Hey Ho Let's Go!

Last Friday morning we headed to Baz Bagel for breakfast.  This is a trendy little place is near SOHO and Little Italy, and we thought it had lazy service, but excellent food.

I had a pumpernickel bagel with beet horseradish cream cheese, smoked salmon, and dill.  It came with fruit and a pickle on the side.

It was absolutely incredible.  Christopher had an egg salad/fish bagel, but I was too busy admiring mine to taste his:

I have no idea what we did all day ...

But for dinner we went to Dirt Candy, and that's what really matters.

This vegetarian restaurant was out-of-this-world good, and one of the top five meals we've ever had.  We were impressed with the service, the inventive menu, the no-tipping policy, and the quality of the food.  We enjoyed the Korean fried broccoli:

Popcorn beets:

Spinach spaetzle:

And pumpkin squash pad Thai:

The broccoli and spinach dishes knocked our socks off - they were absolutely amazing.

Finally, we had the broccoli dogs, which by some miracle, taste like hotdogs.  Wowza.

The salt and vinegar "chips" on the side had us in shock.  How this healthy, vegetarian meal could taste like junk food was beyond us, but we'll take it!  Can't wait to dine at this restaurant again.

At some point we had one scoop of oatmeal raisin cookie ice cream from Odd Fellows.

$5 for one scoop might seem steep ... until you taste it.

We couldn't get over the flavour, and how soft, plump, and juicy the raisins were for being inside of ice cream; we expected them to be hard and frozen, but nope.  Best ice cream ever!

We also took some photos in the location where the Ramones album cover was shot:

I think later that night we had pizza.  I could be wrong.  It could have been yesterday.  Ten days in New York is a blur, but a delicious, happy blur.

On Saturday we headed back to Brooklyn to go to the foodie event that happens weekly, Smorgasburg.  It's basically 100-ish vendors dishing up the most progressive, unique eats that NY has to offer.  Unfortunately, it was not our speed at all.  We hated it.

There was no way we were waiting in the looooooooooooooong lines, with annoying hipsters and their darn backpacks.  Backpacks.  Backpacks everrrrrrrywhere.  Nope.

We ate at one delicious place, then hightailed it out of there faster than you can say Arcade Fire.

Lineups and crowds are pretty much our least favourite things.  Overly touristy areas are right up there too, so when we hit DUMBO next, we were even more frightened.  Ahhhh, get us out of there!

(After snapping a few photos) we literally ran from DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), and walked for miles throughout Brooklyn in quieter areas, that didn't have Shake Shack lines, or anything else that made our skin crawl.

At some point we ate sushi at Nanatori:

We couldn't wait to get back to Manhattan.  Christopher wanted a black and white cookie (which is totally cake, and not a cookie at all, in my opinion):

That evening we went for dinner to 17 Wo Hop for Chinese food.

We took the leftovers (there were a lot) back to the room to have another night, and were super thankful that we had a microwave.

The next day was Easter Sunday, and we had a lot planned.

How was your week?  What are you up to this weekend?

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?

Weekend Things

On Friday evening we tried a newer restaurant in town called Wann Izakaya.  Until this place opened, there wasn't really anywhere to get ramen in Regina.

I had the tonkotsu ramen, which I thought decent, but not even close to as good as the stuff we had in other cities (Toronto comes to mind).  It's good enough to do the trick if we're craving ramen and don't feel like making it.

On Saturday evening we went out to our friends' place for a 90s themed get-together.  It was fun to bust out clothes we wore in high school and catch up with our pals.

The rest of our weekend was very relaxed, with lovely breakfasts, and a lot of snuggles.

This evening we roasted a chicken which we'll eat for lunches and dinner for the next two days.  We won't be doing much else for cooking, as we have a vacation coming up, and don't have a lot for groceries in the house.

We do have dessert in the freezer though, as I made these bars last week:

Seven Layer Magic Bars

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1.5 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/3 cup flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350.  Line a 9x13 pan with foil.  Put the butter in the pan and melt in the oven.  Sprinkle the crumbs over the butter.  Pour the condensed milk evenly over the crumbs.  Top with remaining ingredients in order listed and press down firmly with a fork.  Bake 30 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Cool.  Chill and cut into bars.  I like them best about two minutes after they've come out of the freezer.

How was your weekend?  What did you do?