Stop the press! I have finally gotten around to doing my post on New York. It's been a busy month for me, so my list of excuses for the delay is long: I started my new job 5 days after getting back, I brought a car that my Dad needed to check up on (numerous times...) and me and Jason are madly in the process of packing up and moving house.
Okay, so not a long list, but those are all substantial, you might say life changing, things that have happened. They're all amazingly wonderful things too. I love my new job as I get to be surrounded by food all day and I've also started up on some work in the kitchen making sandwiches and brownies and all kinds of things so I am utterly over the moon with that!
On the car front, I have wanted a car for years (exaggeration definitely needed, I have practically been begging for one that long) and I finally have one to call my own. I've named it Rosie and she's a lovely little thing that I'll cherish for as long as she may live.
And what I have to say for the house hunting: STRESSFUL. There is nothing more stressful for me right now than house/flat hunting. We needed somewhere to live by the end of this month but could we find somewhere quickly? No, sir-ee! Onwards with the search we went, though, with our fingers and toes and every body part crossed we finally got somewhere. Soon, I keep chanting when I wanted to smack my head against a wall. Now I chant the same thing but thinking Soon I can stop living amongst boxes.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to New York and forget all about the real world here at home. I frequently dream of the many foodie wonders I found over there and I'm so excited to be sharing them with you all. I'm going to give you, in two parts (this being part one, obviously), a lowdown of a few of my favourites that I'll never forget. It's hard to pick just a few out, but I think I've gotten the best ones for you, so get hungry and read on!
1. TREAT HOUSE
This is number one on the list for two reasons: It's one of the first places we found and it sticks in my mind as the absolute best. Treat House is a teeny, tiny shop nestled amongst bars and restaurants on Amsterdam Ave. It's cute inside and out and sells the most delectable little cubes of rice krispie cake in every flavour you could ever want. We popped in there at least four times during the trip and we were spoilt for choice every time.
Another one I loved was the mint chocolate chip. I'm only a fan of mint in certain foodie situations, but I gave this a go and absolutely loved it. The kick of the mint flavour blends so well with the chocolate - it's like mint Aero in marshmallow form. So basically: heavenly.
I could be here for four more posts detailing every flavour and its perfections, so I'll stop here before I get carried away, but if you ever on the Upper West Side, get down to Treat House ASAP. Maybe even make it your first stop!
2. MOMOYA
Ah, sushi. Sushi, sushi, sushi. How I have had you forced upon me by Jason. I struggled against his pushing me to try it at first, but after having some a while ago and really enjoying it (cue his smug face) it made sense for us to try some out while on holiday.
Momoya is a beautifully designed restaurant, also on Amsterdam Ave, right near Treat House. It feels classy, and if you want proper sushi, you want classy.
Having asked before ordering if the tasting platters were for one or two people and being told they were for one, we were shocked and felt full already when two monsters were brought out.
Being the fatties we are, though, we dug in pretty quickly and found everything was fresh and refreshing. One thing I quite like about cold food, like salads or sushi, is that it feels a bit cleansing. It may not actually be cleansing, but it makes it nicer to eat when it feels that way and we cleared half the plate pretty darn quick.
Aaaaand this is where I run out of intelligent things to say. As I'm new to sushi I absolutely suck at knowing what anything is, so this description of Momoya is utterly pathetic and awful and stupidly crap and short, but just know that it is beautiful sushi and a beautiful place and you should go.
3. SHAKE SHACK
I hear the cries already of "Seriously!? Shake Shack exists in the UK too!" but you have never had Shake Shack quite like the Americans do it.Something about Shake Shack over there just felt better than in the UK. I don't know if it was the excitement that I was in NY or that the general atmosphere was better, like everyone was excited to be there for some good food, but either way it was great. The service was pretty quick, despite there being a queue out of the door from the moment we arrived to the time we left, and everything tasted amazing. The burgers were succulent, cooked to perfection and tasted fresh, even for the middle of NYC. Oh, and the milkshake. I could've downed 20 of those, possibly even 20 of each flavour. A milkshake is meant to be thick, creamy, sweet and more-ish - everything that mine was. It isn't a good milkshake, or a place that can call itself a proper master of all things ice cream related, if you don't have a hard time getting the damn thing up the straw!
4. SUMMER GARDEN, ROCKEFELLER PLAZA
As if the Rockefeller Centre isn't amazing enough already, during the summer you can sit right next to the fountain with Prometheus looking over you in glorious gold. It's a beautiful setting to have dinner in and I was massively impressed with the quality of the food. It's perhaps a little pricy, but that's to be expected for a restaurant in the middle of Rockefeller Plaza, so I really wanted a lot of bang for my buck, and boy did I get it.
For a starter we ordered calamari (a staple of mine and Jason's dining out diet) and expected a small bowl of it as per the UK standard, clearly forgetting we were in the US where everything is, of course, bigger and better. Out came a rather large and brilliant looking plate of calamari that we ploughed our way through without a second thought.
Now it may not be the best calamari I've ever had, but it's up there with some of the greats (All Bar One does it fabulously). It had the combo of crunchy batter outside to silky squid inside down wonderfully, and it came in perfect little bitesize pieces. One thing I never want from calamari is for it to look like a giant onion ring!
Keeping the seafood theme up, I ordered the Housemade Garganelli pasta with lobster. I wanted to try something a little different and a little out of my comfort zone and it was totally worth it!
The sauce was a creamy tomato and topped the al dente pasta and tasty lobster so well. It wasn't overwhelmingly fishy nor under-whelmingly bland and had I not eaten half of that giant plate of calamari, I would've finished my whole plate off, licked it clean and asked for another.
On Jason's plate was the Chef's Burger.
It wasn't as impressive as other burgers we'd already had on the trip, and Jason didn't finish it out of a little disappointment in it's whole construction and flavour, but don't let that put you off or besmirch Rockefeller Plaza! He's a fussy one when it comes to burgers and considering the volume of them we ate while away, he was never going to be happy with them all!
5. APPLEBEE'S
A staple American restaurant! Or so I've heard. Definitely family orientated, Applebee's is a bit a like a Beefeater or A Hungry Horse in the UK, with better food. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the food we had at Applebee's (world's worst food blogger, I know...) so I'm going to make this section, and finish this Part 1 post, short and sweet: Potstickers were wonderfully crunchy and came with an amazing dipping sauce and the burgers: divine! Get your fill of pub-like food at Applebee's straight away!
If you have any foodie favourites from NYC or anywhere in America, let me know! Keep an eye out for Part 2 of my adventures soon!
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