Food tasting in NYC

This weekend was fall break, so Drew and I took off on our first trip ever to NYC. Despite awful flight delays (we almost missed our Broadway show!), the weekend was awesome. Lots of shopping, sightseeing, and LOTS of walking. The best part, besides seeing Mary Poppins on Broadway and seeing her pull a full coat stand out of her bag that was clearly only two feet deep, was the food.

I'm kind of obsessive about watching the Food Network. Iron Chef America, Diners Drive-Ins and Dives, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Ace of Cakes, everything. So when I go to NYC, I want to eat at the restaurants of these people I see.

We've eaten at Mesa Grill by Bobby Flay in Las Vegas, but in New York we ate at Bar Americain, his other restaurant. Drew got a burger and I got chicken pot pie with a sweet potato puff pastry. For dessert, I got an apple tart with maple ice cream. Maple is one of my favorite flavors, so it was pretty amazing. I'm going to try to make the tart sometime, but it's going to take quite a bit of practice to make it look that nice and cut those apples so thin!

Then we went to Mario Batali's Lupa, where I had squash pasta with a butter sauce. I'm pretty sure the people sitting next to us were part of the mob; the guy had a deep New Jersey accent and while he had a wedding ring, she definitely didn't. And he was calling her honey.

We also had breakfast at the Creperie, a place featured on Throwdown. It's fascinating watching them make them; if I tried to make a pastry that thin it would break every time. Mine was raspberry white chocolate, Drew got s'mores and Mary got spinach artichoke.

But my favorite of the trip was Magnolia Bakery, full of awesome cupcakes. Red velvet, devil's food cake, pumpkin maple, so many choices! They also had cheesecakes, including red velvet and key lime, cookies and cakes. I think I might be able to spend every day there. The cupcakes each had like two inches of frosting and were unbelievably tasty. I' d like to figure out how to make cupcakes that well someday.

Overall, it was an awesome trip with some really tasty food. I want to go back some time to do some more sightseeing and definitely some more scouting for desserts. It just makes me want to bake, but that comes tomorrow.