NYC is love

We saved the indoor destinations for Sunday since it was supposed to be rainy weather. First stop, Grand Central Station which is like stepping back in time. Can’t you just picture people travelling through the station in their finest clothing?

I even love the starry, zodiac ceiling.

Brunch was eaten in Grand Central’s food hall and featured:

The highly esteemed Joe’s Coffee – iced coffee with soy milk.

A classic New York Bagel with the most amazing lox and cupcakes from Magnolia.

Everyone always says you should go to Magnolia for the banana pudding, not the cupcakes, and while the cake wasn’t anything too special the buttercream was easily the best I’ve even had. Awesome!

Naturally mine is the (chocolate) one with sprinkles on it.

After we devoured our tasty treats we zipped back up to the Upper East Side.

Our ultimate destination was The Met but, when you’re in the area, who can resist stopping by the Guggenheim?

The Met!

We dashed around The Met for three hours to see as much as we could in the time we had.

I could get lost in here for weeks.

The Met has such a huge and awesome variety of art, everyone should visit at least once.

One of my favourite pieces; Latona and her children Apollo and Diana.

The fabulous can’t help but spill out into the Upper East Side. The entrance to someone’s home, no big deal.

We were quite wet and very hungry when we arrived at Washington Square Park.

I really wanted to eat at Blossom so we’d planned on it for a late (uhm, 5pm) lunch but I made a slight error in the location and we were too hungry and wet to make it there. *sad face*

Instead we toured the park and then walked to Union Square where I’d eaten at a great noodle house on my last visit.

At Republic Noodle House J and I split the crispy (fried) tofu in a peanut sauce. WORD this was rocking!!

For my main I ordered the curried duck bowl. I probably should have ordered this without the duck since I don’t eat much meat and only ate a few small pieces (I’m sorry duckies).

The star of the show was the curried broth, it was the most amazing, rich and creamy broth I’ve ever had. I wish I could recreate this at home. Dee-lish!

Naturally we split a cupcake from Crumbs for dessert, this time it was Cookies and Cream, which we enjoyed in Union Square park.

Actually, when I say “enjoyed in the park” I really mean a nasty squirrel eyed me down.

Yuck.

I guess even trees get mail?

We met up with some peeps at the Village Pour House and then went across the street for dinner at The Smith.

The table split a clam thin crust pizza to start. Yum!

At this point in the trip all I wanted was veggies, greens and more veggies so I ordered two veggietastic starters as my meal, the Mediterranean salad and crudites which received a “that sounds healthy” from the waitress. 

To be perfectly honest I thought my meal would be veggieriffic but not anything to write home about. My mistake!

The Mediterranean salad (cucumbers, chickpeas, olives, tomato, feta, lemon dressing) was amazing. Everything was super fresh and very high quality.

The crudites and accompanying creamy basil dip were also fresh and tasted really awesome.

Not every restaurant can turn simple raw veggies into something great but The Smith certainly did.

To add to the fun they have a photobooth in their communal bathrooms. Awesome!

After dinner we all headed to Pinkberry. I almost didn’t get anything since I’d been indulging in dairy pretty heavily on this trip but in the end I caved, everyone else was doing it! #peerpressure

I ordered a small salted caramel froyo topped with capt’n crunch, strawberies and oreo cookies. Um. Hellooooo loverrrrr.

I don’t even know where to begin or how to express just how amazing this was so get yourself to a Pinkyberry and see for yourself. Blew. my. mind. and was worth every horrible dairy allergy/intolerance side effect.

After we parted ways with our dinner dates we stopped at the Union Square Trader Joe’s so I could replenish my Sunflower seed butter. Only one problem, there was a huge hole on the shelf where it should have been. >:/

Angela, TJ’s employee extraordinaire, was happy to check the back for us but had good and bad news for us.

The good, they were unloading a shipment of crack Sunflower Seed Butter.

The bad, it wouldn’t make it to the shelf for another 90 minutes when they would be closed… could we come back tomorrow?

I didn’t want to drop the “I’m from Canada and leaving tomorrow” card but once she heard that she ran back outside, cut open the box on the street and brought me a lot of liquid gold in a jar. #employeeofthemonth

The real reason this made me so happy was that I could now pass on more than the one jar I had at home to Susan. Thank you Angela, you’re the best!!!

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