NYC at Christmastime

My favorite place in the world: NYC. Oh, how I love that city!

One of my besties Leslie and I started a tradition to visit NYC for a weekend before Christmas. We always look forward to trying new places; though I anticipate that someday soon, we'll start visiting favorite hangs more often.

Places we enjoyed this time around....

John's of Bleecker Street: [website]

I bought a Groupon to John's earlier in the Fall. Leslie loves pizza more than life so I thought it would be a good way to get NY pizza and save some money. We met up with some good friends from Atlanta (Linnea and Eric Miller!) who were also in the city that weekend. We split two medium pizzas: one with meat and one without (for me the vegetarian). The pizza was really good and they had quite a selection of toppings. It'd be worth a return visit though we have a list of other pizza places to try in the future, including Artichoke.

Loreley Restaurant & Biergarten: [website]

A friend of mine suggested visiting a biergarten in Williamsburg; we couldn't get a hold of him so we searched for a pub in Williamsburg and found Loreley. Turns out, it's not the one he was talking about. Lucky for us, it turned out to be good. I had the potato pancakes with applesauce and lingonberries, which were delicious. Good beer selection, too, as one would hope for a biergarten.

'sNice:

We headed down to Park Slope in Brooklyn for the Maker's Market that was open for the weekend. After browsing the market (which was smaller than we anticipated), we walked over to 5th Ave in Park Slope. With the help of Urbanspoon [review], we found 'sNice, a vegetarian restaurant and coffee shop.

I had the tempeh reuben (with sauerkraut, vegan thousand island dressing & daiya cheese). I've really been into reuben sandwiches lately; something I never ate before being a vegetarian. This was one was really quite good. They had the option of swiss cheese on the sandwich, which I should have chosen. I don't mind daiya (vegan) cheese but it's not my favorite either. I think I would have loved the sandwich more with the swiss.

We grabbed a coffee and cookie (I had a pecan sandie) on the way out; both very good.

SushiSamba - NYC 7: [website]

I planned a mini graduation celebration for myself at SushiSamba 7 in the West Village. Les and I were joined by our friend Dawn and my college friend Tom. I made reservations in advance and was glad I did. The place was abuzz.

Leslie and I arrived early. Her mom had given us cash for a celebratory drink. We ordered the Green Bean Tempura to snack on (tasty!) and each had a cocktail.  I had the Nina Fresa: Svedka Vodka, muddled strawberries, orange liqueur, lime and guava. It was refreshing after all the day's walking.

Once we were seated, Dawn ordered the Field Green Salad and Kobe Gyoza as appetizers. I had the salad but not that gyoza (not vegetarian). We shared a large order of sushi rolls including El Topo, Green Envy, BoBo Brazil and Yamato. We ordered the day's specials in sushi rolls as well. I focused on the El Topo roll (yes, I'm a vegetarian that allows herself sushi from time to time). The El Topo roll was amazing, my favorite specialty roll that I've ever had. It had salmon, jalapeño, shiso leaf, fresh melted mozzarella, crispy onion. So good! A must-have if you visit. The idea of melted cheese on your sushi roll, love it!

For dessert, I had the Coco Duo: dark and white chocolate custard with praline. Amazing.

Pret a Manger: [website]

Our last day in the city included the Craftacular at the Metropolitan Pavilion. Beforehand, we grabbed some breakfast at the Pret near Union Square. A decent coffee and croissant before shopping.

The Treats Truck: [website]

I had one request for this trip: to find the Treats Truck in the city. It's been on my brain since seeing the Treats Truck in the Blackberry TV commercial. I followed them on Twitter so I could keep track of where the truck was in the city. Turns out, the truck was going to be outside the Craftacular. Perfect! So after we completed our shopping and headed to Chelsea Market before Les had to leave for the airport, I stopped by the Treats Truck and got a chocolate chip brownie with nuts. Delicious! And large enough that it lasted me quite some time. Worth stopping for! I will find the truck on my next visit to try something else; my sweet tooth demands it.

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Also, Leslie is an amazing photographer (maybe my favorite, though I'm biased). She had her camera with her and took some fun pics of our time in the city, etc. You might be able to see them here: [Facebook album]