New York, New York

For the past few days I've been living it up in the Big Apple. I can't tell you how much I love New York City - all the stores, restaurants, people, and endless things to do. In order to make up for the lack of posts during my trip I've compiled some pictures together highlighting my time spent in Manhattan.

Emelie took this snapshot on the plane over. What a photographer she is, huh?

Here we are at RYU, Scott Disick's new restaurant in the Meat Packing District, the first night we arrived. We didn't have dinner until 11:30 but boy was it good! The four of us (my mother and her good friend, Cindy) ordered a few small plates and two mains. Everything tasted amazing so I had to take a look at the dessert menu. Emelie and I decided to try the RYU Sundae, thinking it'd be a smaller dessert like the rest of the plates, not only was is the best sundae I've had but it was huge! Wish I would've taken a picture - cherry gelato, salted caramel, and short cake. YUM. The four of us cleaned the bowl.

Sunday was our first full day and we started it off with a 9:30am mass service at Church of St. Peter which is a block from Ground Zero and breakfast at Sarabeth's. Then we cruised the streets scoping out all the Sunday vendors. We scored some cool jewelry that was super cute and, even better, super cheap!

For lunch we came across this AWESOME sushi bar, The Blue Ribbon. Again, I wish I'd have taken some pictures of our lunch but I was too excited to dig in. Luckily I remembered to get a picture of our mid-afternoon snack at The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop! I saw Big Gay on the Food Network and again in the Delta SkyMagazine so I made it a must. This is a combination of the Salty Pimp and the American Globs - vanilla cone injected with dulce de leche (mexican caramel sauce), topped with sea salt, covered in pretzel pieces, and dipped in chocolate...aka heaven on a cone. And yes, I ate the whole thing.

We ended Sunday with another incredible meal, this time at Bobby Flay's MESA Grill. I'm not exaggerating when I say everything was delicious! Great, light and flavorful Mexican cuisine. 

Monday morning we taxied on over to Hoboken, NJ for some breakfast at La Isla's, another as seen on  Food Network's Throw Down with Bobbly Flay. La Isla's is mostly Cuban cuisine, it was a very laid back place to enjoy breakfast. As you can seen we both ordered the stuffed french toast and it did not disappoint! Challah bread stuffed with a strawberry-guava cream cheese filling, then dipped in a cinnamon egg wash and coated with a cornflake-almond crust, cooked up on a hot skillet and topped with strawberry-guava sauce and powdered sugar. I bet your mouth is watering now, am I right? 

Whadda ya know? The Cake Boss's bakery was right across the street from La Isla's! The line to get inside was ginormous so a picture had to suffice. After breakfast in Jersey we took the ferry back to Manhattan.

Lunch on Monday was at Xi'an Famous Foods in St. Mark's Place. Mom and I ate here when we were in NYC earlier this year and I knew I had to introduce Emelie to Xi'an's spicy noodles. I ordered the spicy vegetable noodles and Emelie ordered the spicy hot oil noodles (pictured above). What makes this plate of noodles so bomb is the incredible spice and the fact that the noodles are made to order. NOM!

Here we are having a light dinner at a French restaurant just down the street from the hotel. It was raining so we weren't up to a long walk.

Tuesday was our last full day in the city so we took it easy. Well, sort of. The day started off with a total body toning class at NYSC Gym (which I'd like to note I'm still sore from!) and then a subway ride to an Uptown breakfast at Norma's. Best breakfast of the trip and I didn't take a picture of my shrimp frittata. Sigh.  

After breakfast we headed back to the hotel to wash up before going to the Metropolitan Museum and then Potted Potter! Potted Potter is a show were two guys act out all seven Potter books in 70 minutes, pretty hilarious. After the show we got some food at Gazala Place where I had the best baklava of my life. True story.

As we were walking back from dinner after the show we passed two English guys before realizing they were the two actors and writers of Potted Potter so we had to chase them down the street and get a picture!

Emelie tweeted the picture of the four of us at the two gents and they tweeted back! Great way to wrap up our trip!

On a side note, we spotted our first celeb! Gina Gershon! Of course we had no idea who she was until looking her up. She's been in a few films like P.S. I Love You and is apparently in a recent film, Face Off. Anyways, we saw her on a TV talk show as we were getting ready on Tuesday. 

And that pretty much sums up the past few days! 

XOXO, 

Claire