Toronto, Canada

On the way from Montréal to Toronto, signs became less French and more English.  We stopped by A&W.  I think I had not been there for maybe 15 years, since it had closed down in Holland Village in Singapore.  To those who know not of A&W, you are probably super young (ugh).  A&W is a fast food chain that perhaps went bankrupt and closed what I think is about 99% of their restaurants.  Their website says they are known for their root beer and root beer float, but really, they also used to be known, in my opinion, for their curly fries and coney dog.  So I walk to the counter, but I don't see the curly fries on the menu anymore.  I am disappointed as heck, and I ask the lady, and apparently there have been no curly fries for like 10 years or something.  (BTW I just googled it, and I think they still have curly fries at A&W restaurants in Malaysia.  Whaaaaaa?)  Also there was no coney dog on the menu, though they had hot dogs with an addition of coney sauce, but it just did not feel the same.  I ordered some thick cut fries and a root beer float.  The float was not even served in the nice mug, but a crappy plastic cup, and the ice cream was not very nice.  Makes me wonder if the Asia A&W service is different, and I think the answer has to be yes.  Anyway, my curiosity has been satisfied, and I think I will have to look for an A&W in Asia after this disappointing experience.

Our friend had visited a while ago, and told us to visit Momofuku, the famous Japanese New York chain.  However, there is always so much to do in NYC, and Momofuku never quite attracted us that much, so we never quite made it there.  However, in Toronto, we did not know much, so I decided to go there.  The building is quite a beautiful one.  Looked brand new, shiny glass building with weird dragon-esque metallic sculpture on the exterior, attached to the Shangri-la hotel.  It was not meal time, and I was solo, so I decided to check out the Milk Bar which sold sweets of some kind.  The sweet shop is actually somewhat unmanned, and one can probably steal a bunch of stuff from there, which is not too cool.  I suppose they assume people who go in are honest.  Anyhow.  Some other folks were in there with me and they were chatting among themselves, and I deduced from their conversation that the Crack Pie was the thing to get.  It was just disgustingly sweet, I kind of liked it, and I saved some for Lingon but he did not like it.  Later on, we got some cookies.  My favourite was some blueberry one, and also the cornflake one.  We got the compost cookie (??), but it seemed a bit dry.

That evening, we decided to return to the noodle bar.  We ordered the Momofuku noodle, dan dan mian (one of Lingon's favourite type) and the okonomiyaki.  They were all pretty tasty, nothing too unique about them, but nice to have Asian food.

I drove out for lunch the next day since I wanted Chinese food and had no cash and was sick of paying ATM fees and found somewhere that took credit card.  I ordered a mixed BBQ meat platter to go for our car ride (best decision ever), and then had porridge and dou miao there.  Pretty good and I was very pleased.

I spent some time being a tourist and got to see some cool sights of Toronto.  Black Mass red carpet event for the Toronto Film Festival.  Interior of the Shangri-La.  Cute coffee cart on my morning run.  Old City Hall (I think).  View of Lake Ontario from our hotel room.  A cool looking bar.  Some kind of government building.  Yorkville Park in Yorkville (shopping district, actually really really nice, good to stay there if we had been there for tourism) with its "650-tonne hunk of billion-year-old granite, cut out of the Canadian Shield and transported to the park in pieces".  Modern Toronto City Hall.

I took a drive on Queen Street with cool hipstar shops and cafes and stuff.  Also drove to the Distillery District where there was an old distillery building converted into retail and restaurants with a cool park, but ran out of time so no picture of that.  I thought I was taking the scenic route back on Queens Quay Road which was next ish to the water, but just saw a bunch of quarry looking things and warehouses and storage stuff.

By the way, if anyone knows where there are large groups of people outside Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto, please let me know.  The people did not look particularly like tourists, more like business people, but congregated like a tour group.  Maybe they were looking at the building across the road with gold windows, since I eavesdropped on a tour group, but seemed kind of weird.

Toronto was happening and most enjoyable, especially with the heat that we were graced with.  Very modern, nice and comfortable facilities.  I would be happy if we found our way back again.

Montréal, Canada

It was pretty wet and gloomy as we arrived in Montréal.  We checked into the W Montréal, and of all the Starwood hotels I chose this because it was only marginally more expensive than the other hotels, and the location seemed to be OK.  We got upgraded to a suite, so that was fun.  As usual, for a W hotel room, the design was fairly edgy, we had our Bliss products, and were happy campers.

We needed to find some lunch, so we went to Schwartz's, a Jewish deli with supposedly the best smoked meat.  I think it was beef, since it is Jewish after all.  There was a fairly long line around 2pm or so, maybe 12 people or so in front of me, which moved quickly, about 15 mins till we got to the front of the line, following which a short line/no line at all, so I think at this hour the wait is sporadic and depends on your luck.  The inside of the place looked pretty much like a dump, reminded me of Ben's Chili in DC that Obama goes to, yet has a loyal following/attracts silly tourists like ourselves.  We shared one sandwich, which was tiny and $10 or so.  The meat was good but really for $10 the quantity could have been like... twice the size?!  The bread was pretty crap though.  Also, they took cash only, which posed a huge problem for us, and we had to visit the local ATM.  Fun times.  We went to take out next door, and bought a few more slices of meat, and enjoyed that in the back of the house.  I especially liked the fatty parts, so flavourful.  Would go back again, during off hours, and maybe just have the meat, honestly.

Parking was plentiful, BTW, and is metered until fairly late, just like in Quebec City.  The machines take credit card, which is great for us, since we had no cash.  You enter your license plate number and do not have to display the ticket on the dash.

After our small sandwich, we decided we would get more Jewish things - i.e. bagels!  Our friend told us we had to go to St-Viateur and have whatever came out hot from the oven.  Shucks after we left the place I thought we should have taken a photo of the operation that was going on inside the shop.  The dudes place the bagels on this long wooden plank and stick it into an oven glowing with embers, I think.  Lingon got the cinammon raisin, his favourite, which was cold.  I got the sesame, since it was the one that had just come out hot from the oven.  It was good, but I didn't see what so special about either, but I enjoyed a nice warm bagel on a wet miserable day.

We were trying to find our way to Mont Royal, which should have been quite easy to ascent by car, if not for the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, a bicycle race, that was occurring that day.  Quelle malchance (not sure if this saying exists).  We had troubles accessing the road at the foot of the mountain, but finally asked a police dude and he told us where to go.  When we got to the foot of the mountain, we were then further blocked by either road works or the race.  I would have walked, except it was raining, and pretty yucky.  So it was mission: failed.

The one good thing that came out of this was that while fumbling around the roads, we found Kem Coba, an ice cream shop.  I saw this extraordinarily long line for what I was used to in the little we saw of Montréal, and I told Lingon we had to go there.  What was funny was that I read an article about it the day before, and showed it to Lingon, and forgot about it, but Lingon remembered!  So I went in to get a cup, and was greeted with a brightly coloured board with tons of flavours on it.  I ended up getting peanut and honey and salted butter, and tried a couple of other flavours, but almost instantly regretted not getting soursop or durian, since they were more unique.  Other more unique flavours included Vietnamese coffee, honey and orange blossom and passionfruit.  I read up a little on the folks who started this, and it was a couple, and I think the lady was from Asia.  No wonder such unique flavours.

We walked around a little bit in the rain, found the Chinatown gate, went to the old town which was less pretty than Quebec City's, and then called it quits since the dampness and misery was getting to us.

We tried to visit the Notre Dame Basilica, but they were unfortunately closed, so we had to go the next day.  This place is very special and I really wanted Lingon to see it.

Dinner was at La Chronique, a small fancy French restaurant.  Their menu was in French only.  I knew what I wanted - the foie gras, so I got that as my appetizer, and then a seafood risotto.  Lingon got a salmon tartare and sweetbreads (ris de veau, which he pretended to understand in French haha), and the food was all pretty good!  The restaurant has a 5 and 7 course prix-fixe menu, but we opted for a la carte, being on a diet and all (trying, anyway).  What annoyed me was when an older couple came in, the server explained the 5 and 7 course to them, but we were only told of the 5 course.  Did we look poor, or maybe he wanted us out of his restaurant in record time?  Who knows.  Anyhow, a friend recommended this to me, and a good recommendation at that!

We walked back to our car and found this restaurant, which I distinctly remember seeing and wanting to eat there (forgot if we did) because of its cool name, on my first trip to Montréal!  I just had to take a picture of it!

Well, the evening was over.  The next morning we went to visit the Basilica.  A picture paints a thousand words.  I assembled a jigsaw puzzle of this when I was little, I think it was like 5000 pieces or something substantial, and it was the most beautiful church I had ever seen.  When I came to Montréal for the first time, I was just so happy that I found it.  I wonder if the lighting makes it look amazing, and if I would be just as amazed without the lighting.  $5/person, cash only.

A la prochaine!

Québec City, Canada

I got down to thinking today about how initially I wanted to write my blog partly to chronicle my adventures, and partly to provide useful information on travels, like how I remember one of my early France posts about buying train tickets.  I don't recall the content of that specific blog, but I know that if I go to France and take the train again, I will consult it.  It seems that now I mainly just write about the things I do, which 90% of the time I think are rather unexciting anyway, which makes me sad.  I'll try to refocus too, but maybe the problem too is that few of my experiences would necessarily be "helpful".

Anyhow, we spent a beautiful day in Québec City.  The weather was great, the skies were blue.  When we arrived, it was lunch time, and we found ourselves at La Boîte à Pain, a bakery in what seemed a fairly run down neighbourhood (something light and well reviewed on Yelp).  We street parked, paid for the meter (meters there ran late, until 9pm!!), and went to the bakery.  Turns out there was a festival occurring on the street that the bakery was on, which was very happening.  Unfortunately we had no CAD$, so we passed on eating along the way (on the one short block).  The bakery sold mainly bread, but had some pastries, sandwiches, salads, etc.  I got myself a quiche and a small artichoke salad.  Absolutely loved the crust of the quiche, and the filling was good too - not too rich, not too dense or fluffy, and just the right amount o salt.  The artichoke salad was alright, mainly because I did not love peppers.  Lingon got a ham and cheese panini, and I must say, the quality of the bread was really great.  Note: the restaurant does not take credit cards.  It takes debit cards, but somehow both ours (USA debit cards) did not work.  We ended up giving them USD, which was sad, but thankfully it was not an extravagant meal.

We walked around the historical/old town.  I had been here years before for spring break with some friends in March, and how different it was.  The parks were luscious, I was not layered up in winter gear.  Simply splendid.  I described the town as being like Disneyland to Lingon, and he said Canadians would not like that since Disney had a US connotation to it, but I still maintain it does look like Disneyland.  And that's a great thing - it's the happiest place on earth!  A lot of European influence, with murals on the face of buildings, narrow cobbled stone streets, little squares/parks/plazas with musicians and street hawkers, old buildings with beautiful architecture, and a funicular (thinking Montmartre in Paris).  So lovely.

After that, we checked in at our hotel, the Four Points by Sheraton Québec Resort, which was a little bit outside of town, since neither of the two Starwood properties were in the vicinity of the town.  We had an upgrade to a suite of some kind, which included a ginormous bathroom that could probably have been made into its own room.  The room itself was not spectacular, but the beds were super comfortable.  ZZZzzz.  We used the gym, which was small and had one bike, one elliptical, one treadmill, and some weights stuff, for a little while, and then off to dinner.

Since we were in a French area, we decided we wanted to eat something French, and picked Le Billig, a crêpe restaurant that had good reviews on Yelp.  We have been eating pretty much non-stop, so we tried to be healthy-ish and shared a bacon salad (not so healthy!) and crêpe.  The crepe had this amazing onion marmalade, perfectly caramelized and super sweet.  Yum yum.  We learned that a billig was the name of the flat crêpe pans in old French.

The next morning, we went for our continental breakfast.  I must say, in the realm of free Starwood breakfasts, this must have been one of the worst.  They had a tiny little jar of yoghurt with granola on top, some rather mediocre fruit, and one of the worst croissants I have ever tasted - I'm not that fussy about pastry, but these tasted really weird, like perhaps full of preservatives or some other weird flavour.  Dislike.

Then, off to our next journey.  Bye bye Québec, so glad I had another chance to see you!

Vermont Road Trip

A (long ish) weekend in NYC called for a road trip.  I had originally planned on going to PEI and New Brunswick, but Lingon ended up having a conference in Toronto at the tail end of our road trip period, so off towards Canada we went.

We started off the drive by going through the Taconic State Parkway, which is a parkway that sort of starts in the Bronx, and took us up to Vermont.  It was a pretty road, mostly well maintained, lined with many trees and state parks.  Our trip was in early September, so while it was not prime fall colours time yet, some of the leaves had begun to change to yellow and red, though not the dark crimson colours I was hoping for.  One takes what one can get!

Our first destination was Woodstock, VT.  I had read this article on northeast roadtrips, and pretty much stole the itinerary there.  Our first stop was the Woodstock Farmer's Market, recommended by friends who went to school in New Hampshire, and boy were we hungry after being in the car for what seemed to be over 5 hours.  I got a piece of salmon, and Lingon got a turkey wrap, both were very good.  The market itself had a ton of fresh produce, flowers, etc., anything you would expect at a market.  It also had a huge cooked food deli section, salads and pastries/bakery section for to go, or eating at the lovely seating right by the river outside.  Great quality food, and overall charming and cute.

We drove past the White Cottage Snack Bar, where said article told us to eat ice cream and fried food, but unfortunately we had eaten too much the past few days in NYC, so I had to give a pass to both.  I was crushed.  But we did not say goodbye without taking a quick photo.

Such sadness as I see that photo again.  :-(

Next, we check out the Woodstock Inn, which is the premium lodging in town.  We took a walk inside, and it seemed cute and cozy, but for some reason did not seem like my kind of place to stay.  (Also, after seeing how small the town was, I'm glad we did not - I had thought about spending 2 nights here!  The town was super cute, but it was tiny!)

We walked a little and saw this funny sign for Suicide Six which for some reason does not seem very funny now, and a tad inappropriate, just by itself.

Other things the article told us to do included Gillingham's General Store, Yankee Bookshop (Vermont's oldest continuously operated independent bookshop) and The Prince and The Pauper (a restaurant institution - some guy saw us checking it out and told us it was really good and to check it out for dinner since it was closed for lunch).  So we visited!

Then, we went back to our car, and guess what, we got a parking ticket!!!  The meter was camouflaged into the railings where we were parked.  Sneaky.  It was the nicest, and one of, if not, the cheapest tickets we had ever received, and it said basically to pay $10 for the ticket or support a local store and purchase something and they will reverse the ticket.  So we went to the general store and Lingon got a $2 coffee.  Haha.  If only all parking tickets could be that nice.  We got a $85 ticket from SFPD, not quite so nice or forgiving.  Lol.

After that, we headed to Quechee.  No idea how to pronounce that name.  Our friends had told us of a good lunch spot, Simon Pearce, which ended up being a glassblowing place too.  Super cool, but all the products were $$$$.  There was a dam right there too with an old rickety looking bridge that we drove across, really pretty area.

Next off, we went to Waterbury.  Not sure if this is a big place, but there were actually 3 things we wanted to do there!  The first, which was the highlight of my trip, was the Ben and Jerry's factory tour.  Every ice cream lover's dream.  The tour cost $4 and included a giant sample.  Ours was the AmeriCone Dream, Vanilla Ice Cream with Fudge Covered Waffle Cone Pieces & a Caramel Swirl, which I devoured.  I had fun, and the factory had cool pictures that were nice and bright and cheery.

Then, off to the Cabot Annex Store for cheese samples.  Both this and our last stop closed at 6pm, and it was something like 5.42pm, and each place was 1 minute from the past, so I can't say much about it except I speed-ate a ton of cheese samples and they were yummy.  Lingon joked that this was our dinner, so I probably ate a bit more than I should have, but no regrets there!

Lastly, to the Cold Hollow Cider Mill, where I had a yummy super cold refreshing sample of cold pressed apple juice.  My old roomie said this was a must-visit, and I'm glad I did!

Sad I did not get to spend more time in both places.  But maybe some day we will come back!

We spend the night in at the Sheraton in Burlington, VT, which was uneventful, great beds for a good night's sleep.  Our Starwood Platinum breakfast was a free entree at G's Restaurant, but we did not even make it to breakfast to see what it was.  Yelp gave it pretty dismal reviews, so no regrets there.

We had dinner at Misery Loves Company in Winooski, VT, which really seemed like an extension to Burlington.  Got the beef tartare, scallops, and squid ink spaghetti.  The beef tartare tasted a bit weird (some weird herb-y thing) but otherwise dinner was enjoyable.

The next morning we drove off, to Canada, and our short visit to Vermont ended.

Late Summer in NYC Part 1

Lingon has conferences this week and next, so here I am again, tagging along and getting stuff done.  I'm trying to write more current posts, so let's see how it goe.

Tuesday September 8
We get upgraded on our flight yesterday from SFO to JFK, which is nice because I always feel so special when I get layflat seats.  The flight shockingly left on time and arrived early, and we made it to the Big Apple in the early evening.  We checked into our hotel, the Chatwal, probably the last of the Starwood hotels that I am curious about.  It is situated near Times Square, which is awful, but at least it is east of Times Square so for the most part we can avoid it.  We booked the most basic room, the superior queen room, and requested for an upgrade with our Starwood Platinum upgrade nights.  Unfortunately, our request was denied, and we did not get a complimentary upgrade, so here we are in a tiny shoebox room.

The room itself is nicely appointed, with dark grey furniture, clean looking, some kind of paint splotched walls that looks intentional.  The cabinetry is all lined with leather, nice touch to give it an old school kind of feel.  Sadly our view is to some space in between a building that is maybe 10ft away, so it is dark and miserable when the room lights are not turned on.  They provide Voss brand water as the free water, which amuses me, but I guess I should be thankful for free water and not complain.  Turn down service disappointed me.  We had some water, and they laid out slippers, but NO FREE CHOCOLATES?!?!  I always look forward to the free chocolates, even though really I should not be eating anymore chocolates.  Grrr.

After washing up, we went to dinner at the newest branch of Ootoya on 11th Street, because apparently according to our friends it typically does not have a wait.  The restaurant serves mainly rice bowls, noodles, simple Japanese fare.  We were told the tonkatsu there was really good.  I got the katsu toji set - breaded and deep fried silky pork loin and onion, topped with layer of custard like egg, served in a soy sauce infused broth, with rice, miso soup (pork and vegetables, homemade pickles and steamed egg custard.  Great value at only $22, but I think I could have done without the set in terms of quantity.  Lingon got some salmon special thing with udon, but I did not love it, maybe because it was over brown rice and the flavour of the brown rice overtook the salmon thinggy.  Our friends got a kaisen don, which pretty much seemed like a chirashi, and a regular tonkatsu don, and both looked fabulous.  Since my tonkatsu had a broth over it, it was not crispy, but I tried my friend's and it was super nice and lightly breaded and crunchy.  I would definitely go back here again to try the different bowls.  Nice comfort food.

After dinner, we went to Van Leeuwen, an artisanal ice cream place with a truck.  Lingon and I tried got 3 flavours - pistachio, ginger (my favourite by far with the sharp taste of the candied ginger accentuating every bite) and espresso (guess whose pick).  The truck ran out of regular pistachio, so there was only vegan, which instead of regular milk was made with almond milk that I loved.  Overall great experience!

So that ended our first night in New York.

This morning, we got our free breakfast at the Lambs Club in our hotel.  I think my favourite Starwood Platinum breakfasts are where they give me a dollar amount that goes towards my meal, since it generally prevents me from overeating, and I like the hot food better anyway.  This one was just a continental, valued at $34, which seemed silly to me because the a la carte items were a lot cheaper.  So this one.  You get coffee/tea, juice, granola/cornflakes/muesli (I got granola, Lingon got muesli, and his was better), a giant pastry basket each with 5 pastries in it (we asked to only get one), and a berry granola parfait topped with honey.  So I guess that's a lot of food, but not my preference.  The food was really good though.  The pastry basket had a regular croissant (boring, did not eat), chocolate croissant (yummy), scone (super yummy, I swear it had a stick of butter in it), berry muffin (yummy, with amazing crumbly thinggy on top) and a cannelé bordelais (SUPER YUMMY, the outside was perfectly crunch outside, and perfectly moist and custardy gooey like inside).  How anyone can eat 1 of these pastry baskets perplexes me.  I saw one other table get what we got, and the lady's eyes opened wide as the waiter plonked the 2 pastry baskets down.  Please stop wasting.

In the afternoon, I went to lunch at Ayada Thai in Queens, NY.  I'm not sure I have ever been to Queens, aside from the airport.  I ran there, across the Queensboro Bridge, and it was my first time on that bridge.  I have now done Brooklyn, Williamsburg and Queensboro, looks like I have the Manhattan to do, and then I would have done them all, maybe?  Anyway, it was hot as hell, probably 90 degrees and super humid, and me being not very fit and all did not contribute to the slow 6.8 miles I had to go.  Eventually I made it there.  Why there?  Well, Queens is supposed to be known for Thai food - I did see a lot of Asian signs and people out there.  But more importantly, my Travel and Leisure Thai food list.  I got one of the items on the list, which was the kang som sour curry (bottom left picture).  It came with 3 sad pieces of shrimp and this broccoli omelette which was interesting.  I guess it's only $10, so I should not complain about the shrimp.  The broth itself was yummy, but I did not love the omelette which was kind of airy.  I also got the pad see ew, which was nice and sweet and had a few bits of char burnt noodles, YUM.  This was part of the lunch special, which was very inexpensive and came with tom yum soup/salad (I chose tom yum soup) and an egg roll which sucked as the dough was super thick and the filling was tasteless (see second picture for gross egg roll).  Lastly I got the duck panang curry, which was one of the items I was really interested in but what really tipped me in that direction was a little sign on the menu saying "recommended by the New York Times".  Sucker.  The curry sauce was really good, but the duck was just good.  The skin was not crispy as I had anticipated, and was really fat, which was disappointing.  Duck was also $20, almost twice the cost of any other protein, but I guess the NY Times said I had to try it.  I'm glad I went, and worked out for my meal.  Queens is a really long ways to go for that, but I felt fulfilled and glad I got to check out somewhere new.

As I was sitting at the restaurant, hot and sweaty and mopping my face and my legs off with paper towels, I noted that on my left, there was a Thai girl with a Caucasian or maybe Latino man (presumably the boyfriend) looking at Yelp picture to decide what to eat.  They did not seem to communicate very well, so that was interesting.  On my right were 2 Chinese aunties speaking some kind of Chinese dialect, and they definitely seemed to have read reviews and knew what they wanted.  They took photos of their food, and asked to take photos of my duck, and I tried to offer them some duck but they declined.  Oh well.

So before visiting Ayada, I tried to study the lunch specials menu, but had a hard time finding it online.  So I took a picture and am sharing it in this picture below.  Everything else can be found in their fairly substandard website here.

I took the train back after lunch which was super convenient.  However, when I got back to the hotel, housekeeping was in my room, despite my privacy sign.  She even changed my sign to say "service".  WTF.  She said she thought I forgot to change the sign.  They really should not do that, it's not appropriate.  I'm still deciding what to do but I'm definitely going to complain.  I just don't want to get someone in big trouble.

Wednesday September 9
I ate too much for dinner last night, which is what has happened every meal (and in between) since we got back to NYC on Monday evening.  For dinner, I went back to Ootoya, but this time on 41st Street because it was close to where we were staying.  I arrived at 7.12pm, and was told I had about a 25 minute wait, and lo and behold at 7.37pm I got seated!  I had studied the menu very hard, and thought I knew what I wanted, but when I went to the restaurant I got distracted by their special, which was a hanabi soba bowl with minced blue fin tuna, tempura flakes, okura (okra/ladies fingers), natto (smelly fermented bean), tororo (wiki says "a sticky food made from grating a yam") and poached egg.  So shame on me, I saw blue fin tuna, and immediately said OK.  I did not know what okura, natto or tororo was.  When it came and I realized there were these mystery things in my bowl, I was pretty mortified, and took the latter two out (I actually love okra), and had a hard time doing so because they were so sticky and stringy bits kept sticking to my cutlery and mouth and bowl.  Thankfully it did not leave much of a residual taste.  Aside from that, the dish was lovely.  I also got a salmon sushi, which was pressed salmon into a rectangle piece of rice, done 3 ways.  The first time I saw a rectangle sushi was at Kusakabe in SF, and I remember really liking it or at least thinking it was cool.  One was just raw salmon, and then just seared, and seared with mayo and basil sauce.  I really liked them, all very distinct flavours.  Even the lattermost which was a bit heavy was super delicious.  The mushroom accompaniment was very soft and tasty too.

After dinner, I walked around trying to digest my food, and met up with Lingon outside the Rockefeller Center, where Ellen was hosting Bieber.  I only saw Ellen (from a distance), and Bieber was due to come out and maybe he did, but I did not care much for him.  You can see Ellen in my picture on the stage, and also on the TV screen - photo strategically taken!

We went to some bar with a friend.  I had water.  Thus ended my night.

This morning, when I woke up, I was debating getting my free breakfast, but the other option was going to Wafels & Dinges, which Lingon encouraged me to do.  This is a Belgian waffle chain, with a cafe in Alphabet City, stand (by Bryant Park which I went to) and some carts around the city.  I've wanted to visit this place, at least for a year, if not more, but there are always so many (too many) places to eat in NYC.  I actually did want to try both the Liège and Brussels waffle (2 cities in Belgium), but just as well I was told that only the one in Alphabet City has the Brussels waffle, so I did not overeat too much for breakfast.  I ordered"de throwdown wafel" which had speculoos spread, whipped cream and speculoos cookie crumble on a Liège waffle.  Speculoos is "a type of spiced shortcrust biscuit, traditionally baked for consumption on or just before St Nicholas' feast in the Netherlands (December 5), Belgium (December 6), and around Christmas in the western and southern parts of Germany. Speculoos are thin, very crunchy, slightly browned and, most significantly, have some image or figure (often from the traditional stories about St. Nicholas) stamped on the front side before baking; the back is flat."  Well thanks for that, Wiki!  Liege waffle is supposed to have little sugar pearls in there that gives it a slight crunch.  I don't know why I'm spending so much time writing about waffles here, but I am, and I will continue.  There is this waffle guy in SF that I like using called Gerald, and his company is called b. street waffles.  He only makes Liège style waffles and I love his waffles.  Both these Liège waffles are kind of different though.  W&D was a bit darker, more crispy, and Gerald's are on the lighter side, so when he is less busy I try to tell him I prefer mine more toasty.  Both taste good, but different.  Gerald's usually has some interesting flavour, like I think apple cinnamon the last time, though his plain ones are bomb too (like I said his batter is good).  I liked the speculoos on my W&D waffle, but like a Belgian friend of mine who says they need to be eaten plain, I agree that the plain waffle brings out the flavour of the batter, which is amazing when the batter quality is amazing.  So there it is, I have rambled on and on, and I will just say, this is great, but a bit pricey, and I wish I could feel/taste the sugar pearls a little more acutely.  I wish they had an option for plain, because the free topping made me feel like I wanted something (and I chose speculoos because it is Dutch/Belgian), and got the special since it had the cookie crumbs and I thought that was cool, so by that point the combination waffle was the most worthwhile for my $.  Kind of expensive on its own, probably a little under $7 for just the waffle with one topping which is the cheapest you can get, but it was a fun little waffly adventure.

For lunch, our NY friends had told us about Soba Totto (whose cuisine is similar to Ootoya where I've been to twice this trip in 2 days), which is related to all the Totto restaurants in midtown Manhattan.  I had planned to go there last night for dinner, but I saw they had a $10 Bara Chirashi Set lunch special - dice cut sashimi (tuna, salmon, mackerel, shrimp, eel, eea urchin & flying fish roe) over sushi rice bowl, soba (hot/cold), small appetizer, salad, & pickles.  What a deal, right??  So I decided to go there for lunch instead.  I thought, for some reason, the restaurant opened at 11.30am, so I went there at 11am, even though I read a thousand Yelp reviews that said it opened at 11.45am, and felt silly.  However, first in line, I was reminded of my kiasu-ness, and was somewhat proud.  By the time the doors opened at 11.45am, there was most definitely more than 20 people in line and I was pleased.  I sat down and the lady almost immediately asked if I wanted the bara chirashi, and then we proceeded from there.  You get a salad with some crunchy thing, maybe soba, in it.  Not bad.  Then the main arrived.  A generous serving of soba, and a very high seafood to rice ratio for the rice.  But, no uni!!!  I asked, and then checked the menu, and it said it was seasonal.  Oh well.  Still, really really good.  I especially loved the sharp mackerel taste (is that how one would describe mackerel?).  After enjoying my meal, I looked up high on the wall, and saw a painting with what I think is my name in Chinese and took a picture of it. It must have been fate!  What a steal, a simple meal but definitely amazing quality fish, and the fact that the whole deal cost $10 just totally made my day.

Not quite related to the food or the dining experience per se, some lady was seated next to me at the counter, and then like 2 mins later she asked to be moved.  Did I smell or something?  :-(  Well the answer to that question is no, but I'm curious.  Maybe it was cold by where we were sitting (I was freezing), or maybe she's racist haha.  JK, I think.

I took a walk home through Grand Central Station.  What a pretty interior, I loved it.  I love train stations, gives me the travel bug.

Thursday September 10
Last night for dinner we ate the Thai leftovers.  I must say, cold noodles does not taste very good.  Cold rice though, is a different matter.  Anyhow, that was not enough.  So we went for Thai take 2 (does this expression exist?!) at Pam Real Thai, one of my favourites for years.  We decided to share our favourite item there, the anchovy fried rice.  Normally the rice is very fragrant, and mixed in with the mango, egg, pork and cilantro, the taste is impeccable.  I am crushed to say that the rice this time round was not very fragrant.  The pork was still nicely cooked with the sweet dark sauce, but my favourite part was the rice, and I just could not get over it.  :-(  I saw Pam the proprietor sitting down and not cooking, maybe that's why it was not good.  I will give it one more shot next time I visit, but if it sucks again I will not go back.  Ayada Thai supposedly had a shrimp paste fried rice (a reviewer on Yelp talked about it), and I'm sure I will find another something paste fried rice.  Oh the passing of an era.

This morning for breakfast, we decided to get our breakfast to go.  They did not give us our granola or muesli, which was disappointing, but we got 2 yoghurt parfaits and 2 sets of pastries.  I guess we will take this on the road, because I will be sad to waste these.  I had the parfait, cannelé bordelais and scone, and was happy.

Then, I went on a quest.  So on our previous road trip in NYC, we used the toll tag of the rental car.  The problem with that was that they charge you a per day use fee, and then on top of that the ENTIRE (not discounted for using the toll tag) toll fee, which I think is BOGUS.  At least I think this was the case, or maybe confusing it with FL, but anywayz.  So apparently if one wants to buy the E-ZPass® On-the-Go tag in downstate New York from a shop, one has to either have some account thing or live here or something, which was too complicated for me, OR, go to the traveling Metrocard Center!  So this is a bus or a van that travels and can provide certain services.  I walked 30 mins or so to the morning session in the rain, thankfully so because when I arrived with my credit card in tow, I found out it was CASH ONLY!  It would have been nice to say that on the website.  So I had to go back to the hotel, and then go to the later session van, and purchased the damned thing.  At least the people were friendly and helpful enough.  Mission accomplished.

Lunch took me back to Ootoya near our hotel on 41st again.  I did not have a very great experience this time.  First of all, maybe it is just a function of what I ordered, which was the grilled mackerel.  I love fishy fish, so I was looking forward to this.  The taste of the fish was not bad, but there were like a gazillion bones (even after I removed the spine of the fish, the meat itself had SO MANY other bones, large and small), and it was just a tad dry.  But worse than that, my napkin had soy sauce on it, as did the napkin of the place setting next to me.  I requested for it to be changed.  Then, I asked for water, and lo and behold my glass had some leftover food on it.  Again, requested for another, and still had some leftover food.  I just didn't drink water.  Left the restaurant a bit sad.

Some other interesting sights.  I have no idea what these women were doing.  But they were all dressed up in the middle of Times Square.

And then this.  Not sure if you can see the numbers, but it reads $26.5mm for the bottom picture.

And then a sight familiar to me, people eating at Halal Guys.  Braving the nasty weather.  On both sides of the street, both Halal Guys had lines, which was crazy to me.  Just checked their website and it seems they are taking over NYC with a ton of carts.  Madness.  Someone also said they are fundraising to open a brick and mortar in SF.  Interesting...

Lastly, for dinner, we went to Sushi Seki on the Upper East Side.  2 people independently told us to get the Seki Special, which was 9 pieces of nigiri and a roll.  So we got that for 3, plus siew mai and soba, and ended with a tempura ice cream.  Pretty good place, and not crazy expensive for good quality unique sushi.  For me, the eggplant stood out because it was unique and was actually really sweet and delicious.  I could never make eggplant taste that good.  They also had a cooked white fish that was really amazing.   The siew mai (after boiling it they did not fully drain the water so the plate had some residual water which I think is not cool), soba and green tea tempura were ok, but unremarkable.  I might go back again for the decent value, but probably if in the area.

Tomorrow, we begin our road trip to VT, QC and ON, and back for round 2 of NYC next week!  Pretty stoked for that!  Now off to do some packing!
xoxo

PS I am really proud of myself for not lagging on this post!  :-D

One small update...  The next morning, we got a Bergamot Jam and Earl Grey Ganache cronut from Dominique Ansel.  Lingon described it as a giant frosted fruit loop.  What a fancy name.  Basically it was a giant fried croissant donut, tasted deep fried, sugared on the outside, with bergamot jam (did not know this existed before I had this cronut), stuffed with earl grey ganache.  The taste of the topping and stuffing flavours were great, and intrigued me more than the creation itself.  I really enjoyed it, after waiting for so long.  Lingon and I should have shared one, but I was greedy and ordered 2, so we stuffed these down.  Yum.