NYC - Part 2

This post follows on from my last post about New York City, you can find that right here.

After our ride on the Staten Island Ferry we hopped on the L train to Brooklyn and went in search of lunch. 

We'd been wanting to try Foodswings for years after seeing pictures on blogs and Twitter and we'd spent an extraordinary amount of time drooling over the menu online. Foodswings certainly didn't disappoint, it's exactly the kind of food I love and I went a little crazy! 

I ordered the Drumstick Combo Platter with a side of Creamy Mac n Cheese. 

This was ridiculously awesome, I loved the mac & cheese which was indeed creamy and the seitan drumsticks were the perfect texture & I liked that they even had a "bone"! Unfortunately I kinda regretted ordering the buffalo style drumstick...I had no idea what buffalo sauce was when I ordered it but apparently it's incredibly spicy!! The southern fried drumstick was totally perfect, I loved it and to be honest I was SO stuffed that I don't think I could've managed that third drumstick anyway!

To go alongside this I ordered the Punk Fries, fries with cheese & bacon bits.

Obviously these were amazing, I love chips (sorry, fries!) topped with stuff and next time I want to try the Disco Fries, fries topped with gravy & cheese - yum! Wow, just looking at these pictures is making me really hungry!

Somehow, after quite a lot of walking & shopping, we decided we could squeeze in dessert & we headed for Dun-Well Doughnuts. We got a box of four doughnuts to go and I grabbed a Pride doughnut to eat right there and then.

This turned out to be my favourite out of all the doughnuts I tried. The texture was perfect and I loved the strawberry icing.

I also tried a Brooklyn made Sarsparilla soda. I'd never heard of Sarsparilla or tasted anything like it before but I really liked it. After a little googling it turned out that Sarsparilla is actually Root Beer and this drink started a trip long obsession with the new (to me!) fizzy drink!

The next day, after another morning of exploring and posing by fun American things like this school bus...

Why are school busses in the UK not this fun looking?

...we decided to have a healthy lunch and headed for Angelica Kitchen. 

I started with a Carrot & Apple juice...

...this was a little heavy on the carrot for me but I was happy to be eating some fruit & veg! Next up, some Miso Soup. This was great, I always love miso soup and this had a decent amount of tofu in it.

I also had the Norimaki...

...it was my first time eating brown rice sushi and I have to say that I didn't love it. I think I'm a bit of a sushi purist these days and I might stick to ordering it in Japanese places!

I'd definitely go back to Angelica Kitchen though, sometimes you just order the wrong stuff! It was a nice chilled place to hang out. Does anyone have any recommendations for what I should try next time?

On our last day in NYC we finally made it to Blossom, we picked Cafe Blossom on Carmine because we fancied somewhere a bit more relaxed than we thought the fancier uptown Blossom location might be. I started the meal with a China Cola, I love trying fun new brands of cola when I'm travelling & I needed the sugar hit because I was starving!

We ordered these Herbed Cashew Cheese dumplings to share to start with and they were fantastic. I was pretty sad that we could only have two each and I was definitely tempted to order a second plate!

We deliberated for a really long time before deciding on our mains because the whole menu looked amazing. We eventually decided to share & chose the Tofu Benedict with housemade cornbread, grilled asparagus and ham...

...and the Southern Fried Seitan with herb and cheese biscuits, gravy and sautéed dandelion greens.

This is seriously one of the best meals I've ever eaten. Just looking at it's making me want to fly to New York so that I can eat it over & over again. I've never had a tofu benedict on anything other than an English muffin before and I have to say that the cornbread is a genius idea, it was perfect. The grilled asparagus was wonderful, I sometimes find asparagus a bit hit and miss and this was definitely a hit. I loved the slightly smoky ham and the cheesy sauce too... basically the whole plate of food was brilliant, BUT I think that the seitan dish might have been even better! I have honestly never eaten such amazing seitan, the texture was so close to the texture of chicken that if we handn't have been at a veggie restaurant I'd have insisted that it was real chicken & sent it back...I'm almost kidding, but really, it was crazy good! The breading on the seitan was wonderfully crispy, the herbed cheese biscuit was fluffy, the gravy was great, everything was perfectly seasoned and I'd never tried dandelion greens before so that was fun too!

I think that Blossom on Carmine is definitely at the top of my list of favourite NYC places to eat, it was upscale food in a relaxed atmosphere which reminded me of one of my Brighton favourites Terre a Terre. I can't wait go back to try all of their other locations!

Next up on our awesome American adventure we pick up the hire car & head for Boston...