Andrew. I’m unclear why we look so annoyed at each other. We are not annoyed at each other at all. Maybe Andrew was trying to steal our ice cream sandwich.

Stuffed to the gills, our quick visit to New York ended in a flash. We had such a fun time. Thanks Brad and Melissa for letting us crash at your (very swanky) place and giving us an amazing, whirlwind, culinary tour of the city! Can’t wait to see you again soon!!