I Love New York.

I've always hoped that one day I'd live in New York City- even if just temporarily- and with Justin working in the city this summer I finally had my chance. So far, it's been fantastic... even though I spend my days studying for the bar exam (which is not as fun as exploring NYC). 

Our first week here, we rented an apartment in SoHo. Justin wasn't working yet so we had time to look for another apartment and eat/shop/etc. Our first night in town, we HAD to return to Shanghai Joe's for some crab soup dumplings... 

I would choose these for my last meal. YUM.

Istanbul Grill

The pic above is from Istanbul Grill, a Turkish restaurant where we ate a few nights later. Equally amazing- I've never had Turkish food, but I loved it. This could really quickly turn into a food blog if I keep writing about everywhere we've eaten though, so I'm only going to give the highlights. Istanbul Grill was definitely one of them. 

Men Kui Tei

Another favorite was Men Kui Tei, a noodle shop on 3rd Ave and 7th St. I had wonton men- noodle soup with dumplings... made even better by adding a bowl of rice and a little bit of sriracha. Aside from food, we also had a lot of fun trying new bars. One of our favorites was Shoolbred's, a Scottish pub that uses fresh-squeezed grapefruit in making their greyhound cocktails. 

An interesting tidbit about NYC restrooms: sometimes they're unisex. Sometimes, maybe you walk into a bathroom with a ton of stalls, and a guy walks out of one of them, so you think you're in the wrong place, but you're not... so that took some getting used to!

One thing I really like about this city is how you just stumble onto things. I was wandering around aimlessly one day and I noticed a lot of tourists pointing cameras in my direction. I was prettyyyyy sure they weren't taking pics of me, so I turned around and whoa! The flatiron building was right behind me! Neatoooo!

After a few days of hardcore searching (and checking out one really nasty, cockroach infested apartment), Justin and I found our dream come true- a 25th floor, 800 square foot apartment in Hell's Kitchen. It's glorious and I never want to leave!

Our home sweet home!

The view from our living room. Not too shabby.

The first week of living here was kind of a blur, as we spent a lot of time shopping for essentials at KMart, finding free furniture on Craigslist, and buying 30 cent silverware and $2 towels at a really random store in Times Square. But we made it feel like home! When we weren't busy running house errands, we were checking out some of the amazing restaurants Hell's Kitchen has to offer: Nizza (wonderful Italian), Mercury Bar (good cocktails and American cuisine), Pullino's (actually in NoLita- but delicious pizza!), Don Giovanni's (more wonderful Italian)... and quite possibly my favorite, Delta Grill- serving New Orleans style grub. Having been to New Orleans, I'm happy to report it was just as good (and honestly, maybe even a little bit better!) than the food I had in NOLA. We had jambalaya, sticky chicken, and fried green tomatoes (below). I will definitely go back! 

We found most of these restaurants just by walking around the neighborhood and picking places that looked busy- we figured if the place is packed, it can't be bad! There was one exception, though: we read online that Mee Noodle Shop was really good, but it wasn't. Bummer. Won't go back. Yuck.

Walking around at night is fun, and it amazes me how there are ALWAYS tons of people out EVERYWHERE. We've always felt pretty safe, because there are always other people wherever we are- including cops. We're not exactly touring Harlem though, I guess... 

Orange vanilla cupcake... the best one I've had yet!

We've also hit up our fair share of dessert spots. Magnolia Bakery has THE most delicious cupcakes... but Burgers & Cupcakes gave us 18 cupcakes for free... so right now it's a tie between those two places. FREE cupcakes? Seriously?!?! That's hard to beat. We've also had our fair share of Pinkberry frozen yogurt... our favorite is salted caramel, topped with crepe flakes, milk chocolate crunch, and caramel syrup. Holey Cream was another favorite- they're famous for making donut ice cream sandwiches. Tempting, but we decided to stick with regular ice cream, sans donuts. Thumbs up, red velvet ice cream!

OH and I should mention that I'm on a mission to find NYC's best macaron. So for, Bouchon Bakery is in the lead; their blueberry cheesecake macarons are a little slice of heaven- but they're not so little... more like the size of your palm. I'm salivating just thinking about them. Bisous Chao is also pretty great- they're the perfect texture... but the flavors I had weren't the best (rose kinda tasted like soap). I was really looking forward to going to Lily O'Brien's, because I had their macarons last summer and LOVED them... but I was really disappointed this time around. They were hard and not very tasty. So either they've gone downhill, or I've become a more discerning macaron lover. It's quite possible.

One Saturday we took advantage of our prime location on the Hudson River and went for a nice little stroll. It's beautiful... above, you see my boyfriend acting like a bird. Why? Not sure. Cute though!

After our Hudson River walk, we stopped at Whole Foods, picked up some goodies, and had a nice little picnic at Central Park. I really, really like Central Park. All kinds of people are there for all kinds of reasons- to relax, to exercise, to eat, to visit the zoo, or in the case of the two lovebirds in the gondola above... to get engaged. There's so much going on all the time, from concerts to sports contests to charity events... I love it!

Justin loves Central Park!

SO, that's it- the highlights of our first couple of weeks in New York... come visit!