Nueva York: Tour de Food

Carnitas Tacos on W. 14th St










Café Grumpy
224 W 20th St
split shot americano, village voice









Magnolia Bakery
401 Bleecker St
hands down the best cupcakes I have ever had

I landed at JFK airport Friday evening at 8:45pm and finally arrived at Ariel's apartment in Manhattan (W. 119th ST near Columbia University) at midnight. The time in between consisted of 45 minutes sitting on the tarmac waiting for a gate to open up, 20 minutes waiting for baggage, 20 minutes waiting for the shuttle, and then about an hour and a half sitting on the shuttle while the driver (aspiring tour guide) decided to take us on a windy tour of midtown Manhattan, WTC site, Union Square, NYU (the list goes on) before he finally dropped us off.

Although I am in New York, home of the Statue of Liberty, The yet-to-be-built Freedom Tower, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge and many other famous tourist attractions, I have yet to really see any of the above-mentioned sites. What have I done instead? EAT. A lot. New York is FULL of food.

Yesterday Ariel had a trek planned from her neighborhood in Columbia on the 1 train, to the Brooklyn Ferry (basically created so Manhattanites could get to Ikea) to Red Hook. Our destination: Taco Truck Row. We braved Tropical Storm Hanna (in flip flops, shorts and a tank top) to eat tacos and drink canteloupe juice, surrounded by people speaking Spanish and playing soccer. I felt right at home. But we were laughed at when someone realized we were hiking through the boonies of Brooklyn just for tacos.

Today I met up with Dylan, Lisa, Austin and Aunt Tuck to have some brunch at Chelsea Market. The french toast with bacon was pretty amazing, but very filling. Dylan was in his usual form cracking jokes, and we got into a heated discussion about politics. I told them how the west side of Washington state wants to secede and form the über liberal "Cascadia" and they mentioned that New Yorkers often joke about wanting to split off from the rest of NY. It was good to see them after so many years.

Next stop: In search of the city's best matzo ball soup.