foodie forever -- Part III

I haven't written about my last day in NYC because the sheer quantity of food and sugar that I ingested on Sunday was seriously obscene(not looking for a repeat performance any time soon). Before going on, I'm going to backtrack a bit to Dylan's Candy Store and Maltese puppies. Pictures are courtesy of Tiff, as always. We wandered by after brunch on Saturday and before our exhaustive tour of the Met. Dylan's boasts a candy staircase with hard candies displayed nicely under florescent plastic steps. Like all stores, this one was crowded with children and adults streaming towards the chocolate and cupcakes. Even though New York is teeming with people, it has a nice feel to it. The people are intense, but friendly at the same time (I think) and relatively well-educated.

Then we passed by a pet store with some adorable puppies, especially this Maltese that was begging for us to take it home. Although I'm not really an animal person, I wouldn't mind having a tiny ball of fur of my own. On the other hand, I strongly feel that people shouldn't have pets at all. It seems utterly cruel to force animals to live in a completely unnatural and superficial environment instead of being out in the wild. I felt terribly sorry for a set of miserable puppies that were going crazy and running up and down the walls of their cage. No, I'm not an animal activist...or an activist for anything.

On Sunday, we started off the day with brunch at Sarabeth's on the upper west side. I had some amazing salmon eggs benedict (what I usually order for brunch), a bite of the most amazing farmer's omlette ever, another bite of the softest fruit muffin with melted butter, a good amount of four flowers'' mimosa, and bread pudding and their famous 'chubbies' (chocolate cookies) for dessert.

After that extremely satisfying meal, we went by Beard Papa's and Grom, but were all too stuffed to feast on cream puffs and gelato (mmmm...gelato). Instead, we went to Levain Bakery, where we invested in a huge chocolate chip cookie that must have had at least a pound of melted chocolate chips embedded in the dough, a chocolate and peanut chunk cookie, and a rather disappointing rasberry twist brioche. Then it was on to Crumbs for red velvet and mocha cupcakes (which would be consumed about three hours later), and finally to Jacques Torres for an assortment of fine chocolates and cocoa powder dusted almonds.

Although I felt like I was going to explode, I still took part in demolishing some delicious, warm, and microwaved melted red velvet cake. We then went to Giorgio's in Gramercy (Italian is wonderful when you're already stuffed to the gills). For starters, we had some crispy calamari and artichokes as well as a beet salad with an interesting spice. Amy guessed rosemary and I guessed basil (she was correct). For our main course, we split a dish of divine glazed duck breast and another of linguini with lobsters and shrimp. The handmade pasta was al dente to perfection and quite lovely. I was positive that I was going to die at this point, but what sane person passes on dessert? we had a refreshing sorbet trio and their 'flagship' dessert of warm and gooey s'mores cake. After that, we went back to the hotel in Chelsea and collapsed. I didn't think that I would be able to eat again for at least a week (I was very wrong, as usual).

The very next day, I ingested another Jamba Juice for lunch and a Nathan's hot dog in the afternoon at Penn Station. Back at home, I ate dumplings, crabs and lobster, steamed salmon, hand-rolled noodles with pork and mushrooms, english muffins with cheese, bacon, and eggs, steamed buns with melted brown sugar in the center, fried flatbread, and much more over the next week...