Today I am Craving..

WAFFLES.

So I lied when I said I would blog about every day that I was in New York. Finals got in my way, then my (completely awesome) birthday, now Christmas, Intersession, no time at all! The delicious food I ate will trickle into upcoming posts.

Like now. I love breakfast, more specifically waffles, and while I was in NY I had two of the greatest-est waffles ever! First was when I was in Union Square Park with Lacey. She took me to a Farmer's market/fair they were having, full of fresh produce, cool booths, and WAFELS AND DINGES!!

What is Wafels and Dinges you say? It is a Belgian waffle truck that makes its way around NY producing delectable waffle-goodness. Dinges ("things" in Belgian) include Nutella, strawberries, walnuts, bananas, maple syrups, spekuloos spread (not sure what that actually is!), and belgian chocolate fudge. I had the "leige" waffle with nutella as my dinge

Soft and chewy, completely delectable. Lacey didn't get one but had a bite of mine, now I think she's definitely on the look out for their bright yellow truck! I love the wafel-o-meter on the side of my wafel holder.

I definitely forgot about sharing.

The second waffle I had I now refer to as the waffle of my life (a little dramatic? yes.). Torrey's sister-in-law Cleia recommended this French bakery by the name of Le Pain Quotidien , and I scurried over to the Upper East Side the morning of Thanksgiving to try it. Not only is it the most adorable little French bakery, complete with a giant communal wooden table and waitress with a strong French accent, but the food is absolutely heavenly! Look at this thing!

Perfect size, perfect crunchy outside with fluffy inside, perfect perfect perfect. Something this good is hard to enjoy because you know eating it will mean that it will be gone! Luckily, Le Pain Quotidien knows how good their waffles are, so they package waffles that you can take home with you! Needless to say I did this wholeheartedly.

Another thing I loved about this place? Order the Belgian hot chocolate, and they bring you a mug of hot milk and a pot of melted Belgian chocolate.

Do it yourself!

Note: Clicking on any restaurant name that I post about will take you to the restaurants website, provided they have one. The Wafels and Dinges site should show you when and where the truck will be heading. Also, I have reviewed most of these restaurants and more on Yelp! If you want to read my reviews and others (never trust just one food opinion!) of these places, the map on the right of my page can take you there. =)

NEW YORK-Day 2

TUESDAY

First full day in NY. Ready to party. Torrey set me up with a Metrocard and off we went trying to fit as much city as possible into one day.

Torrey and I ran off to babysit his nephew, and we took advantage of the stroller to take David to Central Park! This had to be my favorite place. Since I'm California-born and raised, Fall does not look like this. Absolutely beautiful.

Now to food. For lunch we looked at ratings online to find a good Italian place, and found what looked like a ravioli restaurant in the Soho area. When we found it, it turned out to be a ravioli store! bummer! The monster that we call my stomach started to get seriously pissed, so we decided to try the restaurant sitting next to the store called Florio's Ristorante. It wa AWESOME. Turns out it was a super authentic little Italian restaurant with the best bread on the planet and full-blown NY Italian accents all over the place. Torrey tried the pesto gnocchi

which was good, but he got sick of the soft texture and proceeded to eat mine instead! I didn't blame him, because I had the rigatoni vodka which was dee-lishh-uss. Sweet, but with some heat to it, perfectly al dente pasta.

Made me happy. I loved that we stumbled upon this place, not to mention it was pretty cheap too!

Having some time to kill, we walked around Soho for a little while and found Washington Square Park.

Then we took the train down to the financial district where we saw some cool sights like the US Court House, Brooklyn Bridge (too lazy to walk across, just up it a little), New York Stock Exchange, and the BULL! Took us a lot of walking to find this guy. Totally worth it!

Later on we met back up with Dan and his friend Dinh in the McDonalds in Times Square so that we could all go to the top of the Rockerfeller Center. This was my FAVORITE thing that I did in NY! There is this crazy room at the top that recognizes each person as they walk in and assigns them a color, which follows you where ever you go! It also reacted to movement so we spent a good half hour trying to figure out this crazy future room!

The guard laughed at our crazy antics lol. We also got some great shots of the view. Amazing.

Day 2= Tired feet, but so happy that this day happend. Saw way too much for one person to take! Plus it was fun entering the future :]]

To be continued...

NEW YORK-Day 1 Here we go...!

So for those who live under a rock, I spent my entire Thanksgiving break in NYC! My older sister Lacey goes to NYU grad school, not to mention her hubby Seth goes to Colombia grad school, and they were amazing enough to invite me out! SO awesome. I had the greatest time eating, shopping, sight-seeing, eating, EATING! I loved being there and hope someday I'll get to go back. But for now I am here, and it is time to blog about it "]

MONDAY

I came in at about 7:30 NY time after my flight from Chicago was delayed two hours!

At least the airport I sat in for so long was pretty! Christmas decorations always make me happy :] So exhausted, I was lucky enough to have Torrey (flew up for Thanksgiving with his brother's fam and to be my personal tour guide ;D ) pick me up from the airport and take me to my sister's apartment. The first thing we did was eat! Lacey took me around the Upper West Side, to a pizza place that I wanted to try called Rigolettos and to Magnolia Bakery, a well-known bakery that she swears by as having the best cupcakes on the planet.

My first slice of NY pizza did not disappoint! I had a spinach and ricotta slice.

LOVED. It was huge and jet-lag curing.

In Orange County there is a great cupcake bakery called Sprinkles that I love, so I was ready to see how Magnolia would hold up to it. Took a bite of the vanilla cupcake and...Sprinkles who? It's difficult to describe the perfect cupcake, I think you just have to eat it for yourself. I can say that what won me over was the frosting, because it wasn't too sweet, giving a good balance between it and a dense cake. I hear rumors of an LA Magnolia, so I'm crossing my fingers for that day to come before Magnolia withdrawals kick in!

not to metion how CUTE their cupcakes are!

Lacey showed me around the area their apartment is in, the Lincoln Center is just a few blocks over, along with a bunch of great restaurants and stores, and the temple! It really is a fantastic area, I'm so jealous that they live in such a great place!

Day 1= Not too eventful since I got in so late, but a great start to my NY adventure! More to come...