musings of an epicurean… » on life, food, and random thoughts

It was our last full day in NYC. We stayed at the W Hotel and they offered an AWESOME car service! I had booked us an appointment for them to take us down to Wall Street. On the way there, the driver went by the WTC Pit. It was a sobering experience; to see the location where the twin towers used to stand.

On to a happier note… The weather agreed with us and it was slightly cooler… at 89 degrees instead of 94! We found our way to the Wall Street Bull and snapped pictures with it.

We then saw the front of the bull…

And then wandered around to see where all the trading happens. Prior to 9/11, people could tour the NYSE. No more… Security was heavy around there with lots of barricades and roadblocks.

It was hard to believe that millions of dollars were being traded and the heartbeat of the world’s economy was thumping in there via tickers!

We explored Battery Park and then found our way down to a subway to make it over to Katz’s Deli!

It was a long warm walk but totally worth it!

We saw the table that was the setting for the famous scene in “When Harry Met Sally” and ordered up a sandwich with some sides to munch on.

Best pastrami sandwich. EVER. I think I dream about it and wake up drooling all over.

I don’t know what they do… but that meat is magic.

I wasn’t tooo severely impressed. The best hot dog was still from that one vendor off on 7th Avenue we had on the first night that we were there.

Post food coma, we wandered off to search for Eileen’s Cheesecakes.

They were delicious. 😀

We then took the subway back towards Midtown and romped around Grand Central taking pictures.

We walked back to the hotel to change and headed off to dinner at Onya. (Finally got to eat Onya! We visited it twice before and it was closed. ARGH! I guess third time was the charm!)

The food there was amazing. I was really craving homemade fresh udon.

Freshly made noodles!

We sat down and since it was considered happy hour, Sam got a drink and some bar snacks. YUM!

I <3 the fried udon noodle bar snacks. They were delish!

We looked over the menu and ordered some yummy appetizers to start.

After noshing our way through the appetizers, our entrees showed up. They were SOOOOOOO good….

Oh hello fried shiso leaf! You were delicious!

MMMMmmmm…

This was definitely one place I’d come back to. MULTIPLE times.

Post dinner, we hopped in a cab and made it over to the Schubert Theatre to watch Memphis. When Hubs told me that he got us Memphis tickets, I have to admit, I was a little put off. Memphis!? I don’t know the town, haven’t been, didn’t really care about the city. Muchless didn’t think I’d enjoy a musical about said town. Needless to say, I was blown away. COMPLETELY. The music was awesome. The performers were amazing. The show has now uprooted Wicked from the top of my “fav Broadway show list.”

The Tony Award win was really well-deserved.

The cast came out from the side door so I got in some cool pictures with some of the performers and got my playbook autographed!

I loved how we saw the show early enough on its Broadway run that the cast was still 99% original Broadway cast.

Post show, we made our way down to the East Village to find another speakeasy called Raine’s Law. Sam had his drinks and I explored their cool bar/kitchen area. Post Raine’s Law, we made our way down to hit up the yakitori places again to end our trip with a bang. We went to Yakitori Taisho first since it was so highly rated on yelp. Unfortunately it wasn’t as good as Village Yokocho.

We were disappointed so we hopped out of there and walked down the corner to Village Yokocho… where we ordered the same cast of characters from two nights ago and got my fix of chicken cartilage.

I sadly hopped back in the cab at the end of the night… to head back to our hotel.

NYC I <3 you. I will be back soon!!!!!!!