Cuban in Jersey!

Just thought I'd share a little bit of what we have in New Jersey. Up the road there is a cute little Cuban restaurant run by a very nice Cuban woman. I may not remember the names of the things we ate, but they were so darn tasty that I brought my parents to it. We started with these potato-like things, with a different name, that were cut and fried and served with a cilantro dipping sauce. We also had a empanada appetizer with another dipping sauce that was slightly sweet and spicy. I went with the fried chicken, white rice and black beans, and Carol-Ann chose a dish that she often had when we lived in Florida. It was a humongous steak with a green chili sauce on top, yellow rice and black beans. Her was about 20 dollars, but when you see the amount of food that comes on the plate, it's worth it, we could have share, which I did with my dad when I went back. Mine was 12 or so. The total was $40 dollars, and was enough to feed 3-4 people, plus she doesn't have a liquor license, so it's bring your own. She happened to have leftover and gave it to us for free. We had a really great time there and I will miss it when I'm gone. 10 out of 10! Wooohooo!

mix and match

 

After we visited Magnolias we decided to walk around the Rockefeller area and we came across a chocolate shop that was in the Rock. In the basement of the Rockefeller there is a sort of shopping mall, the chocolate shop was on the main level, so it probably sees a lot of business from employees within. This place was ridiculous. The chocolates were lovely, but the prices were extremely high. They had a chocolate bark with hazelnuts, pistachios and other nuts that was $80 dollars a pound. Nuts are expensive, but that is outrageously high for a pound of chocolate. The macaroons were around 2.50 each, which is pretty expensive, but very common around these parts. I was holding my camera up to take pictures and managed to sneak one before I got yelled at and told to not take any. Bitches. Again, bad service, and the macaroons I bought, chocolate and passion fruit were good, they looked very nice as well, but they weren't worth what the store thinks they are. I think it deserves a 5 out of 10, for there exclusiveness, rudeness and okayness of macaroons.

That same day we visited the M&M store... and I bought a pound of M&Ms for 13 bucks... but they were colors that I picked out! Off of the worlds largest wall of M&Ms!

The day before all of these lovely pictures, the same day that we went to the Chelsea Market we walked around Soho, visited Body World, and went to DASH... not worth it, we stopped at a sandwich shop, which had premade sandwiches, salads and pastas, and sandwiches made to order. I chose the prosciutto, mozzarella sandwich with tomatoes and arugula with a delicious and surprising sesame mayo, which was sweet and tangy. The bread was nice and moist and did not scratch my gums.  The soup I chose was a spicy chicken, I was expecting it to be creamy, and it wasn't. The soup was okay, a little disappointing. I believe Carol-Ann had the BLT, she said it wasn't special, just a normal BLT. The service was great, I believe the guy was from Australia. They make their breads on site, and they have a pretty patio. The prices weren't bad if you consider we were eating in Soho, Carol-Anns was 5.25 and mine was 5.95, we eat got a half, but if you look in the picture a half was pretty large. I really like this place, I give it an 8 out of 10, services was good, as well as the food and the atmosphere.

We saw a couple of rats in the subway! This one was HUGE!










Traffic at 6:30ish. Honking is illegal in NY, you wouldn't know...

Chelsea Market

The Chelsea Market is an awesome shopping center located it Chelsea, or the Meat Packing District, or on the border... not quite sure. It has shops that sell clothes, to seafood to wine. During my trip to the Chelsea Market with Carol-Ann we stopped at a couple of cupcake shops, Eleni's and  Ruthy's Bakery, we also stopped at the gelato shop, L'arte del Gelato. The market is a very cute indoor market, with a waterfall and brick walls; It is almost like walking outside, but it is all indoors. Food Network films Iron Chef America and Emeril Live upstairs!

Eleni's is a very fun cupcake/ cookie shop that sells great cupcakes and glamorous cookies, like wedding cookies, N.Y. cookies, etc. They are sugar cookies, that are decorated with royal icing in a very detailed and fun ways. They cater to different events and they also let you create your own cookie designs. They have very simple flavors like chocolate, vanilla, and some more fun flavors like red velvet, and Oreo madness. This place is more about the look of the cupcake rather than the flavors of the cupcakes. When you walk in you see the cupcakes on display,  with 2-3 inches of colorful icing.

Carol-Ann and I decided to take a red velvet cookie and an Oreo madness. They were both very good, and I believe they were homemade, if not it was a very good box mix. I was disappointed that the red velvet didn't have cream cheese icing, but the way the shop was ran, they didn't have any cupcakes refrigerated, so it made sense that they used buttercream instead. I think it was an Italian or Swiss buttercream, I was there a couple of weeks ago and I can't even remember which icing it was! But I liked it, so I don't think it was American buttercream. The Oreo cupcake was sweet, but satisfying. It had mini marshmallows around the top that were slightly toasted. The red velvet was so scrumptious I could have eaten another one. 7.5 out of 10, it was a nice place to visit, the food was good, but the service wasn't great, and it was sort of messy and confusing at the counter, almost rushed.

 The other bakery we visited was Ruthy's Bakery. They had a lot of cookies and cupcakes as well. I was really in the mood for a macaroon, but the ones they had at the time were all the same flavor and different 

 colors, which didn't make sense to me and made me mad. So we decided to get a pistachio canoli. It was good and it had a nice pistachio flavor to it. I don't thin I would go back there, but it was still cute. They also specialize in character cupcakes, like sponge-bob and Elmo! They were adorable, and definitely got children's attention.6 out of 10 the themed cupcakes were really cute, the shop was a little messy and cluttered.

My favorite place in the Chelsea  Market was the gelato store. The had classic gelato flavors like chocolate, mocha and almond. We tasted a couple of different flavors and went with the nutella and banana. It cost $4.25 for a small, with two flavors, super expensive, but delicious. The flavors were very intense, the banana tasted like an actual banana, it went really well with the nutella.  I would say that L'arte del Gelato gets a 8.5 out of 9 because it was delicious, and they had great traditional gelato flavors like almond, coffee, caramel, and fruity ones like passion fruit and apple. It was just very expensive for such a small amount of gelato, and the service wasn't great. I've come to find that New York service people hate they're lives...
After we finished the gelato we went back out, into the pouring rain... what a lovely day for Carol-Ann to visit.