Weekend New York Diet

I’m always interested to read about people’s New York Diet on nymag.com and thought it would be fun to do a recap from my weekend’s festivities.

On Saturday, I started the morning with a quick breakfast of two eggs, whole wheat toast, and a healthy dose of Frank’s red hot sauce. I was introduced to Frank’s red hot sauce by my friend, Lou, and have gone through two large containers and I can’t eat eggs without it! I ran some errands and then went to J Chanceaux Macarons in Soho to help sell macarons for the day. I didn’t bring a lunch and didn’t know how long I was going to stay, but I managed to eat samples of macarons throughout the afternoon:

I left the macaron store after eating an iced macaron, a couple black sesame macarons, and a casis macaron, which I think was the best out of the bunch. Vivian, the owner, is having some problems with her fridge and it’s affecting her macaron texture, but she’s making the best of it and sales are still strong.

After helping out for the afternoon, I took the subway to Brooklyn, got lost (of course), but eventually made my way to the New York Food Truck Drive In because my friend, TJ, drove his truck in for the event. TJ and his partner own The Krave, which serves Korean tacos, sliders, and kimchi-quesadillas to people in Jersey City every weekday. I went to visit him once and took the Path all the way out to New Jersey, but they had left for the day so TJ told me to go to the event to try his food. Their truck was the most popular (by far) and people were forming a line even though they were on a break:

I stopped by to support them but didn’t want to eat too much because I was heading to The Modern for dinner at 9:30, but ended up ordering a kalbi soft taco and two kalbi sliders:

The sliders were made with marinated kalbi, kimchi, cilantro, and a little lettuce, all packaged in really soft buns. I ate them in two bites each and was so hungry that I felt like I needed to slow down to eat the soft taco, but I couldn’t because I was SO incredibly hungry. The soft taco was also good, especially with the fresh onion, but I definitely could’ve gone back for two more sliders. TJ’s friend, Hannah, was shocked at how quickly I ate everything (she probably thought that it was the most unlady-like thing she’s ever seen!) I got a popsicle from People’s pops after – sour cherry/plum and contemplated whether or not I should order pupusas. I decided against it because I would’ve had to hold both the popsicle and the pupusa platter on our walk back to the subway.

When I got home, I literally passed out because I was so exhausted from walking around and I didn’t drink enough water while I was working at the macaron store. After my short nap, David and I got dressed up and met up with Laura at The Modern:

David and I ordered the Chef’s tasting (he substituted the duck course with steak) and Laura ordered the early summer tasting menu. The food and ambiance were both great and we had a lot of fun trying each other’s dishes. When our desserts came, our server brought along another cake – pistachio, for our birthday:

The desserts were really impressive – they even wheeled around a cart filled with all types of chocolate desserts (similar to what we experienced at Le Cinq in Paris) and we left very satisfied. Laura was nice enough to treat us to the dinner for our birthday’s and we had a really great time. After dinner, we walked to the Apple store on 59th and played with their new iPhones. Facetime is really cool but it was really delayed when we tried talking to each other.

On Sunday, I started my morning with two eggs, wheat toast, and Frank’s hot sauce with a side of the chocolate fudge brownie-dessert from The Modern. It was really decadent and so good right out of the fridge, but I probably shouldn’t have eaten the entire thing first thing in the morning. I think I dreamt about it because it looked so good in its packaging the night before. After my small breakfast, I met up with Lou to go to Rita’s on the UWS; Lou’s leaving New York on Tuesday and we decided to spend the day going to some of our favorite places. I ordered a small gelati with mango and strawberry/vanilla custard:

I grew up eating these in Pittsburgh; every afternoon after school, I hung out by the Rita’s and Bruegger’s before swim team practice. I loved their custard, especially the vanilla chocolate swirl, but tried the strawberry when Rita’s came to New York and it’s my new favorite. The Italian ice is a lot sweeter than I remembered as a kid and the last couple of bites are always a little too sweet for me. After Rita’s, we were in the mood for Shake Shack and walked to the Shake Shack by the Museum of Natural History. The wait was only about 8 minutes, and we ordered a shack burger (to share) for an afternoon snack. I haven’t had Shake Shack in a long time because the wait is always a little too long for me to bear, but biting into the salty hamburger meat made me want to immediately get in line for another.

We headed back down to the Greenwich Village and went to Pinkberry for their happy hour; I thought it was 1/2 off EVERYTHING, but it’s only half off their watermelon flavor. I ordered the plain frozen yogurt with my toppings and then when I went to check out, the cashier said it was full price, so I asked them to add some watermelon frozen yogurt so they’d make it half off. They wouldn’t, but said they’d just remake it, so they threw away my perfectly fine plain frozen yogurt and remade a new one with half watermelon and half plain. Lou also had to redo his, but at least it was half off! The watermelon isn’t as good as their other flavors; it tastes a little fake, but I really love their new unlimited toppings rule. I went with cherries, coconut, kiwi, and watermelon, and Lou ordered watermelon, mangoes, and strawberries:

The watermelon topping is seriously the best topping you can order; the frozen yogurt slightly freezes the watermelon and changes the texture to an icy-sweet chunk of watermelon and it makes it so delicious. The cherries were too large (even though their pits were removed); I think they should cut their cherries in half so you can eat the cherry with a scoop of frozen yogurt, too. I ended up eating half of Lou’s because I hate seeing frozen yogurt melting.

After frozen yogurt, we headed to Fish, one of my favorite restaurants, for their amazing lobster deal. The restaurant was packed because they also have a blue crab all-you-can-eat deal (or maybe it’s a dozen?), but we luckily snagged the last two seats. I’m a huge fan of their atmosphere and their service and you really can’t beat their lobster meal deal; two lobsters, fries, corn on the cob, and 6 clam steamers for $30. We also ordered a dozen oysters and two PBR’s (called the red, white, and blue) for $16. The lobsters were really tender and cooked much better than the last time we went and the meal would’ve been perfect, except we sat next to a group of kids that were possibly the most obnoxious people I’ve never eaten next to; they were singing loudly (even though there was absolutely no music in the restaurant), throwing crabs around, and announcing eating contests throughout their meal. On our walk back to Lou’s place, we asked each other if we were ever that obnoxious (we both said no).

I ran some more errands and went to a fruit stand on my way home; the raspberries were on sale for $1 each, so I picked up two containers and some bananas for tomorrow morning’s oatmeal. David and I ate both containers while we talked about the weekend.