I traveled to New York City in August with my boyfriend for a short trip. The last time I was in New York was with my friends for our spring break trip in our senior year of college, so I was excited to check out the new restaurants that have opened and revisit old favorites!
We arrived in New York City around 3pm, and we were so hungry! We were staying near Midtown Manhattan, and we went to Urban Hawker, a Singaporean inspired food hall. We ordered Hainanese chicken rice and white beehoon from two different stalls. The Hainanese chicken rice included poached chicken, chicken fat rice, and a chicken soup. This was really good especially with the chili garlic sauce. The white beehoon was a dish with seafood, veggies, and rice vermicelli cooked in a seafood broth. It doesn’t look like it has much flavor, but the noodles really soaked up the delicious seafood broth! After that we got dessert from Lady M which focuses on Southeast Asian inspired desserts. We got a grilled pandan cake and a pandan roll cake, and both were good.
After that, we went to the Blackpink concert at Metlife Stadium in New Jersey! It was my first concert in the post-COVID era, so I was super excited! The concert was amazing, and I was glad I got to experience it!
The next day, we got breakfast at La Cabra, a coffee shop/bakery in Soho. I got a matcha latte and a cardamom bun and my boyfriend got a chocolate croissant. The cardamom bun is something I discovered during my trip to London last year, and I was excited to eat another one. This one wasn’t as good as the London one, but it was still delicious!
We walked around for a bit before our lunch reservation at Fish Cheeks, a Thai restaurant focusing on seafood. We ordered the coconut crab curry and the prawn karee, and both were delicious! Next time, I would want to try the steamed fish with herbs and the crab fried rice! After that, we walked around Soho and explored a lot of the stores.
We went to Supermoon Bakehouse, where we had a strawberry matcha eclair. The matcha cream filling was super good with the strawberry.
The menu changes every two weeks, so I definitely want to go back! We then took the subway to go to Caffe Panna to get some ice cream. The line was very long, but once we ordered, we got our ice cream quickly. I got the pink pineapple crunch flavor along with strawberry sauce, extra graham crunch, and a scoop of panna, which is a special whipped cream. The flavor that I got was alright, but my favorite part was the panna.
For a quick dinner before the broadway show, we went to All’Antico Vinaio since it was near our hotel. It is a famous sandwich spot from Italy with huge sandwiches, and we ordered a caprese sandwich to split. We then went to see the Book of Mormon which was actually pretty funny.
The next morning, we went to Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company for breakfast which is my go-to bagel spot whenever I’m in New York. We got the everything bagel with lox cream cheese, and it was huge! The bagel was chewy, and there was a lot of cream cheese. Next, we walked along the High Line to Chelsea Market and Little Island to do a bit of sightseeing.
For lunch, we went to Rubirosa for some pizza. We ordered a large pizza which looked huge, but because the crust was really thin, I was actually able to finish half of it. We went to Levain Bakery to buy some of their massive cookies! I bought four of them, and I brought three of them back to Austin. We went back to the hotel to rest for a little bit and drop off the cookies, and then we went to Rockefeller Center.
We checked out the Nintendo store and a toy store, and then we went to dinner at C as in Charlie, a Korean Southern tapas restaurant. We ordered five dishes: fluke ceviche, popcorn chicken, mushroom bibimbap, toast roll, and seoulsbury steak. The fluke ceviche was fruity and refreshing, and the popcorn chicken was served in a popcorn box and had a gochujang glaze. The toast roll was filled with shrimp and super crispy. The seoulsbury steak was savory, and the grits that it’s served with were super buttery. My favorite dish was the mushroom bibimbap! The mushroom flavor was super rich and the runny egg made it even better! This was probably the best meal we had in New York City, and the service was fantastic. We were also super full after the the meal, so we just went back to the hotel.
The next day, we had brunch at Kong Sik Tong, a Hong Kong cafe. We ordered the tomato beef noodle soup, french toast, and curry fish balls. My favorite was the french toast, but it was really rich.
For lunch part two, I had a shrimp rice roll from Joe’s Steam Rice Roll. The rice noodle was smooth, and it was good with the shrimp. Then sadly, it was time to go to the airport.
I had a lot of fun this time in New York City! It’s one of my favorite cities because there’s always delicious food. I can’t wait to go back!