When it's raining outside and you have friends visiting New York City from Texas, the only thing to do is to spend your day at a movie, in a mall, or inside restaurants all day. We skipped the movie and mall part and instead spent our day eating!
For breakfast we headed to
Permanent Brunch. This place is teeny, tiny inside, and doesn't take reservations- so be prepared to wait, but know that it's definitely worth it. We ordered the Baked Eggs with Braised Short Rib Ragu and fries for $14, the Pan-roasted Chicken & Waffles for $14, and French Toast for $13. They are also known for having different kinds of bacon on their menu, so we tried an order of the Smokehouse Peppered bacon from Texas (how appropriate!).
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Afterwards, the guys went to watch football, while the ladies met up with some old friends at
Via Quadronno on the Upper East Side for some cappuccinos. This is where we saw Alec Baldwin having lunch (see Sunday's post for more)...that was pretty cool!
Becca & I headed down to Soho afterwards to shop at one of my all-time favorite stores-
TOPSHOP. When our feet got tired, we ducked into Keith McNally's (great name!)
Balthazar- a brasserie that is reminiscent of Paris inside.
We ordered their Homemade Pumpkin Ravioli with walnuts, sage, and brown butter for $13...so good, I'm drooling just talking about it.
For a little dessert, Becca and I went to
Rice to Riches- the best place in the world if you are into rice pudding.
This place has your standard old fashioned, traditional pudding, but it also has every interesting flavor you could imagine from pumpkin to chocolate, to the one we had which was mascarpone cheese with cherries...yummy!
After that it was time to meet up with the boys for dinner. We went to
The National- a gastro chic restaurant downtown. This place is casual, fairly inexpensive, and the food is great.
I highly recommend their Lobster Roll served with french fries.
We also got to meet the the head Chef,
Zoe Feigenbaum, who is currently on Bravo's Chef Academy! She was so cute...and quite a good cook I might add! :-)
As you can imagine, we were stuffed by the end of the day! It was a Food Coma Saturday for sure! We burned it off walking around Brooklyn and Manhattan the next couple of days...I'll have more on that tomorrow!
Rack & Soul prides itself on serving New York City's finest Soul Food and Wood-Smoked Barbecue. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical when I read that, and when we walked into the brightly lit restaurant (I like a restaurant a little darker at dinner time- not diner style)...but, I have to say my first impressions were quickly squashed as soon as I took my first bite of their Fried Chicken! Delish! It was well-seasoned, crispy on the outside, and nice and juicy inside. It came with your choice of two sides (we tried more than 2- Mac & Cheese, Candied Yams, Potato Salad) and we ordered one of their waffles. Let me just say to heck with etiquette...this dish was finger-lickin' good!!!
I also tried their baby back ribs which were awesome as well!
They also serve basket after basket of hot, sweet and buttery rolls on the table. They rock!
For dessert, we had their red velvet cake (which I usually don't love...I am now obsessed with this one!)...
We also had a slice of their pecan pie...so yummy!
There was a lot to celebrate on this night out, Ajay's birthday, the birth of Dave & Stephanie's baby boy Charlie, and Will & Karen's pregnancy! It was food that was good for the soul and a good time was had by all!
