Manhattan babies don't sleep tight until the dawn.

Last Tuesday we went to Mok-Bar for lunch, which is a Korean-inspired ramen restaurant in Chelsea Market. 

We ordered the kimchi ramen and the bee bim bop, and shared both.

We decided to make it a whole Korean day, and hit up K-Town.  You can find numerous restaurants in NYC that are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  We went to Kunjip, and ate all sorts of deliciousness.

After dinner we carried on to the private Karaoke rooms next door (you can find many private Karaoke places in K-Town).  We got a room for two, and sang our hearts out. 

I stepped out of the room for all of 45 seconds, and somehow ended up making friends with a group of people who were just coming in.  They insisted I go grab Christopher, and that we join them in their Karaoke room.  We hung out with our new Wall Street buddies for the rest of the evening, and had a blast.  We got back to our hotel room very late, and slept away Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday evening we went up to Harlem, and had soul food at Melba's.  We loved the atmosphere in this place, and everything on the menu sounded good.  Their chicken and waffle dish beat Bobby Flay in one of his Showdowns, so Christopher ordered that, and I had the meatloaf with mac and cheese and collared greens.

The food was fantastic, and the service was excellent.  The rap music pumping through the speakers provided a nice juxtaposition to the candle-lit meal in this business-classy looking space. 

After dinner we were off to The Apollo theater for the amateur jazz night. 

At Christmas I surprised Christopher with front row seats for this show.  The Apollo is such an iconic venue, with so much musical history.

We were feeling munchy after the show, so we hopped on the train and headed back to K-Town to grab fried chicken from Bonchon, and a slice of rainbow cake from Cafe Bene.  We got our goodies to go, and ate them in our room.

It was another late night, but we just couldn't seem to make it back to our room early, even when we tried.  NYC really is the city that doesn't sleep.  There is just too much to do, and see, and eat ...

And it seems as though nothing ever closes.

Do you have a trip coming up?  Where to?  

Do you do any restaurant research before traveling?

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Last Wednesday (12th) we took off on a flight bright and early to NYC.  Our flights got switched on us, which fortunately reduced our stops from two to only one, and got us in hours earlier than initially planned.  We arrived in NY around 2:00, and headed to our hotel, Q & A Residential Hotel in the skyscraper at 70 Pine Street in lower Manhattan, just off of Wall Street.

Since it was a 10-night trip, a large hotel room was a must for us.  It's hard to find a spacious room in NYC, but we lucked out, and the Q & A Hotel could not have been more perfect.

Our room was massive, and had multiple closets, a full kitchen (microwave, fridge, oven, stove, dishwasher, all utensils, pots, pans, dishware, etc.), a king bed, seating area, desk area, martini bar cart, and bathroom with L'Occitane toiletries.

Not a bad find for a New York hotel room!  We had fun leaving different messages on the chalkboard each day:

There is a gourmet coffee shop in the building, a deli steps out the door, and a subway station across the street, which made it super convenient for getting around.  We bought a week-long subway pass right away.

Our first stop was at Bonchon, a Korean fried chicken joint that is highly addictive.  It's like KFC meets Korea.  Our friend Soo introduced us to this place last time we were in New York.

For dessert we hit up the Stone Street Tavern for red velvet cake.

The next day we headed to Brooklyn and spent some time in Williamsburg.  We had pho and a banh mi sandwich:

Some coffees:

Frozen yogurt:

And ramen:

We weren't overly fond of Williamsburg, which seems to be a popular area in Brooklyn.  It was too busy, and too hipster for us, although we headed back there a couple days later, which was a mistake (next post).

On Thursday evening we snacked on some fries and hung around Greenwich Village.

What have you been up to friends?  How was your Easter?

New York, New York

On Saturday morning, our first full day back in NY, we headed to Nice Matin for breakfast.  I got the berries with yogurt and granola.

After breakfast we headed to Brooklyn to check out R&A Cycles, a bike shop that is supposed to be pretty good.  We got the best service from a guy named Felix.

He even took pictures for us as we posed. 

We headed out of the bike shop to find some great Brooklyn pizza for lunch, and came across a box of free knives on the sidewalk ... only in NY.

We ended up at Francesco Pizzaria, which was incredible.  

We shared an eggplant calzone to start and then got a large pepperoni, mushroom and basil pizza.

 

 

After lunch we came across a really old lady who told us that she walked about 10 blocks to get bread from Mazzola, so we followed her into this place.  We saw pastries with eggs in them, which looked interesting, but we just got coffees.

 

We headed back into Manhattan for dinner at Bread.

 

 

 

 

We had Pinkberry for dessert, and then ended the evening at a pub listening to a live band play 90s hip hop.  It was great. 

On Easter Sunday we took some photos in the park as we headed to the Easter parade on 5th avenue.

 

We saw some old friends at the Easter parade, as well as some new faces ...

 

 

The dance group that we watched blew our minds.

 

 

 The evening was spent with Guinness at a Karaoke bar.

 

Other random images from the last couple days include ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did you spend Easter?