New York City Review Part 5: Food and Drink

As a lone traveller the very worst thing for me is eating alone, and subsequently whenever I travel alone I don't eat much!


I arrived on a Thursday afternoon and left on a Tuesday afternoon, in that time I had 1 breakfast, 3 lunches, 3 evening meals (one of which I have photographic evidence) and 4 snacks and so many latte's. Like I said, I hate to eat alone on holiday! I also hate drinking alone but on this holiday I tried it :D


I know for a fact that I didn't make much use of the restaurants and other eateries in New York. Before I left the UK, I thought I would have tried more and I kept telling people how there are 19,000 restaurants in NYC (according to the online NYC guide). If I go back, I will be braver but this was all I managed.

Breakfast

Two of the mornings I had a croissant and cup of tea from the Hostels cafe. It was ok. Even though the tea was Lipton. Hmmmm.

On Sunday morning, I had joined forces with a new friend and we went to Dunkin' Donuts for Bagels. I couldn't bring myself to have cheese in my bagel and went for egg and ham. It was fine, a bit dry - but I left it till the last bite to decide that I could have put sauce on it.

Lunch

Also with the company on Sunday I had lunch. No photo's I am afraid. It was at a Greek restaurant in the Upper East Side (not too fare from St Luke Hospital - it may even have been on Lexington Avenue!). It was OK, I had pasta - I wouldn't recommend it but I wouldn't not recommend it. Maybe if you had something more exciting than I did :D The portions were huge though! I had enough for about 3 servings. I probably ate about a third of it too.


On the Saturday I was going on a tour, so whilst I waited I bought myself some lunch. The menu wasn't that varied but I chose the Pizza skins. They intrigued me, and what better reason to order something than you are curious! For those of you who don't know what Pizza skins are let me educate you. It is a pizza base and the topping is mash potato with seasoning and then on top of that is tomato, cheese and I opted for pepperami. It was a small individual sized Pizza. but as soon as I saw it, I knew I wouldn't be able to eat it all - I mean it was basically a bread dish full of potato! I did well, I ate half. I had to stop because it was distracting, I just couldn't get my head around mash potato on a pizza base. It was quite dry and not that well seasoned so I asked the waiter of they had any chilli. BIG MISTAKE! I asked if he had any chilli or chilli sauce or anything to put on it...about 10 minutes later another waiter came out and asked me if I had ordered the Chilli Soup! Awkward.


On the last full day I had, I went with something that reminded me of home and that was TGI Fridays in Times Square. I had chicken something and fries. It was the usual standard of TGI's but the waiter was very kind and was called...Chad! I have actually now met someone called Chad! There wasn't much variety on the menu but again the portion was large and I ended up leaving half of it.

Snacks

I had Haagen Daz overpriced ice cream twice!! :) Fear not, it is overpriced here in the UK too. It was delicious and I don't regret it. Mint choc chip with chocolate sauce was my choice. Only disappointed that the ice cream was white and not green, haha.


The other snack I had was a slice of Pizza. I thought this would be relatively straight forward. Boy, was I wrong! I made two mistakes. It didn't help that this was on my second day in NYC and I was still feeling slightly vulnerable. I know, I'm a wuss!


So I joined the queue, and the queue ran past a plastic partition which a man (the chef) stood behind. He could see everyone who joined the queue and when I joined it, he looked up at me. Anyway, I made it to the till having decided on chicken pizza. I reached the till and told the woman, and then she asked the man for it and he said he hadn't had an order for it, she then looked at me and asked if i had ordered it, erm...No?!, she ordered it for me and told me to wait down the end. I paid and did as I was told. When I got back down to the end where I was to wait, I happened to glance up - undoubtedly rolling my eyes, lol - and saw a sign hanging from the ceiling, it said...Please order here. Doh! FAIL


As I stood waiting, I grew bored and thought I would sit down. The seating area in the pizza place was small and there was an empty table with rubbish left on it, I thought I would sit down whilst I waited. I sat down. I was probably there for about 5 minutes when an old man walked up to me and said 
"Excuse me, can I just have a couple of minutes to get my cane?"
I looked at where he was pointing and there was a cane hanging on the back of a chair! I got up and moved back to stand by the order counter. Doh! FAIL


Eventually, my pizza slice was ready, I collected it and sat at a COMPLETELY empty table. I looked at my pizza slice. It was the size of a slice of Large pizza in the UK. It looked nice but...wait?!...whats with the chicken?...is that...no?!...it cant be?...it was in breadcrumbs! First time for everything :) The Pizza was OK. I just couldn't stop staring at the chicken, lol!

Dinner

The first dinner I had was on the Friday before I went to my first show. I went to Juniors. I think it is pretty well known? But it is sort of in the style of a traditional american diner. It was very busy. I was asked if I wanted to eat at the bar or at a table. I would have hated sitting at the bar, so table it was. Seeing as I was in a diner, I decided to go with burger and fries. He offered me cheese and pickles. I declined on both accounts. When the plate came it was rather large. The burger was nice but I could only eat a third of it and the fries were actually disappointing as they were large chunky ones. They were delicious but I always think of American fries as being skinny. The best part of the meal was the drink I had..it was Doc Browns Black Cherry. I never found another place that sold it again, but it was sooooo nice. I went all out and had dessert too. I had Original New York Cheesecake. I loved the consistency and it was delicious. The slice was very large again but I persevered and ate half. Yummy.


The second dinner I had was on the Sunday and was at a Chinese restaurant on the restaurant mile street behind Times Square. I went with my new friend who is Chinese and she recommended the dishes.


We had a tofu soup, duck pancakes and boiled rice with a very spicy fish dish. She kept asking me if I could handle spicy foods. I can and in the end it was she who was struggling! lol All the food was very nice and it was a great evening. I had never had tofu before either, so another first!

I have just remembered a third meal that I had, it was in a pub in Greenwich. It came with fries...but I cant remember what it was! MEMORY FAIL!

Drinks

Apart from the Doc Browns Black Cherry mentioned above (My absolute favourite!), I drank a lot of Starbucks coffee, whenever I got lost :), and a Frappucino, I had some wine on a tour and also had a few of my favourite tipple. Which for anyone who doesn't know, it is Southern Comfort and Lemonade (in US it was soco and sprite). It would have been much cheaper to drink lager/beer etc. but I don't like it and the cost of the Southern Comfort wasn't that different to here and I was on holiday!.




Sorry, its not a better post with loads of pictures of delicious foods...I had a NYC FOOD FAIL!