A Long Weekend in New York City

We spent the weekend in New York City with various family both local and from out of town. Lots of good times and good food!

Thursday, July 16th

We took the Amtrak Acela from BWI Airport Rail Station early in the morning just after 5am, arriving at New York Penn Station before 8am. We then took the LIRR Port Washington Branch over to Flushing. We then walked a few blocks over to the Hotel Indigo Flushing – LaGuardia. Our room was not ready so early in the morning so we left our bags and headed back out to get some food.

We got a roujiamo from 高小爬 Gao Xiao Pa. An interesting variation here is that the meat is prepared döner style on a vertical rotisserie. It was delicious, particularly as we accidentally left our homemade bread at home! We also got a cold sweet doujiang which was pretty refreshing.

We next visited 朱記鍋貼 Zhuji Potsticker, which is an old shop, and got guotie and a youtiao. The guotie was cheap but that’s about all it had going for it. They weren’t bad, but just didn’t stand out in any way. The youtiao was absolutely terrible though. We did also get a cold sweet doujiang which was fine.

till in Flushing, we went to 游子老鸭粉丝馆 Youzi Old Duck Vermicelli Soup House and got the old duck fengsi soup, which is basically their name product. It was ok.

We then took the 7 train and transferred to the F while still in Queens to head down to West 4th. Our train, seen here on the right, actually had a special livery for the 250th anniversary of the United States. It has the America 250 logo, which was the original long planned celebration…

We exited the subway and walked around the corner to arrive at Joe’s Pizza. This famous classic New York City pizzeria has been around since 1975. We got just one slice. It was pretty much exactly what you’d remember a pizza as being like if you’re from the city or its suburbs. Probably better, actually!

We sat by the open windows to eat our one slice. We saw a tour guide arrive with their twelve person tour group. We found it funny. As we were leaving, the guide was instructing the group how to eat pizza! Something about don’t pick it up. It’s pizza, just eat it however you like!

We then took the subway two stops to visit Katz’s Delicatessen, basically the most famous one in NYC for its pastrami. They’ve been around since 1888, basically, forever!

It was ridiculously busy with 9 cutting stations. They allowed just enough people in at a time that you were able to get a seat after ordering and with just enough room for everyone to stand in 9 not well defined lines. It was very New York.

As for the pastrami, it was fantastic. Kind of like eating moist beef brisket in Austin, except it was pastrami. And the portion sizes for one order were ridiculously large. We ate one order, which basically will feed at least two people, and got two more orders to go.

We then took the subway back up to 23rd Street to take the PATH to New Jersey. This was a bit of a mistake as we wanted to go to Exchange Place and switch to the light rail but forgot that you need to go via the WTC if you don’t want to switch trains and backtrack. So, we just took it to Grove Street and got off there to walk the rest of the way.

On the way, we stopped at Molly Tea. One of the NYC Molly Tea franchisees got caught for fraud against the Molly Tea company. All the NYC shops are basically shut down. But the one in Jersey City was still ok. We tried some drinks that they didn’t have at the new location in Maryland.

We got a promotional Champion Molly pin as it is actually FIFA World Cup Final weekend.

There was also a soccer themed bag.

It was good as always! It was pretty hot out so we ended up drinking on a bench before continuing on. We then continued on to our cousin’s house where we spent the rest of the evening.

We didn’t photograph any scenery so far today but its worth mentioning that there was a good amount of smoke from Canadian wildfires to the northwest of here. It definitely effected air quality and visibility today.

We returned to the Indigo in Flushing before 9pm to check in four rooms. This hotel is pretty modern and just opened in 2022. For a long time, there weren’t really any reputable options other than the Sheraton. Now, there are seven or eight options within walking distance of the LIRR and subway stations.

We picked the Indigo this time because of the pricing and location. Prices in Manhattan and in New Jersey around Jersey City are elevated due to the World Cup. We ended up using points for this stay which resulted in an exchange rate of slightly better than two points per cent.

The room was of a modern design as expected. Its appearance is pretty typical of recent hotels.

We quickly went to Heytea before they closed at 10pm. They had some new items. We got the King Jasmine Guava and Oat Mango Boom. Both were very good.

There are actually two Heytea locations in Flushing. We went to the one that was geographically closer, however, it probably ended up being a bit further due to having to walk around the block to get there.

There wasn’t much to see on our east facing room. There is quite a bit of development here now though with many new buildings either completed or being built.

Friday, July 17th

The sky was mostly clear when we woke up the next morning, although it was a bit hazy.

While the main window from our room looks to the east, there is actually a smaller window on the side of the room which looks to the south.

We walked over to 爽八珍 Eight Jane for breakfast. We got just a jianbing and youtiao. The jianbing was good and although not huge it was enough. The youtiao unfortunately was not freshly prepared, making it pretty mediocre. We ended up bringing it to the little plaza at the south side of Tangram to eat. We had planned to get more somewhere else but were too full to do so!

The Molly Tea shop in Flushing with new question mark branding. Supposedly, the store is still open but everything has been rebranded.

We headed over to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, which has apparently been rebranded as The Battery. There were quite a bit of hustlers here trying to trick tourists who want to visit the Statue of Liberty!

Anyhow, although the sky still mostly clear, the haze from the Canadian wildfires was still present. So while we could see the Statue of Liberty, the view wasn’t as great as it would normally be.

This is the American Merchant Mariners’ Memorial by Marisol Escobar. The memorial is actually based upon a particular sinking of an American merchant marine ship during World War II. The Nazis had taken a photograph of the vessel as it was sinking.

The only official ticket offices for visiting the Statue of Liberty are here at Castle Clinton National Monument. Other than the ticket windows, this small fort also has various exhibits and a small gift shop.

There was some construction going on in Battery Park during our visit and large sections were blocked off. We ended up walking to the southeast where we came across this large eagle. This is another World War II memorial, in this case, for Merchant Mariners and members of the Army Transport Service.

We walked over to the SeaGlass Carousel, which wasn’t busy at the time. Great for kids!

Across the street from the northeastern edge of Battery Park, we came across Miffy and Hello Kitty statues! They are both at the base of 17 State Street, a rather distinctive curved glass facade office building.

We headed up to Midtown where we visited 蜜雪冰城 Mixue Bing Cheng (Honey Snow Ice City), or just MIXUE, a huge ice cream and tea chain from China. This location at Herald Square just opened in December, a few days after their first US location opened in Los Angeles. They have a large menu and are inexpensive compared to the competition.

We got a Peach Oolong Tea, Passion Blast, and a matcha soft serve. Everything was rather good for the price paid. While none of it is going to beat alternative options in taste, they absolutely win in price. They will do well in the US…

Afterwards, we had a big lunch at New Wonjo, the only Korean BBQ restaurant in Koreatown that still uses charcoal. The best item still seems to be the regular galbi, which we like better than the premium galbi!

The Empire State Building as seen from around the corner from the restaurant.

We then started to walk over to Times Square. We passed by this restaurant on Broadway with an amusing cat window decal!

It was been a long time since we’ve been to Times Square. Its rather different now. The signs are all huge modern displays. One Times Square, the more than 120 year old building that the famous ball drops from every New Years Eve, has been renovated and now includes an outdoor observation deck.

Times Square is generally always a pretty busy place and today was no exception. Other than the normal tourists, there were also World Cup tourists. We saw various groups of them being interviewed. The woman on the left here is reporting for the Univision entertainment show El Gordo y la Flaca

We noticed that the costumed characters, who had a rather negative reputation, are much more benign now. They did not appear to actively solicit for customers at all and mostly seemed to just hang out with each other until someone wanted to take a photo with them.

Next, walked over to the % ΔRΔBICΔ at Rockefeller Center. We tried the dark latte this time. It was pretty good! We should have asked what today’s beans were as the beans can often make a huge difference in how we perceive their drinks.

It was extremely busy at Rockefeller Center with an area that required passing through security to enter. We weren’t sure what was going on but it was free to enter so we did so. It seems that this is part of the festivities around the FIFA World Cup Final which will take place in two days.

The most visible thing here was this giant Lego World Cup trophy. There is apparently a smaller version for sale… Only $199.99!

After walking around the World Cup area a bit, we got matcha soft serve from Matcha Cafe Maiko. It was perhaps almost as good as the one in Flushing, putting it still behind the original at Waikiki.

The shop was actually a bit hard to find because there were no maps that indicated where each shop was in Rockefeller Center’s underground shopping mall and no one we asked had any idea this place existed. It ended up being near where we entered from but we ended up circling around in the wrong direction, meaning it was at the last place that we searched!

We then walked back up to street level, exited the World Cup area, and walked one block down to visit the Nintendo Store. There was all sorts of Nintendo merch on the stores two floors.

The store, as seen from across the street after we exited.

After returning to Flushing, we visited Xi’an Famous Foods where we got the Liang Pi “Cold-Skin Noodles” and Pork “Zha Jiang” Hand-Ripped Noodles. Excellent as they always are.

We ended the day at Heytea with just a Guava Green Grape. It was excellent and one of the better drinks that we’ve had there.

Saturday, July 18th

That’s the Sun. And a huge amount of haze from the Canadian wildfires. Air quality is going to be horrendous today! Rain, at times heavy, is forecast for later today as well.

Breakfast today was dim sum at 敦城 Asian Jewels in Flushing, an easy walk from the Indigo. We had enough people to have a pretty good selection of items. These are just some of what we had… Of course, it was all much better than we can get locally in the DMV.

Afterwards, we took the subway over to Grand Central Station to take a quick look around. Although Grand Central is perhaps the most well known train station in the US, it isn’t served by Amtrak and until recently was not served by the LIRR either.

We then took the subway down to Borough Hall in Brooklyn to visit the New York Transit Museum. We figured this could be a good indoor activity. It ended up pouring when we exited the subway station. Although some of us had rain gear, it was still a very wet two block walk down to the museum.

Other than all the historical displays, there was a also an activity area for children. There is some term for these things which we can’t seem to think of right now. But basically, you use the rubber bands on the sides to make the paper spin which forms a complete image of a person waiting on the platform.

The museum is underground in the former Court Street subway station. The platforms, which contain historic subway cars, are two floors down from ground level. The station is still fully operational in that the third rail functions and provides power and the station is still linked to the actively used subway system.

Many of the subway cars are from well before our time.

Who knew that there was a white and blue 7 train!

There were even cars that had a 1776 livery for the 200th anniversary of the United States in 1976.

The majority of the subway cars could be entered.

The weather was better after we left the museum. We decided to walk over to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade for the view of Lower Manhattan. Not being particularly familiar with Brooklyn, we made the navigational mistake of walking down the wrong street. This took us down to water level rather than keeping us on the hill above the BQE. We missed it by just one block. It had unfortunately started to rain again so we decided to bail.

We decided to visit L’Industrie, a pizzeria in Brooklyn, next. The most sensible way to get there by subway while minimizing time spent outside was to return to Borough Hall as it continued to rain, although not as hard as before. That trip ended up taking longer than planned due to the train skipping Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall, where we planned on transferring to the J train. We ended up continuing to Union Square and took the L back to Brooklyn where we got off at Bedford Ave.

We got seven slices to try out:

Margherita
Tomato sauce, mozzarella, extra virgin olive oil, parmesan, basil

L'Industrie
Parma ham and burrata

Pork Pepperoni
Tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni

New Yorker
Tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, spicy sausage, ricotta cheese

Spicy Salami
Spicy Italian Sopressata

Sausage & Pesto
Mozzarella, Nut-Free Pesto, Crumbled Spicy Sausage

Fig, Jam, and Bacon
Mozzarella, fig jam, bacon, ricotta

Overall, they were pretty varied and good. Pretty different from the traditional slice of NY pizza though.

After returning to Flushing, we visited Heytea and got the Guava Green Grape, which may be the best they have.

Later in the evening, we visited 浙里 Cheli for an excellent and interesting dinner!

The most interesting item of all was the chicken dish:

The dish arrives encased in some sort of clay. They set it on fire with something, maybe alcohol? After it stops flaming, they hit it with a mallet to break the outer shell, open the foil, and then open the lotus leaf to expose the chicken.

After dinner, we visited Heytea again! This time, we ordered the regular Jasmine Tea, which ended up tasting pretty strong without anything else added. Is this actually the same quantity of tea that goes into a fruit tea with Jasmine Tea as the base?

Sunday, July 19th

While it was still hazy in the morning, at least the sky was not red!

The second floor of the Indigo has a balcony that provides an excellent view of Manhattan to the west. This balcony is right next to the elevators and fitness center. The small fitness center has the hotel’s only filtered water machine that we know about. An excellent place to get nice cold water to fill up your bottles!

We visited Nan Xiang at their 8am opening time for their xiao long bao. They were delicious, although probably a tad oversteamed as they were a bit too delicate, which isn’t really a problem we’ve had here before. Perhaps going at 8am isn’t the best idea?

After breakfast, we headed over to Hudson Yards. The Vessel was decorated with the flags of the participating countries in the FIFA World Cup.

We also saw many soccer fans in a queue. There is apparently a watch party being held here for the final match later today.

There was also a giant soccer ball. The small symbols on the ball look like they represent the three host countries: Canada, Mexico, and the US.

There was a pair of volunteers giving out temporary World Cup tattoos. We got them since they were free!

We spotted another soccer ball kind of just standing by itself.

There was also a big teddy bear, unrelated to the World Cup.

We went inside to visit Blue Bottle Coffee. They had some new items but unfortunately they ran out of syrup for what we wanted to order from their new Kyoto collection.

We then headed back outside to walk the High Line, which is directly accessible from the south side of the Hudson Yards block.

We noticed a rather long line of Spain fans below.

There were queued in front of Mercado Little Spain, one of Jose Andres‘ restaurants! It looks like they have been hosting watch parties for all the Spain and US games.

As we walked down the High Line, we noticed this large mural.

Looking back, we could see the towers of Hudson Yards, now many blocks away.

We continued on until we reached 14th Street. We descended from the High Line and crossed the street to reach the Hudson to visit Little Island, a new park built at the former location of Pier 54 that opened in 2021.

The park has an interesting design as it rests atop many pillars of varying heights.

We unfortunately didn’t have too much time to spend here as we had a lunch reservation for our large group. The park looked quite well done though with many plants, paths, and a variety of different areas.

There was an optical illusion disc on one of the paths. There is probably some term for these things!

The view looking northeast towards the Empire State Building. The High Line is sort of visible here if you know what to look for!

Looking south, we had a pretty good view of Lower Manhattan and the new One WTC.

For lunch, we went to the new Baohaus, which replaced the older Baohaus that closed during the pandemic. Both were created by Eddie Huang, the author of his autobiographical book Fresh off the Boat, which became a TV show. The menu was interesting and varied. Overall, everything was well executed. While not everything will appeal to everyone, the menu was varied enough that everyone should be able to find multiple dishes that they will enjoy. It was a good meal!

After lunch, we visited Spot, a dessert shop that we’ve been to before. We got six of the eight main items:

Spot is both creative and delicious. Most of what we got was very good. Some were surprisingly good, particularly the Golden Toast which on paper sounds like it should be the most mid of all the dishes. The actual weakest of all the things we got was the Snow White. It was basically an icy sphere and just didn’t seem to go well with the other ingredients.

After dessert, we headed down to the east side of Battery Park to take the Staten Island Ferry. Remember, despite all the touts that try to look official, they are not and the ferry is free to ride.

One of the reasons for taking the ferry as a tourist would be to see the Statue of Liberty up close without actually visiting it. On the way down to Staten Island, it will be on the right.

There is also a great view of Manhattan from the rear of the ferry. The skyline is quite different from what it used to be with various new buildings. The towers at Hudson Yards can be seen on the left.

As we got closer to Staten Island, we saw the Statue of Liberty with Jersey City in the background.

We arrived at Staten Island with just a few minutes to take the next ferry back to Manhattan. In this case, the one seen here to the left. We were actually the last people to board before they closed the gates!

The view passing by a southbound ferry with Jersey City in the background.

Again, a fantastic view of Manhattan, this time from the front of the ferry.

The southern tip of Manhattan with Battery Park on the left and the ferry terminal, Whitehall Terminal, on the right.

To the right of the previous scene, we see the Brooklyn Bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Afterwards, we walked over to the SeaGlass Carousel again. We noticed a World Cup watch party on the lawn by the carousel!

We headed up to Joe’s Pizza to get some classic New York pizza. While it was busier today than our previous visit, we did not spot any tour groups this time. During our visit, we could hear all the World Cup fans nearby watching the game!

We discovered that there was a Venchi just a few doors down from Joe’s. Venchi is a chocolatier that also has excellent gelato. While they aren’t the world’s best gelato, they are still excellent and overall very consistent. We’ve visited them all over the world so of course we had to have some here!

We got 80% dark chocolate sorbet, some sort of coffee, and strawberry. Good as always!

We ended the day up at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade to make up for the navigational error yesterday and terrible weather. Although it wasn’t as clear as it would normally be due to the fires, it still wasn’t too bad.

We walked along the promenade which overhangs part of the BQE below. We’ve driven this section of Interstate many times!

The north end of the promenade has a pedestrian path that leads down off of the hill to basically sea level. This path passes through Squibb Park. This park is named after the Squibb from Bristol Myers Squibb. His first lab was nearby.

We continued descending via a pedestrian bridge.

We then walked north through the Brooklyn Bridge Park. The smoke from the wildfires was pretty visible from this perspective.

We continued on until we reached the Brooklyn Bridge.

We ended up returning to Flushing at around sunset.

We decided to try Tsaocaa, which was next to Heytea. They had a pretty extensive menu. Both fruit teas we ordered were quite good. We also got some free tea bags as a result of a promotion.

The night view from our room.

Monday, July 20th

We visited 沙卡拉卡烘焙 Shakalaka Bakery in Flushing in the morning. Like Boom, Shakalaka from NBA Jam. No idea why this Chinese bakery is named this though! They unfortunately didn’t have too many items available when we visited. We ended up getting a sticky rice rousong bun. It’s rousong on the outside and sticky rice on the inside. It was pretty good! They seem to have some interesting items on the menu.

We then visited 杨记鲜肉饼 Yang’s Fresh Roubing, or simply The Pancake in English, for their meat filled bing. We got the beef. It had very good flavor and was nice and crispy, although a bit greasy.

We walked past this colorful unicorn sculpture in front of the Queens Crossing building as we walked back to the Indigo.

The view from the Indigo’s second floor balcony was unfortunately still a bit hazy. But, still a nice view. The big Spider-Man: Brand New Day movie billboard is very fitting for the scenery!

After checking out of the Indigo, we headed over to Zabar’s on the Upper West Side. They have a grocery store as well as adjacent cafe. We went to the cafe to get some bagels plus other treats.

We wanted to try their rugelach as we’ve never had it before. The cinnamon raspberry flavor was a bit sweet but otherwise tasty.

We also wanted to try babka, again, something new to us. We got the two flavors that were available, chocolate and cinnamon. They were both good with the cinnamon being a bit reminiscent of a Cinnabon. We felt the chocolate one was better.

We came for the bagels though. We got the Zabar’s Classic Nova, basically bagels, cream cheese, and a ton of salmon. While we liked it, we probably wouldn’t come out of our way to get it in the future. We’re more likely just to get bagels from somewhere in Midtown near Penn Station as unless we drive, our trips to the city always begin and end there.

We then went over to Central Park, entering at 72nd street. We then started to walk east to head to Bethesda Fountain. We walked by this statue, The Falconer. There seems to be some conflicting information about this sculpture. Various sources state that it was commissioned as a larger copy of the sculptor’s original statue.

As to where the original statue is today, there is one that resides in the Revoltella Museum in Trieste, Italy. But it is described as a replica of the statue here in Central Park but is listed as having been created prior to the statue here. So, who knows…

We saw signage indicating that part of this area around Bethesda Terrace and the Bethesda Fountain would be closed soon for renovations. And indeed, the fountain was not on despite it being summer.

We walked down to the fountain.

The Lake by the fountain was busy with rowboats and turtles!

After meeting up with some additional friends by the fountain, we continued on. This sculpture, Eagles and Prey, is the oldest in Central Park.

We were originally planning on walking down to Columbus Circle but decided instead to exit the park prior due to not having enough time. We exited on the west side at 67th Street.

We headed down to Chinatown where we visited Chicha San Chen again. We got their new 鳳芒柚粒厚奶 Tropical Milk Tea. The Chinese name is more descriptive – pineapple, mango, grapefruit, and milk tea. Unfortunately this drink was one where you can’t adjust the amount of sugar and it was much too sweet. We drank a bit and added some water!

After, we visited Heytea where we had the Guava Green Grape again.

We then continued nearby to have a late lunch at 富瑤 August Gatherings. These cookies were provided as mignardise after our meal.

It was an excellent lunch and the last meal of the trip with everyone together.

After lunch, we walked one block to the east to visit Aokō Matcha. This shop just opened last year and has three locations in New York as well as two in New Jersey and one in Massachusetts. We happened to see the shop on Google Maps and saw that their matcha gelato comes in a variety of levels of intensity. This isn’t particular common even in Japan and unheard of in the US. So of course, we had to give it a try.

We opted for #8, the strongest matcha option available. It was excellent! Probably our new #1 in the US!

After walking around a bit more and a quick visit to Muji in SoHo, we returned to Penn Station to catch the Acela back to BWI. We didn’t bother to walk over to Moynihan Train Hall but just waited in the ticketed passenger waiting area until it was time to board.

We arrived at BWI not long after sunset. Unfortunately, we forgot to do one important thing! We should have bought some bagels before we left! The bagels shops near Penn Station close at 5pm but we probably could have made it and bought whatever was left over!