The Big Apple

Just before it was time to set out cookies for Santa and celebrate Christmas, the Mr. and I jetted into the City to have a few days of relaxation.  Well, I should clarify, New York style relaxation.  And for us, that really just means that we walked as much as our feet could take and snuck in as many extra meals as possible.  In its own way it’s relaxing, and in the very best way, it’s New York.

We flew in on a red-eye and dropped our bags at our hotel in time to meet up with my brother and his wife for some serious eatery in Chinatown.  First stop, the Nom Wah Tea Parlor.  I had read that this is the place to go for traditional egg rolls.

  

These babies are totally different than any egg roll I’ve had from my local Chinese take-out.  We all really enjoyed them.  Sadly, we didn’t enjoy the long wait for a couple of egg rolls :(  But our fortunes were about to change, just around the corner was our next stop, Joe’s Shanghai.

  

We went to Joe’s for the soup dumplings; and the truth is that those dumplings were good enough to wait all day for.  We’ll definitely be back again.

After plenty of dumplings, we headed out and decided to just walk and wander our way towards Midtown; walking through the Christmas Markets, stopping in local shops and just catching up.

  

  

After walking for a bit, we reached one of our favorite places, Eataly.  We went in to first grab a cup of cocoa (which I have been dreaming about ever since), shop around, and then grab a glass of wine to toast to our day of adventures.

  

After enjoying our wine, we felt enough pep in our step to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and head towards our dinner venue.

  

  

The walk over the bridge was beautiful, and definitely a fun and different thing to do in New York.  Even better about our walk was that it led us one step closer to our dinner at Lucali.  We arrived to a sizable wait for a table (as expected), so we just enjoyed the mild December weather until our number was called.

  

  

This was our first time dining at Lucali, and since we had heard such great things about it, our expectations were pretty high.  And happily to us and our tummies, our expectations were blown out of the water.  My hubby claims that this may have been the best pizza he has eaten anywhere, including Italy – and that is a pretty strong statement coming from my Sicilian man.

 

Whatever ranking the pizza gets, we happily gobbled up both a pizza and a calzone, and then quickly felt completely ready to retire for the night.  We headed back across the bridge, and better late than never, checked into our room at the Casablanca Hotel, where we had been invited to stay for the night.

  

  

The Casablanca Hotel is so convenient and easy to get to (it’s just off of Times Square).  And after a long day of travel and touring, we were both grateful to not be searching for our hotel.  We were just so happy to get into our cozy room and get settled in right away.  We were wondering if we would hear any city noises during the night, but we didn’t hear peep noise the whole night.  The rooms were impressively quiet, and the bed quite comfy.  It made for the perfect end to a great day.

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This post was written in collaboration with the Casablanca Hotel.  Although the hotel stay was complimentary, no financial compensation was received.  All opinions expressed and written here are my own, and are an honest account of our experience.