On our second day in NYC, Connie wanted to try some NY bagels. We turned to Yelp to find some good bagels in our area. We found a shop called Best Bagels & Coffee on 35th Street not too far from our hotel. The shop sells handrolled, kettleboiled bagels. Chewy, bready goodness. There was a line out the door but it moved pretty quickly. I ordered the Everything bagel with lox, scallion cream cheese, onions, capers, and tomatoes. We found a place to sit in the restaurant and enjoyed our breakfast treat. Yum!
Later that day, we met our guide Nancy for our Hell’s Kitchen food tour. Our first stop was to Gyu-Kaku on 44th Street that I had been to before with my family with my meat-loving family. We enjoyed edamame, fried garlic udon, yaki shabu steak, and strip steak! Yum!
Next, we walked to a place called City Sandwich on 9th Avenue near 45th Street where they say we will eat good and feel good. We did eat good and feel good with the Victoria Sandwich that had chicken breast, tomatoes, kale, garlic, sauteed onions, melted mozzarella, and olive oil on it. Also in the shop was a counter called pastel de crema with a delicious dessert.
We walked over to another shop where we got to taste empanadas. I forgot the name of the place and even forgot to take a picture of the outside of the restaurant! I didn’t forget to take photos of our stop at Spoonfed New York Country. What an amazing place with an interesting history. They serve South Caroline Low Country Southern Food. They also welcome you to their restaurant and make you feel at home. A former educator and a former Broadway caterer to shows like Hamilton had the idea to open this restaurant. However, the contractor they hired to build their restaurant took their money and didn’t finish the job and they got into a bit of financial trouble. Amazingly–or maybe not so amazingly, the Broadway community came out to help them to construct the restaurant and help them raise money to open the restaurant. There is a piano bar near the entrance and if you eat at Spoonfed, you just might get to see some of your favorite Broadway stars!
Look at all the food we ate at Spoonfed! Watermelon with balsamic vinegar, fried chicken, fried okra, waffles, banana pudding, caramel cake. I was so full!
That was the end of the food portion of the tour, but we still had more walking to do. We headed to Central Park and explored on this beautiful day. Nancy was an amazing guide. If you are headed to NYC, I recommend you look into booking one of her tours.
If you go to the website manhattanwalkingtour.com and put in the code REGUEST. You’ll get a discount on a future tour!
After Central Park, we walked back down toward Times Square and stopped at the TKTS booth at Lincoln Center and got tickets to watch the off-Broadway production of Jersey Boys. I love musicals and the music from the Four Seasons is always enjoyable to listen to. And like Beautiful from Carole King, you’ll love it even more after knowing the story behind the musicians and their journey.
As we got closer to the hotel, we came across a Cuban street festival with craft and food vendors lining the street to distract us from all the walking we continued to do that day.
I took my friends to have a nightcap at my favorite NYC izakaya on 49th Street but found that they had closed for good since the last time I was there in the summer. So we ended the evening with a Irish ‘French’ onion soup, and some fish and chips with a perfect pint at The Perfect Pint next to our hotel. By the end of the evening, we logged over 11 miles on our feet that day. We slept well that night! Living Hilo Style in NYC.
Living Hilo Style 