Chomping Through The Big Apple

View from the roof terrace of Michelle´s apartment near Union Square
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This entry was meant to be called 'The Reunion of Crampon and Larry'......except I forgot Larry.......and now Crampon looks all sad and lonely and it's all my fault. No, I've not gone barmy and lost my marbles nor did I forget I am actually writing my travel blog instead of those fiction novels that I keep on convincing myself I will get around to writing one of these days! (See end of entry for explanation of Crampon and Larry!)

Now for me, New York is a bag of mixed memories. As a child, I spent many holidays out here in Brooklyn and Staten Island visiting my mum´s side of the family who all live here. When I old enough to come with friends and really appreciate New York, well 911 happened during my 2001 trip with Rachel (the twin towers fell on I think the third day of our trip which left me slightly nervous about NY) and then when I was finally ready to return in March 2007, there was a freak snow storm. Therefore, this time, I was adamant to enjoy NY and especially the city.

View from the roof terrace of Michelle´s apartment near Union Square
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The first few days were spent in Staten Island with my relatives, spending time with my grandma, my uncles and aunties and my little cousins. We had a BBQ in the back yard, went to the mall and visited Brooklyn and Queens.

Then it was Manhattan time! Michelle lives by Union Square and I couldn´t wait for her to show me all her favourite places and do all the touristy things.

On the first day, top of the list was a stroll through Central Park before heading over to the Time Warner building. We were hoping we could go to the restaurant at the top for views over the park but at $220 a person, it was just a tad above my travel budget! There wasn´t anything else in the building except because of the World Cup, they had funny drawing/paintings of each country´s team. Check out the one of England, Gerard looks nothing like him! My favourite was the Switzerland picture with I think the coach holding out the team on a penknife! Get it? Swiss penknife! Lol!

Walking through Union Square during the day
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And sometimes, aimless wandering is the best way of finding things. The Mandarin Oriental hotel happened to be next to the Time Warner building so we thought we´d go and see if there was a cafe or bar near the top where we could get a good view of Central Park. You know what we found, their posh restaurant on the 35th floor which does a special lunch menu for like $25 a person! I don´t think many normal people know about this because the people all having this $25 lunch menu still looked like the type to be staying at the Mandarin Oriental, the men were all in suits, the women all done up and even the couple of kids who were there were dressed up like their parents. And I'm glad I wore a dress, I´m sure I would have been frowned upon had I turned up in denim shorts or something!

Time Warner Building
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So there we were having lunch on the 35th floor overlooking part of Central Park! I would recommend anyone coming to NY to come here, it´s really a nice experience and the food is lovely! I chose a corn soup with mango for starters and when it came, they placed a huge empty bowl in front of me with only some parsley and some mango bits in it. Thank god, I didn´t make a fool out of myself and ask where the soup was because the waiter then came with a small metal jug and poured the soup into the bowl in front of me! When has that ever happened?! But be warned, the drinks are expensive, like $8 for a ginger beer! It may have been organic but even still, $8 for a ginger beer!

Me being cheeky (literally!) in the AOL Time Warner Building
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After lunch, we strolled up to Times Square, Rockefeller Center and Grand Central Station. In Times Square, there's this one shop that has this huge screen which shows part of the street so you can see yourself doing silly things. Maybe they put it up because of all the recent problems with the car bomb etc but who would have thought a giant CCTV camera would be such a tourist attraction! And yes, we took photos of us waving our arms in the air........and yes, I am such a tourist!

In the evening, we went to this really cool rooftop bar on 5th Avenue. It was quite swish and expensive but for the view, it was worth it. The Empire State building looked amazing from there especially as the sun set. After that, we dropped by on one of Michelle´s favourite places, a pool bar where her pool friends were meeting up. Michelle had also told me about the amazing chicken wings there and I have to say, they really are amazing especially washed down with a cold beer! And Michelle´s friends are so lovely, they were all so nice to me and one even tried to teach me how to play pool. Mind you I think he came to regret it in the end since I was so awful at it! It was funny, he told me to bend so I was eye level to the table and could see the direction of where the ball would travel but because I had a dress on I bent really funny and he was like, that is not how you bend! What can I say, I had a dress on and had to bend like a girl!

View from the Time Warner building
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We left them at midnight and was about to head back to Michelle´s apartment when we realised that we hadn´t actually eaten much since lunch at the Mandarin Oriental so Michelle thought we´d go and see if this Japanese Yakitori place was still open. Not only was it open, it was packed, at like midnight! NYC certainly is the city that never sleeps! So we had like grilled rice balls and chicken skewers and finished off with candy floss! Not quite sure how Japanese candy floss is but this place is so cute, when you pay, they give you a cup full of sugar so you can put it in the machine outside and make your own candy floss! They even give you a pair of wooden chopsticks to use as the stick!

Time Warner Building had artwork for all the World Cup teams - Stevie G looks nothing like him!
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The next day, we had steak and eggs for brunch with Michelle´s good friend Heather before walking it off down Broadway to get some last minute travelling stuff. Then we headed over to the World Financial Center. The World Trade Center used to be next to it and it was quite emotional seeing ground zero as it brought back lots of memories from my 2001 visit.

And New York is truly amazing for food. So in the evening, Michelle and Heather took me to this dessert place called Chika-licious run by a Japanese pastry chef who I think is actually called Chika. It´s a tiny place with only a long counter for seating and like three small tables and has a cult following, we went about 8pm and people were already queuing outside! But it was definitely worth the wait! You get a three course dessert menu for $14 and the desserts are amazing! I had the warm chocolate tart with peppercorn ice cream (yes, peppercorn ice cream). Michelle had this shortbread thing with blueberries and Heather had the cheese cake except it wasn´t like cheesecake at all, it was almost like cheesecake moose and came on a small plate on top of a mountain of ice, the presentation was quite fancy indeed! Even the teacups were cute and yes, I had to take a photo!

I loved the Swiss football team one, the players on a Swiss penknife - excellent!
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Even on the day we were leaving for Peru, Michelle took me to try more food, a vegetarian place called Quantum which is famous for pancakes - yes, vegetarian place famous for pancakes! You heard me right. And me, I had to try the dish called ´the whole deal´ or something like that!! What can I say, I like food! It was three pancakes (of which I could choose like whole grain and something else just as healthy or blueberry or strawberry) with scrambled eggs and a choice of either sausage patties or links. I think the fruit pancakes sounded lovely but with eggs and sausage, would have been too wierd so I opted for the healthy whole grain pancakes and three, I thought they would be scotch pancake size but no, being the States, these pancakes were each the size of small plates! Thank god, Heather accepted my offer of one because in the end, I only managed to get through one and a bit! Oh and I know I said sausage patties or links (I chose patties on Michelle´s recommendation) but these were meat free even though I swear if I hadn´t known this place was vegetarian I would have thought they were meat because they tasted even better than the sausage you get in a McDonald´s sausage and egg mcmuffic (which everyone knows is like the best breakfast ever!)!!!!

View from Central Park
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It´s just such a shame that we were going out on our travels and I didn´t want to upset my stomach before hand otherwise I could have done a food tour of Manhattan! There´s even a place that just does varieties of macaroni and cheese! And a Japanese place which does bento boxes for like $5! Fantastic! Haha, maybe on my return to New York after my travels I will ask Michelle for a food tour!

Forget about the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building! Mac and Cheese and Bento boxes the way forward!!!!

View from Central Park
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(Oh and Crampon and Larry? For those of you who didn't follow my travels in the first blog, Crampon and Larry are actually two stuffed toys that Michelle and I acquired from our first set of travels. Crampon is a cuddly pillow sheep from New Zealand's Auckland Airport that I got Michelle, named after those spikey grip things that you put on boots to hike on ice - we hiked up the Franz Josef glacier in NZ and crapped ourselves laughing at the fact that Crampon rhymes with tampon - we aren't very mature if you hadn't noticed already and Larry is a little knitted llama purchased at 3,774m above sea level in a town called San Antonio de los Cobres whilst on a tour from Salta in Argentina. And Crampon and Larry had been there to provide us with comfort whenever we were feeling blue, Michelle even started talking to Crampon, I think after 6 months of me as company 24/7, she needed somebody else to talk to even if it was a stuffed toy!)