New York City (Part I)

In November, we headed to New York City for a week.  We'd never been!  I've wanted to go for as long as I can remember, so we made 2012 the year.  Now that I've been, I don't think I'll be able to help but want to go again and again and again.  And in true "us" fashion, most of our trip revolved around where we were going to eat.

We arrived on a Monday in late afternoon.  We were pretty tired from annoying flight delays and lots of travel, but we hailed a cab and headed to Lan Cafe (1st Ave/East 6th St).  Got dropped off out front, realized they weren't open Mondays.  I was super grumpy about that as I was hungry and tired, but Trevor hailed another cab, and we headed to Soy and Sake (7th Ave South/Morton St).  Vegan sushi!  We were so thankful to rest our bones and we were starving, so we both ordered bento boxes; I got the tempura chicken and Trevor got the teriyaki chicken.

It was really good.  The chicken was eerily chicken-like, and the California rolls had mock crab in them which was nice!  The pan-fried gyoza dumplings were great, too.  To celebrate finally being in NYC, I ordered a shirley temple.  

Next morning, we got up for a big day of sightseeing and walking around, so we started the day off in the best way, by walking to Yonah Schimmel's (East Houston St/2nd Ave) and getting knishes.  The vegetable varieties are vegan (potato, kasha, red cabbage, spinach, mushroom, sweet potato, vegetable and broccoli).  This place is a landmark in NYC and is a part of Jewish NYC history.  

I ordered the spinach, Trevor ordered the potato.  Knishes are by default made of potato, so the different varieties just mean potato + whatever.  These knishes were massive, piping hot, and each table had a squeeze bottle of spicy mustard which was great on them.  A great, filling meal to start off a busy day, which included going to the top of the Empire State Building (which I would highly recommend):

                             

Part of the trip also included hitting up the best coffee/espresso places in NYC.  Over by the Empire State Building is NYC's location of Stumptown Coffee (5th Ave/West 29th St).  I'm not a coffee drinker, but Trevor has a tattoo of a coffee cup on his arm, so you do the math.  He had a soy macchiato, which he said was one of the best cups he's ever had (and dude knows his coffee).

From there, we had a big day in Midtown, which included seeing the flatiron building (I looooved it), the Strand bookstore (which is the bookstore where a few weeks before, Morrissey had saved a fainting woman), and Muji.  We ended up at Murray's Bagels (6th Ave/West 13th St) for lunch.  They have a bunch of vegan options for toppings and so many delicious fresh bagels.  I got the herbed vegan cream cheese on a sesame bagel, and Trevor got the regular vegan cream cheese on a pumpernickel bagel.

Okay, that's enough for one entry.  We'll cover the rest (which includes donuts) in another one.

- Crystal