Posts Tagged ‘pizza’

Big Apple: Restaurant List

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Over the two weeks we were in the Big Apple, we ate at several different places.  This is a bare bones review of all the restaurants in one post.  More in depth reviews and pictures are in the individual posts linked below.

AMERICAN
   Savoy – 70 Prince St, New York, NY 10012
      Rating:  4/5
      Price:  $$$$

BAR WITH FOOD
   Blind Pig – 233 E 14th St, New York, NY 10003
      Rating:  3/5
      Price:  $

   Cassidy’s Pub – 65 W 55th St, New York, NY 10019
      Rating:  3/5
      Price:  $

BAR WITHOUT FOOD
   Barcade – 388 Union Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211
      Rating:   3/5
      Price:  $

   Blind Tiger- 281 Bleecker St, New York, NY 10014
      Rating:  3/5
      Price:  $

   Grisly Pear – 107 MacDougal St, New York, NY 10012
      Rating:  4/5
      Price:  $

BELGIAN
   Markt – 676 Sixth Ave, New York, NY 10010
      Rating:  3/5
      Price:  $$$

BURGERS
   Shake Shack – SE corner of Madison Square Park (Madison Ave and E 23rd St) New York, NY
      Rating:  5/5
      Price:  $

   White Castle – 525 8th Ave, New York, NY 10018
      Rating:  1/5
      Price:  $

CHINESE
   Joe’s Shanghai- 9 Pell St, New York, NY 10013
      Rating:  3/5
      Price:  $

DESSERT
   Creperie- 135 Ludlow St, New York, NY 10002
      Rating:  3/5
      Price: $$

   Junior’s Cheesecake – 1515 Broadway (45th St between Broadway & 8th Ave), New York, NY 10036
      Rating:  5/5
      Price: $$

JAPANESE
   Ippudo – 65 Fourth Ave, New York, NY 10003
      Rating:  4/5
      Price:  $$

   Izumi Sushi – 139 W 28th St, New York, NY 10001
      Rating:  3/5
      Price:  $

   Minca – 536 E Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10009
      Rating:  4/5
      Price:  $

KOREAN
   Seoul Garden – 34 W 32nd St, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001
      Rating:  3/5
      Price:  $

PIZZA
   Grimaldi’s Pizzeria – 19 Old Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY 11201
      Rating: 4/5
      Price:  $

   John’s Pizzeria- 278 Bleecker St, New York, NY 10014
      Rating:  4/5
      Price:  $

VENEZULEAN
   Caracas Arepas Bar – 93 1/2 7th St, New York, NY 10009
      Rating:  5/5
      Price:  $$

Happy eating in New York!  If you have additional suggestions, please comment so that other people can benefit from good eats as well.

Previous posts in the Big Apple series:
Getting There
Sleep and Eat
J’s Birthday
Weekend
Weather and More Eats

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Big Apple: Weekend

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

When the weekend rolled around, we were so tired from work and the events of the week that we did what we normally do at home on the weekends.  We slept in…like till mid-afternoon.  I know, what a shame to waste precious time in New York sleeping instead of exploring.  But, this trip is our third or fourth trip to NY together and frankly, we have done a majority of the tourist stuff already.  Really it was all good; we just did more eating!

Day 6:  LL recommended Caracas Arepas Bar.  OMG!  It was incredibly fabulous, and I think you have to try it!  Mouth salivating greatness!  Since we missed lunch, we headed out for a relatively early dinner for us at 6pm on a Saturday night.  When we arrived, it was a small place with max seating of probably 40 people.  Luckily, the hostess said that the people on her list were no longer waiting so she would be able to seat us immediately.  Score!  From their website, the arepas did not appear very large.  We were afraid that one each would not be enough food.  So, we ordered three arepas and a sidekick.  It was a bit too much food, but so YUMMY that we gobbled it all up!

La Surena: grilled chicken and chorizo, with avocado slices and the classic and always enigmatic spicy chimi-churri sauce.  In other words, yummy goodness in your mouth. $7.50

La Pelua: shredded beef with cheddar cheese.  The beef was tastily marinated and extremely tender; it just melted in my mouth. $6.75

They offer weekend specials that are constantly changing.  The night we were there it was La Dominguera: beautiful slow cooked short ribs with chunky tomato mojo sauce.  It came in a fancy dish compared to the red plastic baskets the others did.  Even though we were getting full, I could not stop myself from continuing to bite into this arepa.  $7.75

Tostones Mochimeros: fried green plantains topped with mojito mayo, a squeeze of lime and white cheese.  We asked the waitress to recommend a sidekick, and this is what she said was her favorite.  I could see why; it was delish.  $5.50

After recovering from food coma, we met up with some of Hubby’s co-workers at Cassidy’s Pub to celebrate a birthday.  Even though we stayed out till the wee hours of the morning, it was great because I was able to take a picture of L-O-V-E across the street from the pub.

Day 7:  The plan: Grimaldi’s pizza for lunch and then walk back via the Brooklyn Bridge.  Their website said that they open at 11:30am, but they do not actually open until 12 noon.  Good for us because we were running a little late and arrived at 11:50am.  We stood in line and were part of the first wave to sit down.  Lucky us!  We avoided a long wait in the freezing cold and threatening grey skies.  We ordered a large (18″, 8 slices); half cheese, half pepperoni and mushroom for $16 + $2/topping for a total of $20.  Good pizza, but not exceedingly better than other places we have tried in NY.

The only real touristy thing we did was walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.  It is something we have not done before, and I was really looking forward to it.  We made the trek across despite the drizzling rain.  It made the experience all the more memorable.

A couple of smart people, my bro S and his friend N, recommended that we walk the Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan because the view of the skyscrapers was better than the other way.  I am glad we followed their suggestion.  Oooh…pretty buildings.

One more week in the city.  Can you handle more food?

Caracas Arepas Bar – 93 1/2 7th St, New York, NY 10009
Cassidy’s Pub – 65 W 55th St, New York, NY 10019
Grimaldi’s Pizzeria - 19 Old Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Previous posts in the Big Apple series:
Getting There
Sleep and Eat
J’s Birthday

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Super Bowl XLIV

Monday, February 8th, 2010

I wish the Indianapolis Colts were the Super Bowl champions.  I still cannot believe the New Orleans Saints won yesterday.  Congrats to them though!

We watched Super Bowl XLIV at LL’s place.  There was so much food to eat that we skipped dinner.  Including the assortment below, we also had orange chicken and tortilla chips.  We did not even get to the other goodies they had in their fridge.  It was a feast!

mini pizzas, 5-layer dip, four different kinds of hummus


shrimp tempura, guacamole

Their cat Yomie (short for Yosemite) is a cutie with attitude!  Apparently, she does not like a lot of people, but she had no problem hanging out on our laps.  I think we lured her in with the smell of the shrimp tempura on our clothes.  Here she is falling asleep on Hubby’s lap.  She laid there for so long that I contemplated the idea of charging her rent.  haha!

The commercials are usually my reason for watching the game.  Some of my favorites, in order of apperance, were Doritos – Play Nice, Cars.com – Growing Up, Budweiser - Body Bridge, Bud Light – Survivor, Coke - Sleep Walking, E-Trade – Jealous Girlfriend, and Google - Parisian Love.  The weird and disturbing ones were CareerBuilder.com – Casual Fridays, Dockers - Wear No Pants (not sure why they played those back to back either because they were so similar), TruTV - Punxsutawney Polamalu and Diamond Foods - Nuts and Popcorn.

What did you do for Super Bowl XLIV?  Which commercials were your favorites or not so favorites?

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Big Apple: Getting There

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Hubby had a conference the second half of January in the Big Apple.  I tagged along so that I would not starve to death at home with a car I cannot drive.  I really should learn to drive manual shift, but Hubby says not in his car.


Image Credit

Our flight was at 7:30am out of SFO.  It was way too early for our family and friends to take us to the airport on the MLK holiday, so we called the Super Shuttle.  Our pick-up window was 4:15am-4:25am!  OMG that was early!  Only way to make sure we were ready on time was to pull an all nighter.  The Super Shuttle driver was a crazy man!  He drove fast and California rolled through a couple of stop signs.  He did drop us (and some other passengers he picked up along the way) off safely at SFO though.

Arriving at the airport so early meant time for a sit down breakfast at the Mission Bar and Grill.  Though, I guess chicken fingers and a cheeseburger were more lunch items.  (I had not slept in like 20 hours, so taking pictures was not on my mind.  Oops!)

On the plane, we passed out before take-off and woke up upon arrival into JFK, New York about six hours later.  We bundled up and braced ourselves for the freezing cold as we waited for a taxi.  In line, a random guy asked us where we were going, and after we told him, he said $55 and that the cab line would be about an hour wait.  We ignored him, and he continued down the line.  He found a customer and started loading his stuff into his trunk.  Then, he came back to the line looking for more passengers.  Next thing we know, NYPD arrested the guy and towed his car.  Really strange!

The cab dropped us off at the Hilton Garden Inn, Chelsea.  In the lobby, we ran into a couple of Hubby’s co-workers.  They were on their way out to dinner, so we quickly checked in, dropped off our luggage in the room, and headed out with everyone.

First stop of the night was the bar Blind Tiger.  After a couple of beers, we headed across the street to John’s Pizzeria for our first NY pizza of the trip.  Our table ordered a large (16″, 8 slices) with pepporoni, sausage, and mushroom. $14 for a large and $2/topping for a total of $20.  Yummy in my tummy!

After dinner, we headed to Grisly Pear, another bar.  It was a great place; not too crowded, good music, and decently priced drinks.  A few hours later, we headed back to the hotel with a small detour to White Castle for a late night snack.  Personally, I do not understand the hype.  The burger meat looked disgusting and tasted like over-processed food.  The fries were the only good part.  Not worth the $5.99 for Combo #1 (4 cheeseburgers, fries, and a drink).

The end of the very long first day.  I promise more pictures in the rest of the Big Apple posts.

Blind Tiger- 281 Bleecker St, New York, NY 10014
John’s Pizzeria- 278 Bleecker St, New York, NY 10014
Grisly Pear – 107 MacDougal St, New York, NY 10012
White Castle – 525 8th Ave, New York, NY 10018

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Honeymoon: Day 5 Naples, Italy

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

This is the halfway mark.  The cruise was now into Italy and the first stop was Naples, which is famous for its pizza.  We decided to tackle Naples on our own as well, and I think we did a great job of seeing the sights that interested us.  The tours that were offered took visitors to the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Capri and Sorrento.  Although Hubby and I have never visited those towns before, we decided that we would like to come back to see those places in more detail instead of all in the 10.5 hours the ship was docked in port.

Again, I must stress how great it was to have our own balcony.  Hubby was out there taking photos as the ship was docking.  Our initial glimpse of the beautiful city.

The photo below was also taken from our balcony.  It is a great view of how we started at the ship terminal (the white building in the foreground) and traveled all the way up to Castel Sant’Elmo (the grey castle on the top of the mountain).

After a nice breakfast, we disembarked the ship and made our way into the city.  The ship provided us with a small overview map, so we used that to get to the Tourist Information Office.  The ladies at the tourist office were extremely helpful.  They gave us a large, colorful city map with the public transportation information, directions to some of the sights, and a couple of pizzeria recommendations.   The tourist office was located near Galleria Umberto I, a covered passage lined with shops.

Leaving the Tourist Information Office, we headed towards Castel Nuovo.  There was a charge to go into the castle, so we passed in hopes that the next castle would be free.

We walked from Castel Nuovo to Castel Dell’Ovo.  Luckily, this castle was free of charge, so we were able to walk around and see the city sights from the high castle towers.

After we got our fill of Castel Dell’Ovo, we headed towards a third castle, which was located at the top of the mountain.  In order to get there, we had to take the funicolare centrale.  The funicular is like a cable car that takes you up and down.

From the top of the mountain, we found our way to Castel Sant’Elmo.  There was a 3 euro per person entrance fee.  We paid and made our way inside to avoid the rain.  Unfortunately, most of the castle was open, so we made use of our umbrellas.  I think on a clear day, the view would be absolutely amazing from the top of the castle.

After taking in all the sights we wanted to see, we took the subway to Via Dei Tribunali for some PIZZA.  The tourist office recommended Sorbillo or Di Matteo (both are on the same street).  We tried Sorbillo.  We each ordered our own pizza, which were tasty.  Hubby ordered a pepper something pizza which we thought had pepperonis, but turned out it was actually bell peppers.  I absolutely hate bell peppers.  I went with the safe choice and ordered a Margherita pizza.  The pizza had thin crust, was not very oily, and a good portion size.  This meal cost us 17 euros for our pizzas, two cokes and tip.

  

Three castles, two pizzas, seven hours, and hundreds of steps later, we were exhausted.  Back on the boat, we took a nap before dinner.  I am not sure why we do not have any photos from dinner that night.  I had a Caprese Salad and Warm Coconut Souffle.  Hubby had Baby Shrimp Cocktail and Warm Coconut Souffle.  The shrimp cocktail was gross, but the souffles were delicious.  The show that night was Get Down Tonight and it was performed by the NCL production cast and show band.  By the end of the night, we were pooped but excited for the sixth day of our honeymoon in Rome.

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