VanFoodies.com

Late August, my friend and I ventured to the East Coast of the US to New York City. Hot, humid, polluted air smacked my face as soon as we neared Manhattan. For 10 days, we travelled from place to place by foot or subway, shopping and eating wherever and whenever. Unfortunately, we were rudely interrupted by an earthquake and then a hurricane, keeping us confined in the apartment for 2 days.

While we were walking along Prince Street going towards Soho, we stopped at the Vesuvio Bakery. The bakery has an old rustic look to it, very old school. Of course, whenever you see places like these, you would assume that hipsters would be running the joint. It’s true, and they were very nice.

Vesuvio Bakery, one of the best cookies I've ever had

The inside of the bakery smelled like oats and sugar, what I would imagine a house in the 1950’s would smell like if you had an amazing cook for a mom in the prairies, hahah. The bakery encourages a more green approach, one way being that there’s a discount if you ride your bike to the store. Neat, eh?

Their delicious cookies, we ended up getting an oatmeal cookie, mmmm.

Our first day in Soho was incredible, so much shopping to be done. By the time we stopped for food, we were extremely tired and just wanted to get something in our stomachs before heading back. We stepped into Bari, as it looked somewhat promising from what we saw on the exterior.

I was so wrong to judge from the outside. The servers here were snooty and uptight, which was strange as we had exceptional service at all the other restaurants we went to. We ordered a Philly steak sandwich and a margherita pizza with added toppings of mushrooms and caramelized onions.

I decided not to post the pictures of the food here because it was so mediocre. In fact, the sandwich was just awful. They piled on extremely dry, overcooked meat, with barely a drizzle of the chipotle mayo. The bread was so crusty and hard, it was scraping the roof of my mouth, then just clogged in my throat.

The pizza was mediocre. The ingredients looked fresh, the taste was good, but the pizza was so extremely soggy and mushy in the middle, to the point where it was actually difficult to pull apart the slices. How sad.

Probably the worst place we ate at during our visit to New York, Bari in Soho.

Now from the worst pizza we had to the best. Firehouse Pizza was actually located on the same block we were staying at the time. It was amazingly fast, and the pizza maker looked like he’s done it for years.

We tried a few of them, because we ended up eating there quite often after a long day of walking..didn’t feel like looking for a restaurant. My favourite was the prosciutto and sun-dried tomatoes. God, the crust always had the perfect amount of crispiness, but the dough in the middle was so fluffy and delicious. The toppings weren’t overloaded, enough to allow me to taste everything in one bite and not have any flavours overpowering the other. I hate when pizza gets so overloaded with toppings you can’t even hold the slice up without it drooping. It was just so good..

Firehouse Pizza, same block as we were staying. Best pizza I've ever had.

Arugula and prosciutto, not a big fan of arugula, but my friend loved it

And of course, a meatball pizza.

Their sundried tomatoes and prosciutto pizza...totally killed me. Saved the best for last.

This pretzel cart was located right outside the Metropolitan Museum. Went to try it mainly because it looked so cute. The pretzel itself was just okay, the lady didn’t warm it up thoroughly. I tried the parmesan one. For some reason, they thought it would be smart to only put the cheese in the very middle..but the pretzel itself was very bland without any toppings.

Pretzelcart outside of the Met

Ruby Tuesday at Times Square at night. The place was pretty packed probably because it’s in a popular tourist location. Despite how busy it was, the server was very quick with our drinks and food, great service. But then again, typical tipping in the US is 20%, so yeah.

Ruby Tuesday at Times Square

We ordered a creamy shrimp dip. Unfortunately we were starving and had some before remember taking the photo. Loved how creamy it was, and the thick consistency so that it actually stuck on the corn tortilla chips. It would have helped if it were a little more spicy.

Shrimp dip with chips. Was starving...and had some before I remembered to take a picture.

I had some dry rub ribs. They were deliciously moist and fell off the bone. But then again, it could have been because I was starving… so just don’t take my word for them as for now. The onion rings were cooked well, but nothing special. And broccoli, what can I say? I needed my calcium intake.

Dry rub ribs, so delicious and moist.

That’s it for now. I have another post coming up from New York. Apologies for the inconsistent material, I have been preoccupied with school work.

Happy eating guys!