Christmas in New York

Happy new year! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas eating and making lots of yummy food? Dean and I went to the New York for Christmas – we had an amazing time and ate so much food!

Our holiday didn’t start too well with a 5 and half hour delay at the airport! After lots of waiting around we finally set off but with some very disappointing news – our luggage wouldn’t be coming with us! 😟 The airline said that it would be sent out the next day and thankfully it arrived the day after that.

We finally arrived in New York where the weather was forecast 22 degrees Christmas Eve, we were hoping for a white Christmas but at this stage it would take a miracle for that to happen.

As we arrived to our hotel room I was greeted with a lovely surprise! We had a Christmas tree it was all different colours and looked beautiful.

Our first stop for food was to a Korean restaurant for dumplings, we were really in the mood for it for some reason despite having been awake for nearly 24 hours! We had been recommended this place by my friend Annie. We had a platter of dumplings to share which included vegetable, prawn and pork. They were so yummy that we decided we should try some more while we were there. Further in to our holiday we tried the best dumplings I’ve ever tried! They were pork and prawn dumplings with soup inside. They were amazing but you just had to be careful when you bit into them as the soup would go everywhere!

We tried to have an early night as we had been traveling all day and as soon as our heads hit the pillow that was it and we slept for 11 hours solid. The next morning we decided treat ourselves to a lobster roll at the Plaza Hotel’s food hall, which is something we loved last time we visited New York. They were amazing and just as good as we’d remembered!

Once we had fed and watered ourselves we went for a wander around the Big Apple and of course we had to go and see the famous tree. Fighting our way through the crowds at the Rockefeller Center we finally got close enough. Wow… what more can I say!

We went to visit the Chelsea Market, which was heaven for us being food obsessed! Where we are from in Worcester they don’t have any thing like this! It was pretty amazing they had so many amazing foods to choose from. We went to fish and seafood part there were lobsters piled up on top of each other people just stood around eating them after being freshly steamed. We decided to try some sushi which was superb – the guy made it there and then in front of us. It was so fresh and some of the best sushi that I had ever tried.

This holiday we seemed to have an obsession with lobster – or maybe New York has the obsession as we kept seeing it on the menu. Christmas Eve we both had a lobster dish for mains and Dean thought it would be a good idea to order lobster mac and cheese to go with it 😂 It was very delicious and they really know how to cook it there.

On our last day we even went back to Chelsea Market and ordered two whole lobsters and stood and eat them, it was like being in heaven!

We had lots of New York food on our list and we were slowly getting through them, most days we would head straight for lunch. The New York bagel was a well worth try and just like everything in America they’re huge! I had an onion bagel with bacon and egg and of course Dean had the “everything” bagel 😃 with cream cheese and smoked salmon.

Also on a few occasions we would grab a New York pretzel from a street vendor and they were actually surprisingly good!

Christmas Day we woke up and had breakfast the American way by ordering pancakes with bacon and maple syrup to the room. I couldn’t believe how big they were – we probably should have shared them.

We got ourselves ready and had a stroll around Central Park, using Skype to call friends and family back home. At 3pm we went for our Christmas dinner which was no where near traditional! We went to a French restaurant and the decor was so French that we could have actually been in France! The menu had a lot of choice, it was a 6 courses and we both had something different.

After Christmas we decided to go to Brooklyn for the day and walk across Brooklyn Bridge, the weather had changed a bit and gone a bit cooler which was nice – after all it was December!

We got off the bridge and headed straight for pizza to a famous place called Juliana’s – which according to newspaper clippings in the window was voted the best pizza in America. I’d certainly have to agree with that, it was the best pizza I had ever had.

Being such a popular place we had to queue up outside for about 15 minutes, but once inside we were seated right near where they were making the pizzas which was so cool! You could see them making all different pizzas and they had the most gigantic pot of mozzarella I had ever seen.
Having looked at other people’s pizzas I thought we should go for a small but Dean said there wasn’t much in it so we went for a large. We order half and half so we could try lots of things and the waiter said it was going to be a heavy pizza 😳 I was convinced we wouldn’t eat it all but we did and I even surprised myself how much we managed!

We were getting through our list quite well and there wasn’t a lot left on it. My brother kept telling us to visit Katz’s Deli so we went there for lunch. If you’ve ever seen When Harry Met Sally you’ll know it – it’s where Meg Ryan’s “famous” scene takes place! I will be honest it was not my type of place or type of food but I gave it ago. We ordered one of their famous sandwich on kaiser rolls along with a beef brisket one. Dean loved the pastrami sandwich and said it was the best he’d ever had. It was very tasty and very tender, just a bit to much food for my liking. The brisket on the other hand we both agreed was a little dry – not a patch on the pastrami!

On our second to last day we went to see The Lion King on Broadway and we both fancied an Mexican meal. It was like going back in time as we had visited Mexico earlier on in the year. We tried a trio of guacamole which was really yummy and included a traditional, smokey chipotle and fruity pomegranate and mango. For starters we shared soft tacos with pork and beef then had and pulled chicken enchilada and a flank steak for main. Everything tasted amazing!

We headed to the theatre to see The Lion King – wow what a performance we both loved every minute of it. If you haven’t seen it then I’d definitely recommend it, it’s so cleverly done and thought out. We went back to the hotel to have one last glass of bubbly before we headed home the next day.

What a truly wonderful Christmas we had something we will never forget.

How was your Christmas and new year? Do you have any interesting foodie stories or meals you’d like to share? Tell us about them in the comments below!