Flushing, Corona Park, East Village, SoHo and Greenwich Village – Food Tour 2010

•May 31, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Hello!  Tis a bit late, but here’s the as-promised food tour!  My good friend Seth decided to organize this for selfish reasons of his own.  He was dying to try/go back to a few places.  It turned out to be really selfless in the end because everything we had was very delicious and I learned about/explored places that I hadn’t really been to before.

We started out in Flushing on 40th and Main.  The first bit of deliciousness: peking duck in a steamed bun.  All for a $1!

We then took the 7 train to Corona, where we walked about a good 20-25 minutes to one of the best (and tiny) empanada places in the city.  Empanadas Cafe.  They also have their own homemade frozen treats! (as shown by Holly)

We asked them for 14 random empanadas to try.  We then walked a couple of minutes to Corona Park and sat down under the shade of a tree to share and enjoy.  I had no idea that we were right by the World’s Fair site.  It was a lovely day.

Walking back to the 7 train, we made our way to the East Village for some mac and cheese at the always delicious S’mac on 12th street and 1st ave.  We ordered a taste of a few different kinds.

The next stop on our journey was the Peanut Butter Company.  We tried a variety of different sandwiches which were the delicious.  The only disappointing part was the bread.  It wasn’t the freshest and seemed a bit stale.  I ended up buying a jar of their white chocolate peanut butter on the recommendation of a few people.

Our last stop on the tour was the Waffles and Dinges truck that was parked on Christopher Street and 7th Ave.  I decided to get the Lièges waffle with Nutella and powdered sugar.  Best.  Decision.  Ever.

And that delicious photo is what ended up in my belly and also concluded our food tour.  It took a couple of hours to get around, but it was well worth it.  I had a great time and we’re thinking about doing it maybe twice a year if possible.

I know I also said I would update about planting on my patio, but that didn’t happen.  I bought all the stuff, so I will be definitely doing that tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a good memorial day!

Food Tour 2010 coming today + Patio Gardening

•May 31, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Hello all! Once again, I’ve been terrible at updating. The Food Tour 2010 post will be coming today along with my try at patio gardening thanks to the great people at Sprout Robot.

Stay tuned! Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day!

A “taste” of what’s to come – Food Tour 2010

•May 26, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Empanada, originally uploaded by iyumnewyork.

Since I’ve been bad about posting, I wanted to give readers a little “taste” of what I experienced on a food tour around different parts of the city. Granted we didn’t go to too many places, but, at least in Queens, I got to see where the Tony Stark Expo takes place (my nerdy Iron Man 2 comment…meaning Corona Park, aka Men in Black spaceship buildings). It was a great day and I can’t wait to share it with all of you!

Hester Street Fair, Bacon Marmalade, Chinatown, Union Square Green Market and Brooklyn (plus the crab that got away)

•May 23, 2010 • 2 Comments

I know, I know, it’s been way too long since the Hester Street Fair that I went to.  So, as promised, here it is.

We started out bright and early to get to the Hester Street Fair when it first opened in order to say hi to the fine people at Bacon Marmalade before they sold out of their delicious product.  We needed to buy a few for some friends!

Then we made our way over to the Bacon Marmalade stand, where I met Ross and Joanna.  They were really nice and we had a great conversation.  I handed them a piece of my dad’s blue cheese and in return (which was so nice of them) they gave me a jar of their spicy to try.  I still haven’t had a chance to dig into it, but you can be sure it’ll be happening in the near future.  I also took a pin to show my Bacon Marmalade pride.  They also took a really nice photo of the cheese and posted it on their Twitter.  Thanks guys! 🙂

I really enjoyed the Hester Street Fair.  It’s not very huge, which is nice.  Makes it not so overwhelming which some markets can be.  It’s on the corner of Hester and Essex street, which leads right into Chinatown.  Being such a beautiful day, Ben and I decided to venture a little further to have some dim sum for brunch.  On our way to Dim Sum Go Go, it was an amazing feeling to be so immersed into the culture of this part of the city.  It’s like your transported to the far east.  On our way, we passed by a ton of fish markets, one of which had a blue crab that tried to escape its fate.

Unlike the usual dim sum, this place had a menu sheet for us to pick what we wanted.  In order to get into the spirit of things, we decided to get some chicken feet.  This turned out to be delicious, along with all the other things we devoured.

Since we were so far downtown, it was only logical that we check out a bit of Brooklyn.  From Twitter, I found out about this place called The Meathook.  It is amazing.  They sell a bunch of kitchen supply stuff PLUS kits to brew beer!  Malts, hops, etc.  They also have an amazing meat counter where we went nuts buying sausages.  We got two of each: rabbit, pollo picante and chicken with ramps.  It was hard not to buy everything there.

And how could anyone pass up this delicious looking dried pork?  It was just out there on the counter looking all yummy and stuff.

After we were done buying out the sausage counter, we made our way to the Union Square Green Market where we bought some Fiddleheads.  This was the first time either of us had ever tried them, but they’re all the rage now, so we figured we couldn’t go wrong.  And boy, is everyone right.  They’re so delicious.  Think of a less strong asparagus mixed with a green bean.  The person selling them told us to blanche them before cooking to take away some of their acidity that could upset your stomach if you’re not used to it.  Below is the final result.  Please excuse our paper plate.  It was a long day.

All in all, it was a great day to walk around and explore.  I’m so glad the weather is nice.  Makes roaming around and finding all these yummy things around the city a lot more pleasant.  This weekend, my friends and I went around to different parts of the city; a little food tour if you will. That post will be coming a lot sooner than this one!  I also received my seeds and instructions for patio gardening from Sprout Robot.  I’m really excited to try this.  I ordered cucumbers, summer squash and string beans.  A friend of mine has some tomato seeds, so I think I’ll be growing those too.  This project will probably start after Memorial Day because they’ll have to be watered every day and I’d like to make sure that they actually grow!

New Amsterdam Market details coming soon too!

Hope everyone had a yummy weekend!!!

Hester Street Fair – more of a tease than preview

•May 19, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Hester Street Fair, originally uploaded by iyumnewyork.

I still need to do a huge post on my Hester Street Fair, Chinatown and Brooklyn day this past Saturday, May 15. I have a lot of photos to share and I’m trying out this Flickr posting thing. Not sure how I feel about it, but could be cool. Sit tight. I promise I’m going to do the update in the next few days. I’m seeing LCD Soundsystem at Terminal 5 tomorrow night. That’s going to be awesome.

I’m also going on a food tour around the boroughs this Saturday with a bunch of friends, so stay tuned for that as well. That’s going to be a lot of fun. I actually have no idea where we’re really going. I know it’s starting at a duck cart in Flushing, Queens and then we’re going, at some point, to a mega peanut butter place that’s supposed to be amazing.

My friend took me out to DBGB tonight for a belated birthday dinner. Delicious as always. Talking about this food tour is getting me all hungry again!

I’m also figuring out the New Amsterdam Market dates that I’ll be selling Berkshire Blue Cheese. Once I know them for sure, you all will be the first to know 🙂