3 years and the trek to the Upper West Side

Today is our third anniversary (yay us) in honor of that, but really more because I had the day off we decided to go see more of the city. We decided to go scope out Whole Foods and Zabars. I know you are saying to yourself, “that isn’t sight seeing”, I would tend to agree with you, however because we are living in New York for the next 13.5 weeks (yes I am counting down until we go home) the sights are a little different from the ones a normal tourist would want to see. So back to the trek- we got on the A train and took it from Utica in Brooklyn to Columbus Circle- this is a pretty far distance- one more stop and we would be at church (by the way we made it to church yesterday no major hiccups- more to come on church later). We headed to Whole Foods, I had been in Dallas but Brian hadn’t so it was a new experience, and it was Whole Foods- over priced organic poptarts- but the best part of Whole Foods is the deli section- it looked delicious- we decided not to buy anything since we still had a few more stops, and we headed off to Zabars. I am not sure if Zabars has multiple locations- I don’t think it has many, but since I don’t have access to the internet I cant confirm that, anyway one of the reasons, really the reason I wanted to go there is because I saw the grocery sacks in episodes of Friends for years- I thought hey while I am hear I might as well go, and it was worth it. This is a pretty crammed little store that has all manner of cheeses, deli meats, olives, fresh bread, preserves, coffee, spices, and fresh made pasta. The store has stuff from all over the world, and it fairly reasonable priced- the cheese costs about what you would pay for quality cheese at Costco per pound- maybe just slightly higher, the fresh bread is about $3 a loaf but you can try it in advance and hey it was made in the last 24 hours. Really this may be one of my favorite places and we are going back. In addition to the very crowded and exciting lower level there is also an upper level that sells “housewares”. This basically means that the second story is crammed with everything you could ever need in a kitchen, plus irons, microwaves, toothbrushes, and laundry stuff (minus the soap). You can buy everything from a set of professional pots and pans to a garlic saver (giant plastic garlic that you put your cloves in). Everything is reasonablely priced (for New York) and the experience is well worth the trip to the Upper West Side. In addition, they have a café next door that sells what is rumoured to be delicious food, we were on our way to lunch and didn’t have time to stop so I cant confirm that. After Zabars (where we didn’t buy anything except a laundry basket) we headed for lunch at the highly recommended Carmines. Our Frommers guide claimed this place was great with “B-I-G” portions, we were not disappointed. We ordered gnocchi (Brian was giving it another try) with Ragu sauce, and a side of broccoli. The waiter warned that things were served family style so we just ordered one thing, we assumed it would feed two with very little leftover, we were wrong. After eating our fill and then some the huge platter (what is normally used to serve a Thanksgiving turkey on) was barely dented. The meat balls were tender and well the size of tennis balls, there was a ton of sausage, and brecholi (I am sure I misspelled that sorry Jared). The broccoli came in what can only be described as a very large salad bowl- needless to say we have quite a bit left over. I would guess that one entrée could serve between 4 and 6 comfortably- with the amount of food that comes this place is a good deal (jared you would like this place, sadly you wont be coming to see us but if you were we would have to go there). After lunch a bit of walking we decided to head to the Carniege Deli for dessert- their pies looked amazing and it was our anniversary so we finally get to get a dessert, the pie is about 5 inches high- you think I am exaggerating but I’m not, even Diana would like it, there is little to no crust just creamy filling- we ordered a slice of coconut cream and it was definiately creamy (I think it needed more coconut) but it was quite good. 

So after a long day in NYC I have come to the following conclusions- if I never have to live hear again I will be happy, but if for some reason I do have to live here I am living on the Upper West Side. There is little to no traffic here, lots of trees (including in the median), it is clean, people are nicer, and there are no sirens (when we woke up this morning an NYPD heliocopter was circling the neighborhood). Let’s just say going to the Upper West Side and then coming back to Bed-Stuy was a bit of a culture shock- I think if I had the $4500 a month to live there it would be worth it.