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Curiously Carmen

Blue Dog Kitchen, New York City

December 26, 2016

Is there really a blue dog in the restaurant? Not exactly, but Blue Dog Kitchen is still worth visiting if you’re ever in New York City. I found this place on Yelp in the morning before my mom and I headed out for yet another day of wandering around the concrete jungle. I am glad I came across this place because it did not disappoint!

BD1The restaurant is pretty small and located on the main level of an apartment building (or maybe it was an office building? don’t remember). The only downside to the restaurant is that it is really cramped.

We’re talking almost elbow to elbow room and if you’re sitting beside the wall, you need to move your table in order to squeeze by or you risk knocking over stuff from the next table!
BD2Blue Dog burger, $16.50: After ensuring that the burger had no dairy in it, I was good to go! The Blue Dog burger consists of a custom blend brisket-chuck beef, fried egg, applewood bacon, veggies, and fries. I asked for the burger to be cooked well done, as I am a bit wary of eating raw ground beef.

The burger was really juicy and flavourful, while the veggies were nice and fresh. The egg and bacon was a fantastic addition to an already delicious burger. The bun was also lightly toasted and slightly sweet. Overall, a really delicious burger!
BD3Free range chicken burger, $15.50: The ground chicken burger was delicious as well! Even though it looks pretty simple, the patty was bursting with juicy flavour, much like the beef.

Our fries were also piping hot and crispy! I wanted to have more of the fries, but was already really full from such a big burger.

Overall, we really enjoyed our lunch at Blue Dog. I would love to come back here should I visit NYC again. The service was really attentive, friendly, and very knowledgeable about their food.

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading!

Carmen

Blue Dog Café Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: brunch, food & drink, New York City, travel Tagged: burger, chicken, chicken burger, food, food blog, lunch, manhattan, new york, new york city, patty, travel, travel blog

Travel Diary: Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise, New York City

May 5, 2016

I spent almost a week in the concrete jungle, and am now back in Vancouver and ready to share my trip with you all. There was a lot my mom and I wanted to do, so our ‘vacation’ was really fast paced and I ended up doing a tremendous amount of walking there. Far more walking than I would normally do in Vancouver!

There are so many posts I have lined up from my Big Apple visit, but I decided to talk about the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise first because it was my favourite touristy activity.

Picture from NewYork.com
Picture from NewYork.com

I had the NYC CityPASS, which is a ticket booklet that offers you admission to 6 popular NYC attractions at a discounted price. You can click here for the full CityPASS review.

The Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise was included as one of the activities, and you had the option of choosing which scheduled cruise you wanted. You can go on the NYC CityPASS website for more information on the cruises.

We chose the Harbour Lights Cruise, as we wanted to see the city lit up at night!
Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise New York City ReviewSince this is the sunset cruise, this scheduled cruise only runs once per day, obviously. The other cruises, such as the Landmark or Liberty Cruises, run twice a day.

The pier where the cruise is located is about a 10 minute walk from Times Square, depending on how fast you walk. You can also take the bus from Times Square.

The weather was a bit muggy but that did not dampen our mood at all! Since it was more of a chillier day, we sat inside the cruise. Pictured above is the outside top deck (there are two floors).
Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise New York City Review Once the cruise started to move, people moved inside because it was a windy night and also raining a bit. But on a beautiful, warm day, you will definitely want to be on the balcony!

On Circle Line’s website, you can see the routes in which the ships go, as well as the length of time it runs for. The Harbour Lights cruise was 2 hours and goes around the bottom half of Manhattan, and back around the same way so you don’t have to worry if you are sitting on the side of the boat without the better view.

Now, on to the beautiful views!
Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise New York City ReviewOn the cruise, we also got to see some attractions on the other side of Manhattan. We passed a port where soldiers were deported to Europe in World War 1 & 2 in New Jersey. We also saw the old Colgate factory in New Jersey. These things we wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for our informative and engaging tour guide!

Pictured above is the old Pepsi sign, where the factory used to be in Brooklyn!
Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise New York City ReviewPassing by New York City, with the Empire State Building in the background!
Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise New York City ReviewWe scored great seats since we went a hour early! The only annoying thing about our seats was that it was directly facing the stairs to the deck. Since the boat was going pretty fast and it was chilly that day, the cold wind blasted up to us whenever people would open the doors. It got a bit annoying because other customers held the door open for their friends, which made our entire area really cold!

Good thing there was an angry customer who went down and told them to not leave the door open as everyone upstairs was starting to freeze. Thank you, haha!
Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise New York City ReviewGoing under the three bridges that connect Brooklyn and Queens to Manhattan! The tour guide, who was awesome btw, told us an easy way to remember the order of the bridges was BMW – Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg.

This one was either the Manhattan or Williamsburg bridge, sorry, I don’t remember which one exactly.
Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise New York City ReviewThe sun was beginning to set at 8 pm! Pictured above is the famous Brooklyn Bridge, one of the first steel cable and oldest bridges in North America. We learned that when it was first built, citizens and government officials alike were hesitant to cross the bridge because it was the first time they used steel cable there.

We also learned from the tour guide that the engineer used double the amount of steel cable than necessary. So, you can easily tell the Brooklyn Bridge apart from the other two based on how much more cable and wire it has.
Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise New York City ReviewI actually didn’t know the Harbour Lights cruise went around the Statue of Liberty, so I was pleasantly surprised when it was announced!

This picture is probably my favourite photo of the trip that I took. Lady Liberty looks so majestic and beautiful lit up like that.
Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise New York City ReviewOn the way back, our side of the boat faced Manhattan so I was able to take nicer city view photos. This is a photo of Lower Manhattan, featuring the World Trade Center building.

Since my mom and I didn’t go on any tours and just explored the city on our own, it was really nice to learn about NYC from an experienced tour guide. Throughout the evening, the tour guide told us fun and interesting facts about the city – hidden facts you wouldn’t really know.

To add to it even more, he had a really great sense of humour and I had a lot of laughs listening to his stories and facts! For me, that’s what made the sightseeing cruise so enjoyable and memorable. I would highly recommend taking this cruise, whether or not it’s your first time to the Big Apple!

Check out the NYC CityPASS for tickets to the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise!

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading,

Carmen

Media passes provided on behalf of CityPASS. Opinions are own. 


Filed Under: New York City, travel, USA Tagged: cruise, manhattan, new york city, night view, sightseeing, statue of liberty, sunset, sunset cruise, tour, tourists, travel, travel diary, vacation, viewpoint

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Hi and welcome to Curiously Carmen! I am Carmen, the girl behind the blog. You can read more about me here!

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