Day #7

Today started off with a fabulous lunch at Pure Food and Wine, which is a vegan/vegetarian restaurant. It was amazing! For using only raw vegetables and no dairy, they really did a nice job of having very creative and versatile dishes. You really don't miss the meat or the dairy because the flavors were so good and well balanced with acidity. 

















Scott and Holly won for the best salad, which was a sesame salad with cabbages, carrots, daikon, and wasabi.












Holly, Jon, and Amy all got tortilla wraps which was basically guacamole in a sun-dried tomato wrap. They didn't love it, because they all said it had too much acidity and just too much guacamole and nothing else. But I thought their dish was the best. The avocado was so creamy, and it had no onions, which was unbelievable for guacamole. I thought it was delicious.

Scott had a Brazil nut sea vegetable croquet, which reminded me of a falafel and had a nice cumin, mediterraneany (if that's a word) flavor. I had spicy Thai wraps, which were lettuce wraps with carrots and cabbage and came with a sweet chili  peanut dipping sauce. It was very good!

Desserts came next. Scott got a Mallomar, which was a chocolate covered 
fluffy marshmallow on a cookie.. so good.. can't believe there was no dairy.  




























Holly got a lemon tart which she loved, and Jon and Amy got Tiramisu, which was another incredible dish that was made so perfectly yet without dairy.

I was surprised at how delicious everything was. I have no plans of converting to a vegetarian, and there is no way I could ever become a vegan and give up dairy, but I did really enjoy the meal and would definitely go back again.

After our lunch, we went to the MOMA to get cultured. Here are a few shots of my favorites:


                                                The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

                                      Amy next to a portrait made of shellacked paint brushes

                                                                 A giant Monopoly Deed 

                                                               Olive Trees by Van Gogh

Sand and Panty Hose. I thought this was kind of funny

After being immersed in art, we felt thirsty and tired, so we went to The Rum House to have a fancy artisnal cocktail. There was a guy playing an old saloon type piano..he was so good! He made that piano sing, banging out fun and funky saloon music, and stomping his foot on the floor along with the ragtime beat.  We felt like we were in a saloon in the old west; he was such a character and played so well.. it was a really fun experience!

We came back to the apartment and in trying to decide what to do next, Scott and Jon discovered that we could go onto the rooftop of our building. We had originally thought we would skip the fireworks show, but now that we had rooftop access, it was game on for firework watching. And boy, were we glad we watched... We had the absolute perfect view.

After watching the best fireworks show we've ever experienced in ny, we then went on to have the worst dinner I've ever experienced in ny. We went to this trendy new place called Red Farm. It is an upscale Chinese restaurant that features local produce and sustainable ingredients, which are the things we love in a restaurant. However, the menu was poorly executed. Eveythihg was fried and heavy.. just totally disgusting in my opinion as I detest fried food. It all tastes exactly the same, no matter what the ingredient. Fried oil is all I taste. Yuck. On a scale of 1-10, Jon and Holly gave this place a 6, Scott gave it a 5, Amy gave it a 2, and I gave it a 1. Gross gross gross. So if you like fried Chinese food, definitely go here as that's what you'll get. If you enjoy food that tastes good, do not go here. At least we had a wonderful visual feast from the fireworks, as well as a totally scrumptious lunch. 

Day #6

Can't believe we've already been here for 6 days! Time sure does fly by on vacation. Even though our trip is halfway over, we have been looking forward to today because today is when all our company gets here! Holly and Jon got here at 11 am, and Amy will get here at 10 pm. So cheers to NYC part 2!
Holly and Jon got here this morning and we were so excited to see them!













First thing we wanted to do was show them their new home at the apartment.







































After settling in, we went over to SOHO to have lunch at a place called Mexican Radio. It had tons of vegetarian options and was absolutely delicious!

Next we did some shopping. We all got a few goodies, and then returned to the apartment to drop off our loot.
Holly and Jon wanted to see the Hudson River Parkway that we have been talking about since we've been here, so we took them to see for themselves. They loved it as much as we do.




















After that, we went to Vin Sur Vingt for some wine tastings and a couple snacks. We had some wine flights with cheese pairings, salmon tartar, and croque saumon, which was smoked salmon on a piece of brioche, with a creamy bechamel sauce and gruyere melted on top. Omg. It was worth the calories. Of course I did not get a picture of that dish. Just imagine  a cheesy gooey melty pile of deliciousness.





















After that fun little snack, it was time to meet Amy D! She was getting out of the cab right as we walked up to the apartment. She had just been to Vegas for the past 5 days and flew straight from there to meet us in ny. She is the true definition of a jet setter!
After traveling for 11 hours going from the West coast to the East coast, Amy was hungry, understandably! So we went to dinner at Buvette. It is a fabulous little French restaurant featuring small plate dining. We had 8 or 9 small plates that we split between us all.


After our fabulous feast, everyone wanted 
check out the speakeasy we'd been to earlier in the trip, so we went back to Bathtub Gin. They loved the faux wall that opened up from the coffee shop to reveal the secret room behind it. We all had one drink and then called it a night.

Day #5

Monday started off with breakfast at Bonsignour. Chocolate croissant and spinach and feta timbale:

Today's plan was to walk our legs off. We succeeded. Here is the map of where we walked throughout the day. We walked up the Husdon River Parkway at 12th Street all the way up to the Upper West Side at 95th St. Walked through Central Park, through the Central Park Ramble (a winding walking path inside the park),  over to Roosevelt Island (took the tram over the river), back to the upper west side to the new Century 21 for shopping, back home. 12 miles later, here is the day in pictures:

Our path today:

Hudson River Parkway to the Upper West Side 

USS Intrepid







Central Park and
Central Park Ramble

Shake Shack

Took Sky Tram to Roosevelt Island

View from Roosevelt Island looking at Manhattan

Dinner at Fatty 'Cue

Chocolate Martini at  Azya Wine and Chocolate Bar

That was Monday, in a nutshell. My feet are sore. 

Day #4

Woke up today to another muggy Manhattan morning. Whew, it is so hot here! Went for a jog at 9:30, and it was already 83 degrees with 100% humidity. With the sun baking the concrete all day, you get a double beating with heat rising up from the ground as well as beaming down from the sky. Now I understand why NYC is called the Concrete Jungle.. it feels like the Amazon rainforest. Constant oppressive heat. So needless to say, we did not jog for very long for fear of heat exhaustion.
Lunch today was at Jean Georges. A thousand words could not describe the swanky opulence of the restaurant, or the mouthwatering decadence of our phenomenal meal. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves:

That little white fluffy pillow is a Jean Georges house made marshmallow. I can guarantee,  no one  has ever had a marshmallow this good. Ever. It practically melted in my mouth. Pure Heaven.

Next, we went to the Theater District to see a play called The Columnist, staring John Lithgow. I wanted to see this because I love John Lithgow- he was so good in a Broadway show we saw back in 2005, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. And of course he was so funny in the tv show Third Rock From the Sun. Both of those pale in comparison to the performance he gave in The Columnist. This just solidified his phenomenal acting ability. He is so hilarious, yet so versatile- this performance bumped him up to my #1 slot in best actors I have ever seen. He is just amazing. The show was great, but he made it spectacular. After the show, I got his autograph... and he touched my finger when he handed me back the signed playbill! My trip to NY is complete. I can go home right now and be totally happy. Best day here so far. And it's not even 6:00!