You are going to be a little amazed at just how much we accomplished on this trip to NYC. Yeah, we walked our little legs off and saw as much as we could see during our short stay there! On our second day in NYC, we did a food tour in Little Italy and Chinatown with Ahoy NY Tours & Tasting.
As soon as we stepped off of the subway, it felt as though we were in another world… China! There was Chinese sprawled all over the sign, we were surrounded by Chinese workers rushing past us and the SMELLS were different. The subway was right by the market and we walked past fish on ice, fruits and even these dried mushrooms as you see here. The smell was a little overwhelming at first!
Fresh fish… all kinds.
I was amazed by all of the different kinds of fish they had… even dried fish such as these (whatever they are).
We started our tour in Little Italy, which is right next to Chinatown.
We met our tour guide in front of Ferrara and that is where we had our first tasting. Ferrara looks really small from the outside here, but inside it is two stories and huge. They were even having a baby shower in an extra room upstairs.
At Ferrara we had a tiny cannoli (don’t worry, we were stuffed by the end of the tour) that had tiny little chocolate chips in it. Best cannoli I’ve ever had, the inside filling was so smooth and creamy. Ferrara had a lot of other delicacies that I would have loved to try!
There was also this little store next to Ferrara that everyone was taking photos of… I didn’t realize it until our tour guide told us that it was the oldest store in the area.
Our next stop was at Alleva Dairy, the oldest Italian cheese store in America.
At Alleva, we sampled homemade mozzarella (made fresh that morning!) and prosciutto. It seemed like mozzarella and prosciutto was BIG in NYC… everywhere we dined you could get mozzarella & tomato (caprese salad) or an appetizer, our hotel has prosciutto at our indulgent hour every night and all of the pizza places we ate at had prosciutto as a pizza topping!
Here is our unsalted mozzarella! Now, if you were to buy salted mozzarella, it would last longer than a day or two. I don’t believe I had ever had unsalted mozzarella until this food tour!
We walked past a homemade ravioli place, but didn’t go in… it didn’t stop me from taking a photo at the window, though! Yum! This was Piemonte Ravioli Co.
The next place we visited was Di Palo’s Fine Foods, which has been in Little Italy since 1910.
Grana Padano is one of the world’s first hard cheeses, created nearly 900 years ago. This is a favorite cheese of the Italians and has a distinct grainy texture.
We tried two imported cheeses at Di Palo’s, a cow’s milk cheese known as Piave and a sheep’s milk cheese known as Moliterno. I preferred the Piave cheese… and, I normally hate olives, but I couldn’t let mine go to waste and I tried them… not too bad.
Grand Appetito was our next stop and we had a slice of ‘Grandma’s Pie’, which was a Margherita style pizza.
Little Italy was really pretty, I loved the street side cafes… it sort of reminded me of the street side cafes in Paris, but… those were MUCH nicer. 🙂
Our tour guide told us a story about the restaurant that resided here before this one (Umberto’s Clam House)… Crazy Joe Gallo was shot and killed on the corner of the street. You can google the story on your own, it was quite interesting.
So, if that wasn’t enough… next, we headed to Chinatown for our tour!
Our first stop in Chinatown was the Nom Wah Tea Parlor. Here we got to try some authentic dim sum tastings. We had a lot of tastings here!
As you can see above, we had quite a sampling at the Nom Wah Tea Parlor! Oh my! Starting from the top left, we had a veggie dumpling, then an egg roll with duck sauce, then lower left was a shrimp & vegetable dumpling… and last, was a bbq pork dumpling. We also had an almond cookie, which I forgot to take a photo of!
Our last tasting was at the Tasty Dumpling, where we enjoyed a dumpling of course! Dumplings is one of the most important foods to eat during the Chinese New Year.
After the tour, we did a little shopping… I got this beautiful pink kimono for Autumn for just $10!
We also enjoyed some bubble tea, which has tapioca (bubble) on the bottom!
Sooo, after a Little Italy and Chinatown tour… we went back to the hotel for our free indulgence hour (wine, cheese, bread, etc.!) and fueled up for another adventure… Central Park and a carriage ride! Yes, I know… this is a crazy long post. And, note… the Ghostbuster Towers are behind us!
We decided to do the carriage ride that went around the entire park… this way we could see most of Central Park, without walking. ha! And, we could go back and see whatever parts we saw and liked during our carriage ride.
I took this photo while we were on the carriage ride, it is amazing how many people are in Central Park at one given time. It was a really nice day (mid-seventies) and I am sure everyone just wanted to be outside!
Our driver was kind enough to take a picture of us by the Bethseda Fountain.
The carousel in Central Park
Just some more carriage ride pics 🙂
This photo shows you just how crowded Central Park is (and it is such a huge park!)… this is an open field and there are hundreds of people having picnics.
After the carriage ride, we decided to walk and check out the boathouse.
We got to sit right up against the water and we saw at least 5 turtles. So neat.
A couple photos of the Bethseda fountain. This is just a gorgeous and peaceful area of the park! A popular spot, too!
While we were by the Bethseda fountain, we saw a bridge and groom getting their photos taken AND if you look in the background, a guy is proposing to his girlfriend!
And, isn’t this the most amazing wedding photo ever?!
We had no idea where to eat for dinner that night, so our hotel recommended the Brooklyn Diner to us. It was close and I got to have a milk shake!
Our appetizer, a caprese salad
Milkshake, which… might have been weird with what I ordered, but oh well!
And, I ordered some sort of steak fajita… it was really good! Brian got a ruben sandwich.
After dinner we decided to go to Times Square at night! It was SO, SO awesome! Everything was lit up! I loved it!
New Year’s ball! I would love to see the ball drop someday on NYE!
Everything all lit up.
We didn’t get our pictures taken with the creepy characters that were dressed up. They were everywhere!
We were so tired at the end of this day! Here is the outside of our hotel… we fell asleep so easily that night with all the walking we did!
Now that I am done with the NYC Recap of Day 2… and, if you are still reading (which, I hope you are!)… here is the meal plan for this week!
Are you ready for the meal plan for this week?
Menu Plan for Week of June 29, 2014:
Sunday – Pasta con Broccoli with Homemade Rolls, recipe HERE
This is always a delicious and hearty meal!
Monday – Cilantro Lime Shrimp with rice on the side, recipe HERE
I have made the cilantro lime shrimp meal for Brian and myself and we both LOVE it! I have never made it for the kids, but Nathan tried a few bites of it last time and really liked it! Our boy loves seafood! So, I am going to make it up with rice and Autumn will eat a ton of rice and maybe something else and the rest of us will enjoy the shrimp and rice!
Tuesday – Fruity Breakfast Burritos with Crockpot Oatmeal
Breakfast for dinner tonight, plus… I’ll be sharing this recipe soon! Also, I’ve never made oatmeal in the crockpot, but this recipe (click HERE) has great reviews.
Wednesday – Frozen Pizza
Autumn has gymnastics on Wednesday evening, so I thought it’d be nice to have something simple for dinner.
Thursday – Walking Tacos (aka Taco’s in a Bag), recipe HERE
I was looking on Pinterest for some easy and fun meal ideas for the kids and came across this one… going to try it this week and see how it goes!
Friday – 4th of July, we will either BBQ or Eat Out!
Saturday – Going to a sunset dinner at a favorite local winery.
Linked up with:
Mommy Monday Blog Hop
