5 Year Anniversary Trip: NYC! {Part 2}

Sunday morning, our day started with bacon waffles and cappuccino chocolate chip pancakes at Good Enough to Eat.  We walked by the morning before and noticed a line outside, so it's got to be good, right?  In deciding on breakfast for Sunday, Jonathan was checking out Urbanspoon and noticed it opened at 9am - we had a whole 13 minutes to get there.  We threw on some clothes and high-tailed it out of the apartment and down a couple blocks to get in line as seating began.  Lucky for us we made it in the first wave of seating and got a great spot outdoors to enjoy a laid back, delicious meal to start our day.

We spent the late morning hours and early afternoon hours exploring the 30 Rock area.  We squeaked in a quick look at Times Square and the Ball as we walked by Radio City, the Wicked theater, and the Rainbow Room, then took some pictures at Rockefeller Plaza and went to the NBC Experience store (as most of our favorite comedies are NBC shows).  J got a really neat Troy & Abed in the Morning mug!

We walked around the 30 Rock building for a while (not so secretly hoping to run into Kristen Wigg or Tina Fey) and enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee in the shops below the building.  After some browsing in the Anthropologie right next door, we walked over to Grand Central Terminal and saw New York Public Library on our way (yay Sex & The City)!  Grand Central was massive and we even got to experience taking the subway from here to SoHo!

Once in SoHo, we got a quick bite to eat and walked in a few stores.  This area was much more crowded than I was expecting and we weren't even near the Dash store!  We slowly made our way on foot to the East Village.  It was a neat walk and we found it so interesting that each neighborhood has its own clear cut beginning and end, and feel.


Crif Dogs was our destination in East Village, thanks to Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations.  And thank him, we do!  Oh my gosh, I never thought I'd say that one of my favorite meals of all time was a hot dog, but here I go.  I can't even convey the awesomeness of the meal we ate there, honestly.  We ordered two hot dogs to share - one bacon wrapped with sour cream and avocado and one with cream cheese, chives, and everything bagel seeds.

Amazing doesn't even begin to describe this.  I'm pretty sure we'd make a special trip up to NYC again just for Crif Dogs, although we plan on attempting to recreate these, if we can find everything bagel seeds.

Also shown on No Reservations was the bar next door, Please Don't Tell (PDT).  We waited until 6pm for it to open, and entered the only way in or out: through the phone booth inside of Crif Dogs.  It was a treat to sit at the bar, watch the bartender artfully create his drinks using an ice cube as big as ones fist, and soak in the 'secretive' surroundings.  No windows, doors, barely a website, and you wouldn't know the place was there unless you know.  It's totally awesome and certainly piques my interest!  J and I both got an Ommegang beer and were incredibly pleased.  We'll be back for some of the mixed drinks!

From there, we walked several blocks to Union Square for my dessert pick of the trip: Max Brenner.  Before arriving at the dessert destination, we took a side trip to Strand Bookstore, which is the bookstore with 18 miles of books.

Once at Max Brenner, the chocolate pizza and s'mores sundae did not disappoint.  J's favorite was the pizza, mine was the sundae.  The s'mores sundae had layers of chocolate ice cream, crunchy graham cracker, marshmallow creme, possibly some hot fudge, a toasted marshmallow on top and white chocolate ganache on the side.  I will not lie: I could have eaten the entire thing by myself.

The chocolate pizza had chocolate chunks, marshmallows, bananas, hazelnuts, toffee, and peanut butter drizzle, served warm, of course.  This was also so, so good.  I obviously enjoyed myself.

The Empire State Building was our first stop on Monday morning.  It was a clear day with no rain, so we got some lovely views and pictures.  I found it really nice to do this activity on our last full day there, as we had learned a lot about the city and knew at what we were looking and in what direction things were that we had already seen.

Before our World Trade Center Memorial ticket time of 1:30, we stopped for a quick piece of pizza.  I got the lasagna pizza with mozzarella, tomato sauce, ricotta, and ground beef.  It was the perfect slice for me, as the bottom of the crust was crunchy while the top wasn't overdone at all.  Yum!

Once through the lines and security for the WTC Memorial, we saw the memorial pools and the Survivor Tree.  While the waterfalls are incredible, they really do symbolize the void.

As we made our way back up to the apartment for our evening plans, we took a side trip over to the Upper East Side for Serendipity and Dylan's Candy Bar.  I had to get one last sweets venture squeezed into the trip!  Serendipity's was crowded, of course, but I requested a Frozen Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate to go and the host gentleman was kind enough to grant my wish.

We continued moseying back to the Upper West Side by way of Central Park, stopping to spend some time at the Lake, watch skateboarding dogs, see the famous elm trees, and walk through Sheep's Meadow.

One last stop at Alice's Tea Cup for a mug and tea to take home and we were ready for our final food experience: Shake Shack!  We both got cheeseburgers, fries, and a Dr. Pepper to share.  It was awesome and we're now ready for Raleigh to have its own Shack.

Our last outing of the trip was up to the Bronx for the Braves vs. Yankees game.  J is a big Braves fan and I'd never been to a game before, so this was our chance!  Our seats were great and the weather was almost crisp.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time, even though the Yankees took this game (although not the next two, yay!)

This vacation and celebration of our 5 year wedding anniversary was everything we thought it would be, wanted it to be, and more.  We had the trip of our dreams and both fell in love with the city, so we'll be back.  Until then, NYC...

5 Year Anniversary Trip: NYC! {Part 1}

Back in April, Jonathan surprised me with the news that we were going to NYC in June to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary!  He sent me picture text hints to clue me in on where we were going.  For our accommodations, we rented an apartment for 4 nights through vrbo.com, which was perfect.  We picked where we wanted to be in the city, got in touch with an apartment owner, flew JetBlue up to JFK and were all set!

We got to our apartment on Friday morning with plenty of time still left during breakfast hours.  Before we left town, I had downloaded several travel apps, so Jonathan checked out Urbanspoon and found a place he knew I would love: Alice's Tea Cup.  (Alice in Wonderland is a big thing at Meredith.)  We walked 14 blocks down to Alice's and sat down in the cutest little tea room.  I am still obsessed with how adorable the place was.

The food and tea was just as delicious as the place was cute.  Jonathan got coffee, I got Lover's Cup tea (they were out of the Alice's Blend), and we got pumpkin pancakes, a raspberry and goat cheese scone, and a chocolate salted caramel scone to share.  All seriously delicious and the perfect start to our trip!

Next up? Strolling around Central Park.  My heart is still there.  I LOVED it!  It was gorgeous, shady, a haven for us 'active folk'.  There were walkers, runners, bikers, roller bladers, readers, nappers, photographers and so many others.

We took our time wandering straight through the park and landed on the east side to make our way to the Met, where Jonathan found the perfect display for my inner color theory nerd.

From there, we enjoyed a couple slices of pizza and some coffee fro yo before making our way back through Central Park to our apartment.  Waking up at 4am had finally caught up with us, so we crashed for a couple of hours before dinner.  It was one of those totally zonked out bodies upside down diagonal across the bed type naps.  As the grogginess lifted and after walking around our section of the neighborhood for a while, we ultimately decided on Isabella's for dinner where we split a filet and lots of veggies.

Saturday morning we grabbed some coffees and a couple of Le Pain Quotidien pastries to eat back at the apartment.  The view from the breakfast nook was perfect.  I just loved our street!

View down the street

View directly across the street

The NYCWAY app was a lifesaver as it had the subway map within.  Jonathan became very familiar with the different lines and we got around easily on the subway system.  Our first ride was down to the World Trade Center and Financial District area.  WTC was quite crowded on Saturday morning, so we decided to wait until Monday for that.  Instead, we walked around the Financial District, found ourselves in Tiffany & Co., then made the trek across the Brooklyn Bridge, which was a great walk with some stellar views.

We had two main reasons for going to Brooklyn: Talde and to see a good friend of ours.  After the Bridge walk, we made it down to Talde with about 40 minutes to spare until brunch was over.  Whew!  We knew of this restaurant from our Top Chef fandom. Chef Dale has been on a couple of seasons of Top Chef so we checked out the menu prior to our trip and as soon as we saw 'Bacon Pad Thai', we were sold!

We had been walking quite a long time by now, so I wanted a good drink.  Enter Watermelon Margarita.  It was pretty damn good, the best part being taking a little bit of the salt covered watermelon slice and a sip of the drink together.

My allergies came into play in the entree choosing, but all's well that ends well, and this ended quite well.  We got the Pretzel Pork & Chive Dumplings (yum), Jonathan got the Bacon Pad Thai (he says yum, I couldn't because of allergies), and I got the Korean Chicken Wings & Waffles (OMG YUM!).  The chicken wing sauce was spicy and creamy and everything you could imagine.  Honestly, that Korean Chicken & Waffles (with a coconut brown butter syrup) was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life.  A bite with each of the flavors and ... wow.  We are both still thinking about this dish days later.

We enjoyed spending the rest of the afternoon and evening with our good friend Kunal and his girlfriend Salma.  They showed us so many gorgeous spots in Brooklyn!  

We enjoyed highly recommended ice cream right under the Brooklyn Bridge at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory and found the perfect bench in the shade to people watch.  We saw no less than 6 brides and 3 quinceanera celebrations roll through!