Our NYC Food Adventure

For Labor Day weekend this year, my future sister-in-law and I spent the weekend conquering all the food we could possibly eat, with some exercise thrown in too. We needed something to offset all our calories. Stephanie and I seem to see eye to eye on so many things so it was perfect when she said she would spend the day in Manhattan with me, while the boys went to a bachelor party, and Mom was kind enough, as always, to babysit her Grandpuppy for the day.

Dad dropped us off at the train station for us to start our journey. We were armed with our "golden ticket" which we sang about on the trip (also known as Dad's monthly train pass which gave us one free train ticket, but we had to be sure not to lose that bad boy, NJ Transit monthly passes are not cheap). Not going to lie, it was quite the trek to get to the city on the train from our in-laws house, it took us like 2 hours to get to the city, we were starving by the time we arrived, our first and only mission of the day involved finding food.

Part I - Midtown

Before we began stuffing ourselves silly for the day we did make a quick trip to RK Bridal so I could see the bridemaids dress that Stephanie had selected for us to wear for their wedding. I even got to try it on, it's beautiful, and I can't wait to wear it next June! Then we were supposed to walk over to Times Square to pick up theater tickets for Mike and I to go see Anything Goes but I left the gift card at home,   disappointing but I was able to get them the following week on a subsequent trip to the city.

Now for our first meal of the day, a small lunch snack. We headed over to Bryant Park, it's such a nice park with beautiful scenery surrounding you, with views of the NY City Public Library and the Empire State Building. We picked a small snack from Wichcraft, to fuel us to get to our real lunch location.

After we had our snack we were ready for the next leg of our walk. We headed down 5th Avenue to get down by Madison Square Park. We passed the flat iron building on our way!

We wanted to check out Eataly. I'd heard a lot about it. It is a huge Italian food market with all different sections. Everything from breads, cheeses, meats, wine, desserts and much more, with different restaurant sections. I will say it was very crowded and hard to find where everything was, it was a bit overwhelming. And I doubt this was the busiest it gets, I'm sure it gets even more crowded. It was pretty cool to see it, and if I lived in Manhattan I could see myself getting some groceries here from time to time but we decided to pass on having lunch there.

We were saving ourselves for a meal at the famed Shake Shack which was right across the street in Madison Square Park. This place is supposed to have some of the best burgers in town! We were so looking forward to these delicious burgers and fries, but apparently everyone else had the same idea as us. What we weren't prepared for was the HUGE line. I had been expecting a line, I knew it was popular, I thought maybe a half hour or so sounded reasonable. There's no way this line was a half hour, it had to be at least an hour wait and was barely moving. It took me three pictures to get the whole line captured. Sadly we decided we had to pass on getting a Shake Shack burger and moved on with our quest to find food - You'd think in Manhattan this wouldn't be a difficult task.

We kept walking down towards Union Square, which wasn't too much further down. After we scouted out the area we decided on eating outside at the Union Square Coffee Shop. We were starving at this point and quickly ordered some sandwiches and two beers. The beers were probably our favorite part of the lunch, they were these delicious Hefeweizen beers. They really hit the spot. Stephanie and I did the classic split two sandwiches so we got the best of both. The boys never agree to do this with us! 

After lunch we walked across the street to check out the Union Square Farmers Market. It's always fun to walk through the Greenmarket and check out all the wonderful produce, organic products and flowers that they are selling. There's always such beautiful colors there!

Part II - Little Italy & China Town

From Union Square we hopped on the subway and headed downtown to Little Italy and Chinatown. Stephanie had never been before and was excited to check it out. It was our lucky day, when we got to Little Italy we were right in the middle of the San Gennaro fest and it wasn't too crowded. As soon as we walked into little Italy there was a stand in front of one of the restaurants selling mini cannoli's for like $2. How in the world could we pass those up? Of course we had to try one, after all we were just splitting one. 

We settled on a Birthday Cake Cannoli and boy was it good. 

We kept walking around Little Italy when we next spotted Ferrara Bakery. One look at the gelato stand outside and we had to do it. We were splitting this too, half the calories. Good thing Stephanie and I have similar taste. We walked up to order a taste but the girl only gave us one, to me, I tried the nutella gelato and knew Stephanie would love it. One nutella gelato please. Man was this thing good too. By this point we've had a small snack at Wichcraft, lunch and beers at Union Square Coffee Shop, a birthday cake cannoli and now a nutella gelato - and no we didn't stop there!

After our dessert snacks we decided to sit down and have a glass of wine at one of the restaurants in Little Italy. We sat down at Sofia's of Little Italy to enjoy our glass of wine. The staff there was a bit interesting, they kept making strange comments to Stephanie and I, so we had our glass of wine and then headed out, I don't think I'd go back there for dinner. If my parents had been able to find it when they were down in Little Italy they would've gone to their favorite restaurant, Vincents. 

A couple blocks over from Little Italy is China Town. We didn't spend too much time walking around, there's not really much to see unless you're in the market for a fake Gucci, Prada or Louis Vitton. We had one goal on our mind in China Town - Dumplings! I read this article online about the best dumpling places in China Town and apparently Tasty Dumpling is the place to be. For five for a dollar how could you go wrong? They even had a couple different kinds you could pick from. We settled on the pork and cabbage ones. It took only a minute to get our hot tasty treats, we walked across the street to a park with them to sit down and bask in our delicious dumplings. Stephanie was in heaven! These things were so good, def the best dumplings I've ever had, and I know Stephanie would agree too! 

Part III - The West Side

Our final stop downtown was to walk over to the Brooklyn Bridge. Stephanie had also never seen the Brooklyn Bridge before and it's just a short walk from Little Italy. We walked maybe a quarter of the way across the bridge and took in the beautiful lower Manhattan skyline. It was a great way to take in the beauty of the city. For the next and final leg of our journey we were ready for a cab, we couldn't walk any more, after we'd already walked and walked. It was Stephanie's first NYC cab ride! We took the cab over to the west side to The Standard Hotel. We wanted to go to the Beer Garden there. Unfortunately when we got there I think we were a bit exhausted and not really up to the crowded loud setting there. I'm sure it would be a great time though with a bunch of people.

We couldn't walk too much further, we'd had enough walking, so we went in search of a place nearby that we could have a nice dinner at before we headed back to Jersey. We found this cute little place, Revel, right in the Meatpacking District. The dining room was an indoor/outdoor garden, which gave it a beautiful atmosphere. We had some delicious pasta, I had homemade porcini mushroom ravioli's in a butter sage sauce and Stephanie had homemade spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce and basil, both were fantastic!

After that we were finally ready to head back to New Jersey, we'd successfully eaten our way through Manhattan and loved every single bite of it! By the time we got back home we were mentally and physically exhausted but we had so much fun recounting the experience. I can't wait to do it again - Maybe for Stephanie's bachelorette party - I'm sure I could plan another fun adventure for us if she wants to!