NEW YORK: DAY THREE

Plans for day three included shopping and food. Lots of food, actually. Lots and lots of food. Sounds like every other day in New York according to Dom and Sean, doesn't it? Hmmm...

Anyway, Sean and Quatchi had a little bit of quality timeand then we headed off to FAO Schwarz, minus Quatchi. He was still tired. FAO Schwarz is great because you can take as many photos you want of the toy store and nobody says anything to you. That's actually one main difference I saw between New York and Toronto. In Toronto you'd get a store employee or a security guard telling you that photos are not allowed, while in New York, tourist-y photo-taking is practically a hobby over there. I like New York. Anyway, here are some highlights of FAO Schwarz:

I'm a dinosaur:Sean's an astronaut:Sean and Chewbacca:Me and Hagrid:

After our quick trip to FAO Schwarz, we headed back to the hotel to drop off our goods and to introduce Quatchi to his new friends. Here they are all getting acquainted:Quatchi was rather pleased to have other critters to hang out while Sean and I were eating our way through New York.

After that Sean and I decided to head to Brooklyn to check out Katz's Deli and Momofuku Milk Bar. But before we reached our destination, we stumbled upon this:It's some sculpture that Sean is familar with. Sean's a fan of the artist and first came across his work during his solo trip to Spain.

We also decided to make a quick visit into the New York Library and Grand Central Station but those photos aren't worth posting. (My photo vibe was kind of missing during that day.) Then we headed to the Momofuku Milk Bar for $3 cookies and pork buns (reviewed below). Sean got the Compost cookie:and I got the Blueberry Cream cookie. Of course we split the cookies to get an equal tasting of each.It was $3 well spent I think. The potato chips in the Compost cookie were an awesome delight (sweet + salty = rocks Dom's world) and the blueberry cream cookie with milk crumbs was just as good, thought the actual milk crumbs were unidentifiable. I might just have to learn how to make these milk crumbs after all.

Then we headed over to Katz's Deli for some famous pastrami sandwiches on rye. New York: you make gigantic pastrami sandwiches. Thank you, on behalf of Sean and my tastebuds--though my stomach hates you. Sean's sandwich:
Mine:I decided to be greedy and get the Rueben, which in New York means a hot pastrami on rye with sauerkaut, melted cheese and some kind of Russian-like dressing. New York also seems to have two kind of pickles, the less-green-kind called a "sour pickle." I'm a fan of both because they were super, extra crunchy.After a long sit at Katz's Deli, which is confusing because of its cafeteria-like tables and set-up and therefore, lack of organization and proper line-ups, we took the local bus to the subway back to SoHo for some shopping. After that we headed back home so we could check up on Quatchi and the gang and to show off a pair of my new shoes:and then we decided to go fruit-hunting because all my time in New York had consisted of foods I normally don't eat and lots of sweets. We headed to a market nearby and stocked up on fruits, lychee sorbet and Kombucha, a type of fermented tea and then walked over to Central Park to enjoy our goodies there. The tea:
I neglected to read the bit about fermented tea so when I remembered seeing this on someone's food blog, I knew I had to try it out. I decided to get Gingerade flavour because a) I like citrus-flavoured stuff and b) I figured ginger might help out my stomach a little. This is Sean's reaction to the Kombucha
and this is mine:
That will never, ever be a re-purchase. Ever!

Here's the famous Momofuku pork bun. Momofuku is a place I've heard a lot about in the past little while. It all started with a noodle bar and then grew into a dessert "bar" (Momofuku Milk Bar). After hearing such great things about their pork buns and cookies, I knew that a trip to Brooklyn would not be complete without a tasting. Here I present the pork bun:
It contains 3 slices of pork belly, a poached egg, oyster sauce and thin slices of cucumber all nestled in a very interesting bun. The bun was soft and light, the texture reminiscent of the top of the steamed pork buns you can get in just about every Asian bakery in Markham.
Here I am excited about my first taste of the Momofuku pork bun!Too bad it wasn't worth the $9.75US that we paid for it. I don't even know if Sean wanted a bite of it--I think he did but can't remember--but he wouldn't be missing much. There's a reason why one of my former co-workers advised me on avoiding Chinese food in New York; it's definitely not on par with stuff you can find in Toronto and the GTA. Verdict: That was $9.75 not well spent. Boo.

So when you attempt to visit the Empire State Building and are about two minutes away from purchasing your tickets but one of the employees says that the outside observation deck is closed and therefore, you and your BF think there's no point in paying $20 to look at the city of New York from the inside, here's what you get instead:
I'm glad that we were able to find out about the lighting hitting the building before we purchased our tickets. Looking at the city from the inside of a glass window is definitely not my idea of $20 well spent. Oh and that photo is taken from the inside lobby of the building.