Sunday, March 13, 2016

Where to Eat in New York City


Hello!

I just came back from an amazing trip to New York City filled with tons and tons of fantastic food, cute shopping, and great sightseeing. I'm riding the same high that I was feeling after coming back from Amsterdam (no not that type of high!!) because I am already trying to figure out what it would take for me to get a job in the city and move there.

Boy oh boy! Did we ever eat on this trip! We never did all make it to a sit down fancy dinner with the four of us because our week was non-stop but we did eat tasty food day in, day out. Our only rule on the trip was NO BAD FOOD and man did we ever stick to it!

If you would like to take a peak at what we ate while in the city, I have compiled a few suggestions:

Champs Diner
197  Meserole St • Williamsburg, Brooklyn
My roommate Sara is vegan and she found the cutest diner in Brooklyn that serves ALL VEGAN food. As we chowed down on our BBQ chick'n wrap and pesto chick'n sandwich we were in absolute heaven!!! I didn't think I missed chicken as much as I did until I ate my sandwich in about ten seconds flat! They also have a super long menu, so even if you're not vegan you'll find something good to munch on.



222 Montrose Ave • Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Confession time- while we waited for our food at Champs Diner, we ran a street over to go get some vegan donuts for dessert! It's so fun to see such a variety in all vegan places popping up around the city.

Multiple locations across the city (thank god!!)
Sweetgreen is a make-your-own salad spot, and although it's a chain it's definitely not lacking in freshness and flavour. It took me forever to decide which salad to pick out of the premade combinations they had and I finally landed on the Wild Child salad, which had organic wild rice, organic baby spinach, cilantro, peppers, raw beets, shredded cabbage, carrots, raw seeds, avocado, and miso sesame ginger dressing... YUM!















Absolute Bagels
2778 Broadway • Upper West Side, Manhattan
This bagel place was recommended to us by our lovely host and I was a bit skeptical since I love Ottawa and Montreal bagels so much. But New York bagels are so unique and puffy and delicious that I had no problem wolfing one down in record time. This place was simple and cheap but there were so many different types of bagels and spreads (including many vegan Toffuti cream cheeses). We opted to get ours to go and make the short ten minute walk to Central Park to eat them in the sunshine. Be warned that there can be crazy lines on the weekend!

Milk & Cookies Bakery
19 Commerce St  Greenwich Village, Manhattan
This gem of a bakery kept popping up on blogs and Instagram accounts so I figured we couldn't go wrong by stopping in for some treats. I had a chocolate chip cookie and a salted milk chocolate caramel cookie! The best part is that you can buy a glass of milk to drink with your freshly baked cookie. Bonus: the bakery is located in trendy Greenwich Village, which means you can eat your cookie while poking in and out of cute stationery stores or little boutiques.




Pasticceria Rocco
243 Bleecker St • Greenwich Village, Manhattan
While searching for things to do on our trip I discovered this New York food tour. The price was a bit steep so I decided to just keep the shops and bakeries in mind to visit on our own. We ended up eating so many sweets that day because we just kept passing all these yummy looking places all within a five minute walk of each other. At Rocco's we split a cannoli between the four of us and it was marvellous!!

Shake Shack
Multiple locations across the city
On our first night in New York we were itching to go check out Time Square so after a quick grocery run at Whole Foods for some $3 wine and spicy hummus (#priorities) we headed downtown. We got a bit nervous approaching Time Square because it looked like there was some type of protest only to discover that it was hundreds of teen Jewish girls there for some sort of international summit. Don't think we didn't get right in there and started singing their "anthem". After lots of fist pumping, getting filmed, and laughing so hard we almost peed, we got hungry and decided to head to a nearby Shake Shack for burgers. YUMMMMMMM! I've never had a better mushroom burger. 




Beecher's Handmade Cheese
900 Broadway • Union Square, Manhattan
One day when Sara and I were walking around near the Flatiron building we stumbled upon Beecher's Handmade Cheese where they make the cheese right on site! I had the best grilled cheese and a bowl of soup. 

Eataly
200 Fifth Ave • Union Square, Manhattan
Right around the corner from Beecher's is Eataly, which doesn't look like too much from the outside but turns out to be this HUGE indoor gourmet food market. There were tons of different Italian restaurants and little food stalls inside and then in the middle there were tables where you could have a sit down meal! 

Big Gay Ice Cream
61 Grove St • West Village, Manhattan & 125 East 7th St • East Village, Manhattan 
I was so pumped to get one of Big Gay Ice Cream's fancy dipped cones with funny names like "Salty Pimp". They were just as mouthwatering as the pictures on pictures I had drooled over on Instagram. 









Mamoun's
119 MacDougal St • West Village, Manhattan & 22 St. Marks Place • East Village, Manhattan
BEST FALAFEL EVER!!! If you know me at all you know that I love falafel and middle eastern food in general. These falafel were so crisp but fresh and it was $3.50 for a pita! So for all you haters out there saying that you will starve to death if you ever visit NYC, don't worry one bit there are tons and tons of affordable delicious hidden gems.

Lenwich
Multiple locations across the city
This place isn't drop everything and head straight there out of this world delicious because when it comes down to it it's just a sandwich shop but they pack their sandwiches with life and happiness and ALL the vegetables. So if you're in Greenwich village and want a quick and easy bite to eat then go to Lenwich!



Milk Bar
Multiple locations across the city
This was by far what I was looking forward to the most! I discovered Milk Bar a while ago but it was only recently that Maggie reintroduced me to the famous bakery with Alison Roman's Sweet Spot mini series. Christina Tosi is the owner and head chef at Milk Bar and she is just so so cool! I listened to a podcast with her the other day while making cookies (#inspiration) and she's created such a badass company from the ground up. If you want to eat something amazing head to Milk Bar and get a slice of their crack pie, or their compost cookies, or their cereal milk ice cream. Or if you're feeling extra sassy sign up for one of their baking courses to make one of their extremely awesome cakes. I have a WHOLE POST about the class I took while in the city and it was amazing, so stay tuned for that :)




Industry City • Brooklyn 
On our first day in New York we headed across the river to Brooklyn to do some shopping and best of all EAT ALL DA FOODZ! We spent the better part of the morning at this indoor market and they had a whole section dedicated to amazing food. We did the loop time and time again because the choices were just so good and so hard to choose between. Ultimately Sara and I got tacos and lemonade and Ariane and Ellen got ramen burgers... sooooo hip am I right?? There were also really neat dessert options too.






Before I left, I did some extensive research to find out who was eating what in New York and I stumbled upon some really talented food bloggers on Instagram and Snapchat. So one thing that I would really recommend doing is search some hashtags like #NYCeats or something of the sort and then find a couple people that seem to have similar taste as you, then just take screenshots as you go. I took it a step further and downloaded the free Excursion app, which lets you pin location around the city on a map and then when you're walking around all you have to do is open your offline map and see what delicious deli, bakery, bagel shop, candy store, market, juice bar, ice cream parlour, etc. is right around the corner!

A few places I would definitely go to next time I'm in the city, but didn't get to this trip:
Roberta's Pizza
Joe's Pizza
By Chloe
Peacefood Cafe
Taim Falafel

Eventually I will post about what we did to walk off all the food we packed in over our escape to the city but until then have a happy week!!

xox

Gaby