5 Things & 3 More

5 happy moments from this week:

1. Getting the keys to our new apartment. It's such a wonderful feeling to finally have a home.

2. A weekday morning at MoMA. Oh, the luxuries of being unemployed.

3. Our belongings arriving from the UK. Before we left we packaged up 3 boxes of our favourite things to be shipped to us when we had an address. They all arrived safely on Wednesday and it felt like Christmas unpacking it all.

4. Reading, reading, reading.

5. A shiny new laptop. Farewell, eternally spinning pizza of death.

3 things from around the internet I wanted to share with you today:

1. 16 ways life in New York isn't as fabulous as it is on TV. Sad, but true.

2. These baby pandas are the most adorable things.

3. I can't stop staring at this brown butter nectarine tart.

Happy labor day weekend y'all!

X 

Continue Reading...

Home Frites

We were two hungry people spending a Sunday exploring Brooklyn: it as probably inevitable that we ended up at Smorgasburg. With a cone full of truffle chips fries.

Smorgasburg is NYC's version of Street Feast for you Londoners, and for you non-Londoners, Smorgasburg describes itself as a 'Brooklyn flea food market' i.e. all the newest, finest and tastiest street food vendors come together every weekend and make sure no one leaves with an empty stomach. The weekend we visited was this market's last weekend at Brooklyn Bridge Park before it moves to Prospect Park for the rest of the Sundays until November.

We resisted joining the long, snaking queue line for the famous ramen burgers, and instead joined the slightly shorter thread of people waiting for a cone of Home Frites: Belgian fries, Brooklyn style.

After disputing which fries, which sauce, which fries, which sauce, for a (long) while, we settled on: Truffle fries 'tossed in black truffle oil, parmesan cheese and fresh herbs. Served with a side of our lemon garlic aioli'. I mean, it was futile to try and resist. These handcut fries were perfectly crisp and seasoned - a far cry from the standard super salty, soggy, potato-free American concept of 'French fries' which are far too widely known and eaten. Wonderfully truffled, with a generous serving of citrusy aioli, we munched our way through the huge (we've still not got used to these American serving sizes) portion, as we strolled down the rest Brooklyn Bridge Park, gazing at the magical views of Manhattan as we went.

Home Frites can be found at Smorgasburg every weekend. For locations, see here.

Continue Reading...

Joe's Pizza

There's been a never ending list of New York must do's fired at us by friends, guide books, family, blogs, and hearsay. We're doing our best to work our way through them all (I am becoming more and more concerned that the 5 years we have here may not give us enough time to do and see everything New York has to offer). Sifting through our never-ending list, lunching on pizza by the slice seemed to be one edible New York essential that recurred time and time again. 

Joe's Pizza in Greenwich Village is (at least, so I'm told), a quintessential New York pizza joint, which serves up a small, select range of pizzas with the simplest of toppings until 4am, seven days a week.

Standing at the counter outside with our $3 slices (we went for some of the fancier options), we were surrounded by the most eclectic mix of New Yorkers and did our best to pretend to be one of the locals as we devoured the crunchy base and perfectly minimal topping in a couple of minutes. And then B went back for more. 

Joe's Pizza, 7 Carmine Street, New York, NY 11004-4441

Continue Reading...

The Salty Pimp: Big Gay Ice Cream

Being in New York in a hot, hot August does have it's advantages: an ice-cream a day has become an acceptable, perhaps even an encouraged, mode-de-vie. With as many awesome ice-cream places as there are here to try, and to try again, we almost don't want this heatwave to end.

The Big Gay Ice Cream brand started out as a New York food truck in 2009 with the aim of re-creating the old school soft-serve cone. And it's done the best job at expanding it's soft serve empire since then.

The Salty Pimp from Big Gay Ice Cream was high up on our list of 'ice-creams-we-must-eat-ASAP'. Vanilla soft serve interwoven with dulce de lece, sprinkled with sea salt and dipped in a layer of chocolate couldn't be resisted for long. And with good reason: it was sweet and salty, light and rich, soft and with the crispest chocolate exterior. You can get even more of an idea of what it's like to eat the Salty Pimp by watching it be made right here.

We're hoping this heatwave will last a little longer so we've got an excuse to eat many more soft-serve treats from the Big Gay Ice Cream menu.

Big Gay Ice Cream, 125 East 7th Street, New York, NY 10009

Continue Reading...