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Showing posts from January, 2008

Quite Possibly a Perfect Meal at Craft

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Mr. Treker's parents had reservation for dinner at Craft last Thursday and invited us to join them. We always love going out with his folks and had been doing pretty well on our budget so we decided to tag-along. First of all, I have to say that while I have always been interested in trying out Craft, it has never been on the top of my list. Why? Well I have heard so many mixed reviews about this place over the years. There are people on the blogs like Chowhound, Yelp etc. that absolutely hate it. On the other hand, there are also people on those same blogs that sing it's praises-even calling it the best restaurant they've ever been to! I guess I was just always scared to take the chance that I might be one of those "haters". Working for a non-profit agency I'm not exactly raking in the big bucks! Part of the reason I started reading blogs was so I wouldn't be disppointed spending the little cash I had on a bad meal. Well anyways- when Thursday ni

Five Guys Burgers & Fries

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I was so excited when I heard Five Guys Burgers was opening in Brooklyn Heights right near one of the offices I work at. They had an opening date that kept getting pushed back and pushed back until I thought it was never going to open! But then it finally did and luckily I was there on opening day. Since then Five Guys is my lunch treat. I generally try to eat a healthy breakfast and lunch during the week to make up for all the other crap I put in body the rest of the time. But Five Guys is so good I have to make allowances for it once in a while. So what's so good about Five Guys? Well here's a picture of my burger just after opening it back in my office. Looks kind of squashed and sorry huh. It has a nice soft bun and a good flavor to the meat but what I think makes the burger truly is the toppings. Five Guys offers either a Little Cheeseburger (which this is) which is one beef patty or a Regular Cheeseburger which is two beef patties. Then they offer all these topping for fr

Lunch at Shanghai Cafe

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So winter is the time for comforting food and I don't know anything more comforting than soup dumplings. We've been on somewhat of a tear of trying different places out and this Monday was no different. We woke up- happy from the Giants win and happy with a day off of work. So we decided to head down to Chinatown and fill our bellies with some yummy soup dumplings. It was freezing outside so we decided to go some place closer to the subway than Joe Shanghai so we didn't have to be outside so much. We headed towards Shanghai Cafe. Shanghai Cafe was really different inside than I thought it would be. It reminded of a place trapped in the 80's. Remember when you went to get your school picture taken when you were younger and they all the cool kids got the laser background?! For some reason that's what I thought of when I walked in here. If that gives you any indication of the decor! It was about 1:30 and the place was packed. We had to wait about 5 minutes but scored t

Little Pasteries at Ferrara

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On the way back from Chinatown lunch the other day we swung by Ferrara to pick up some little desserts for later that night. Ferrara bills itself as America's first espresso bar which is funny because Ive never had an espreso there. I always just seem to stop in because they have wonderul Italian pasteries that you can buy mini-sized. That way you can try a little of everything! They have tons of cookies, bars and even mini wedding cakes along the display! Mr T and I just decided to grab some to go and eat at home later. The Cream Puff was filled with French style custard cream. The cream was good but I thought it could have been a little richer. Sfogliatella- this is the Clam shaped pastry. It's flaky and filled with ricotta, farina and fruit. This was rings of crunchiness that unfortunately didn't have much else going on. I wouldn't get it again. The piece de Resistance!! The Napolean- I have tried Napoleon's all over the city and this is one of the best I have

Celebrating a Giant Win

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Since we had just started our budget we passed on going to watch the football games at a bar and just got some beers and watched them at home this weekend. If your a Giants fan you know that this past Sunday was a great day for football. Eli Manning came out and got a huge win to send them into the Superbowl! Mr. T is a huge Giant's fan so we were jumping up and down in celebration. We were obviously several beers in by the time they won and a budget didn't seem so important anymore at that point :) So we decided to go out and celebrate! We jumped in a cab down to McSorley's and had a LOT of these. McSorley's was great. It was exactly the kind of crowd we wanted after such a crazy game like that- drunk and rowdy! We had a couple rounds and stayed out later than I have in ages! With all the drinking going on we kind of forgot about food all day. We were all set to grab a cab down to NY Noodletown for some grub when we remembered we were right near possibly the best drunk

Touring NYC on a Budget

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I decided to schedule a hair cut appointment for this Satudray since I knew Mr. T had to work most of the afternoon. I always get my hair cut on a weekeday and am usually so exhausted from work I just go right home after. My hair cut place is uptown around 54th street, so when I got done Saturday about 1:30 I decided to walk around uptown for a little while since I never do that anymore. If you named just about any place below 23rd street I could tell you exactly where it is....Uptown not so much. I never spend time wandering here. So I was pretty excited. I was feeling like a good cup of coffee to start out my day so I headed over to a place I had heard about last year called Fika. Fika (prononced fee ka)bills itself as a Swedish espresso bar that's also kown for it's chocolates. Look you can almost see me in the reflection :) Fika is quite small with only about 3 tables and a short bar to sit at. I walked in and took a look at their pasteries. I wasn't feeling ch

Yey I Finally Tried It!!

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So I looked all over for the Sam Adams Utopias 2007 and actually gave Whole Foods my number back in December telling them to reserve me one if they got some in. They called about 3 weeks later and said they had one- YEY!!! And that it would be $179!! Um...Not so yey. I can't afford that! The 2002 was only around $100. I was shocked and decided that even though I really wanted to try it I just didn't have the funds. I was a little upset but I moved on...until last week when something caught my eye. We were looking for a place to watch the football games at on Sunday and I was checking various bar websites looking for specials. As I was checking out the Village Pourhouse I saw they were doing a Brewtopia night where you could buy various tastes of beer for $1 a taste. The real thing that caught my eye though was at the very bottom. they would also be selling tastes of Sam Adams Uptopias for $13. I was so excited!! Yes $13 is a lot when you only get around 1 oz of beer but hey-- I

Drinks at Allen and Delancey

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We stopped in to the new hot spot Allen and Delancey on Saturday night and it was packed! We got there bout 5:45 and had to wait about 10 minutes for a seat at the bar to open up. What a gorgeous space though! I got a chance to look around a little and now I know why people are calling it a romantic place. Candles everywhere and just a cozy feel to the whole place. Unfortunately they were completely booked for the night so we just grabbed a drink. I ordered the Delancey and Mr. T ordered the Allen. Aren't we the yuppies!!! The Delancey is basically prosecco with elderflower syrup and a splash of pomegranate juice. Very pink and girly- a good drink. I am hoping to go back soon and try out some of the food. Neil Fergusen is supposed to be pretty handy in the kitchen.

Soup Dumplings!!!

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So Mr. T was dying for some soup dumplings this past weekend so we headed down to Chinatown to indulge. Our first stop was for me though as I was wanting some Bubble Tea. We stopped into Vivi Bubble Tea. This place is a girl's paradise! Everything inside is pink and they play some really poppy Japanese music. The girls behind the counter are just like the store- cute, bright and bubbly. They had tons of flavors and I had trouble deciding what to get. I finally settled on the Chocolate Mochi Bubble Tea. The neatest thing about the tea is the lid. They slap a plastic film on the cup so you just have to poke your straw through like a Capri Sun kind of! The bubble tea was pretty good. Next time I would get a regular black bubble tea to see how it compares to other ones I've had. Next we walked over to Joe's Shanghai but of course there was a line out the door. We didn't feel like waiting so we went back over to Bayard Street and got a table at Yeah Shanghai. The outside is

Who's Eating All The Donuts?

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So Mr. T and I had an excellent day yesterday traveling around Chinatown and the Lower East Side basically just getting different culinary treats which I'll post about later, but one of our big stops was to Doughnut Plant. Actually here's what happened. Friday night we came up with a plan to go to Chinatown and wander around and get some soup dumplings. I woke up Saturday morning and while Mr. T was getting ready I decided to see what was on TV. Saturday morning TV is pretty bad and the only 2 channels I usually check out are the Food Network (for obvious reason) and the Travel Channel (in hopes they will do something about food). Luckily for me they were! They had an entire show dedicated to doughnuts! I watched eagerly waiting to see if they would go to Doughnut Plant and of course they did!!! After watching all of that I knew we had to get some. So after Chinatown we wandered over to the store. It seems a lot of people watched that show because there was bigger line than usu