Friday November 7th-I woke up this morning to find that my cousin
Katy from Florida had left me a message saying that she and her
husband, Lindsey were in NYC for the weekend. As I'm always up for showing people around the city, I met Katy at their hotel while Lindsey was at a conference and we set about exploring Gotham. It was surprisingly warm today (around 60 degrees) and we started at the Tribute WTC Visitor Center just outside of the Ground Zero site in Lower Manhattan. Even though I didn't live here at the time, it was a hard place to visit as there were many personal and moving stories told through the videos and rememberances on display.
We walked over to the 6 train and had someone take a few pictures of us with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background.
We made our way up to Grand Central Station and walked around the Main Terminal for a bit, admiring the Sky Ceiling and the four-faced brass clock (in the background of this pic). It really is a beautiful station!
As we went down to the Dining Concourse, I had Katy stand in one corner and I in the other, facing our respective walls. I asked her to listen as I whispered into my wall. We had fun whispering back and forth in the "Whispering Corridor". The way the ceiling is arched allows for even the slightest sounds to carry across the corridor. Pretty neat. Lunch was at Junior's. Katy went for the corned beef reuben which looked mighty tasty to me and she really enjoyed it.
The waitress asked if we wanted fries or onion rings and I asked if we could do half & half. She said no problem. It seems many places I've been to lately split them up that way and it's a good way to try both without committing to two big orders. These were just ok. The fries seemed to taste of the frozen Ore-Ida variety and the rings were a bit heavy in the batter department.
My pastrami and corned beef combo reuben. I knew I was going to be lovin' this one strong when the waitress brought it out and I caught a whiff of that warm, cured meat. This was one fine sandwich! Rich, tender, slightly fatty with some nice crust on the pastrami. I might skip the reuben next time and just get the combo with some mustard on ungrilled rye so I can focus on the meat!
Walking off lunch entailed a trip to Rockefeller Center where we were happy to find the ice rink open for the season. We stopped by Garrett Popcorn Shop just so I could get a contact high without actually buying anything. Love that popcorn!
Walking back downtown, we came across a group of street breakdancers caled the NYC All-Stars. They busted a move (and then some) to M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This". Classic! They were nice enough to pose for this shot after their show.
Katy and I continued our walk as I pointed out some buildings and areas of interest and we ended up at
batch, which is a cupcake/dessert shop that is part of my NYC Cupcake Tour (more on that soon in the next installment of that thread). Katy picked up a Salted Caramel Carrot Cupcake with a lime cream filling and a Chocolate Dragon with Caramel filling for Lindsey. They both were digging those cupcakes.
When we walked in, the countergirl recognized me from my previous visit and said, "You're the food review guy, right?". We chatted for a few minutes and she said she had something I might like and hadn't been in the refrigerated case yet. She hooked me up with this dark chocolate cupcake with Bacon Caramel frosting (yeah, you heard me right!) and a pumpkin cream filling that was spiked with bacon fat.
Sorry I didn't cut this in half for the cross-section, but it was so fragile and still warm. This was one seriously crazy good cupcake. The cake was warm, moist and very chocolatey-rich. The caramel frosting had a great caramel flavor to it and the bits of bacon lent a smoky, salty punch. The only weak point was the addition of the bacon fat to the filling. It dominated the pumpkin cream and really just tasted like bacon fat. Cool idea, but one that might be better served to remain as just that, an idea. Sans bacon fat, this was a stellar cupcake!
Saturday November 8th-Dayna and I met Katy and Lindsey and had planned to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to Grimaldi's for some authentic NYC pizza and maybe some ice cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. But Mother Nature had put the kibosh on that with a cold, rainy day. So we hopped the 6 train to Spring Street and put our name on the list at Lombardi's. Luckily, we were able to wait at the bar inside and 20 minutes later, we were ordering. I wonder if this woman knows she's on the Internet right now? I can't tell if the look on her face is because she hasn't gotten her pizza yet or if I just outed her from the Witness Protection Program!
Lindsey and Katy, about to indulge in some seriously wicked pies!
Lindsey, Katy, Dayna and Billyboy
Katy was so excited about this small White Pie that she actually sang to it! Here are the lyrics as I wrote them down:
I'm so excited and I just can't hide it
I'm about to lose control and I think I like it
I'm so excited and I just can't hide it
To borrow a phrase from my esteemed colleage, Buffetbuster, HOLY SCHNIKIES! This was amazing! Lots of fresh mootz, generous gobs of fresh ricotta, olive oil, basil and just a hint of garlic. We were all seriously loving this pie. I really dig how they piped on the ricotta in a rosette pattern and allowed it to brown a bit in the oven.
Lindsey was also quite stoked over this large pie and could barely wait to dig into this one. In fact, he almost bit off my hand in his "pie lust"!
So what we have here is a large pie with pancetta, mushrooms and roasted sweet red peppers. Again, truly amazing! Salty, sweet, earthy, with a great chewy, slightly crispy crust. Dayna and I have had delivery from here before and it's still great after a 45 minute delivery wait, but truly it is on another plane of pie existence when eaten straight from the oven. Every single topping I have ever had from Lombardi's has been top notch, all the way (with one notable exception, the clam pie).
I was so very glad that we were able to spend time with them, especially since I don't get to see my Florida kin very often. Thanks for letting us show you around our city!
<message edited by billyboy on Wed, 01/19/11 11:13 PM>
