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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

Tasty Hand-Pulled Lanzhou Noodle, New York City

June 19, 2016

Since I’ve gotten back from New York, people have asked what my favourite moments there was. Undeniably, the Empire State Building, Matilda the musical, and visiting all the urban parks were at the top of the list!

But what about food? Would you believe me if I told you it was this small, dingy, hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Chinatown called Tasty Handpulled Noodle? Perhaps it’s the noodle crazed fanatic in me talking, but I still constantly think about this place and how delicious their hand-pulled noodles were.

Tasty1House special noodle soup, $8.50: For $8.50, this bowl was definitely worth the price and so filling.
Tasty2Beef noodle soup, $7.25: I ordered the beef noodle soup because I don’t really like tendon.

The star of the show here is definitely the hand made and hand pulled noodles. Each noodle bowl is made fresh to order. Your noodles start from a lump of dough, and once you specify the type of noodle you want, you can see the worker in the kitchen pulling and cutting the noodles before throwing it in the boiling hot water.

The noodles had a great chewy texture, and were pretty thick too. The slightly ribbed edges of the noodles allowed for the beef broth to soak inside, which led to a very delicious taste in your mouth!
Tasty3Roast duck noodle soup, $7.75: We both loved this place so much and couldn’t stop thinking about it after lunch, so we came back for dinner the same day. Yup, we loved the noodles that much and the price made it even better!

Instead of ordering the beef noodle soup again, we decided on trying the roast duck noodle soup. The base and noodles were the same, the only difference is that it came with duck instead of beef. I actually liked the duck more than the beef because it was more tender and had more flavour.
Tasty4Here is a photo of the chef pulling the dough to create the delicious noodles!

Tasty noodle, you were DEFINITELY tasty! Don’t judge a book by its cover or you’ll miss out on some delicious noodles. Give this place a try if you’re ever in New York City’s Chinatown neighbourhood!

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading,

Carmen


Filed Under: chinese, food & drink, New York City, travel Tagged: asian, asian food, chinatown, chinese, chinese food, food, food blogger, food lover, foodie, new york city, noodles, nyc, travel, travel blog

Five Senses Korean Restaurant, New York City

May 24, 2016

I don’t know why, but the name Five Senses reminds me of a scary movie kinda? Weird! Anyways, after a day of exploring NYC and going up the Empire State Building (read my tips on visiting the world famous landmark here!), my mom and I were super hungry. We normally look up restaurants in the area beforehand, but this time, we decided to just wander around the neighbourhood and find a restaurant that caught our eye.
FSWe walked by Five Senses, and it looked pretty busy so we gave the menu a quick look. After seeing the high ratings on Yelp, we decided to try it! I’m glad we came here before the dinner rush because there was a pretty long line up afterwards.

Oh yeah, turns out that we were actually wandering around Koreatown, which explained why there were so many Korean restaurants around us =P
FS1Banchan, free: The banchan was pretty much the same as what you would get in Vancouver. However, I’ve never seen the clear, cold noodles mixed with veggies on the far right before. That was probably my favourite dish out of all of these. The noodles were served a bit chilled, and had a really strong sesame oil taste to it! The kimchi packed a lot of heat as well.
FS2Sul lang tang, $12.99: I honestly don’t know why I keep ordering beef bone stock soup when it usually isn’t that tasty. I’ve come to accept the fact that Korean beef bone soup is usually pretty flavourless, and this was pretty much the same. On the right hand side of the photo, you can see the salt that it comes with, but I had to ask for another plate of it because it still wasn’t enough.

On the plus side, there was a generous amount of noodles and beef, even though the beef was overcooked in the broth. Each spoonful was met with many beef slices, and there was more meat than noodles which was great!
FS3Soondubu, $13.99: I had wanted to order this as well, but wasn’t really feeling like anything spicy. This is the seafood tofu soup. It came with a generous amount of tofu and seafood, and was super filling. We found it to have a good amount of spice to it as well. Overall, a really comforting and delicious dish!

Service was really fast and attentive, which is always a plus. However, since there was a line up, we did feel as though we were being rushed to leave and didn’t really feel like we truly enjoyed our food as much as we could have. But I understand, if I was waiting in line I would hope that the other customers eat quickly as a courtesy!

Thanks for reading,
Carmen

Five Senses Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: korean, New York City, travel, USA Tagged: food, food blog, food blogger, food review, foodie, korea, korean, new york city, nyc

Candle 79, New York City

May 18, 2016

While looking up places to eat in New York, I came across Candle 79. Even though I am not vegan, I wanted to try a vegan place because it’s really nice and relaxing to walk in to a restaurant and not have to stress over whether something contains dairy in it or not. As well, Candle 79 had really great reviews, so how could I pass it up?
Candle 79, Vegan Restaurant New York CitySo, after an afternoon of exploring Central Park and The Met museum, we explored the Upper East Side and went to Candle 79!

As mentioned above, Candle 79 is a completely vegan restaurant. None of their menus or signage advertise this, but I had found it under the vegan section on Yelp and the server confirmed that everything here is vegan. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge meat lover, so vegan or vegetarian food takes a lot to impress me. Let’s see how they did!
Candle 79, Vegan Restaurant New York CityWe were still pretty full from our lunch at Blue Dog, but didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to try this place. Since we already had plans for the rest of the trip and wouldn’t be in this area of NYC again, we decided on just having a small snack to at least try something!

Angel’s nachos, $16: Made with corn chips, ‘mozarella’, chili beans, tofu sour cream, and guacamole. The mozarella is the dairy & soy alternative from Daiya, which you may have seen in grocery stores. For nachos that don’t have real cheese, this was delicious. The tofu sour cream tasted like real sour cream, while there was a very generous portion of guacamole. The corn chips were really crunchy and thick as well.

The one thing I didn’t really like was the chipotle seitan. Seitan is a vegetarian meat alternative, made from wheat. I found it have the texture of tofu puffs, and didn’t really match the taste or texture of meat to me. So, I ate everything else which was delicious!
Candle 79, Vegan Restaurant New York CityHousemade ice cream sampler, $9: The nachos were already really filling considering we weren’t hungry to begin with, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to have ICE CREAM. I was already sold when our server told us it was made with rich coconut milk. I’ve been deprived of ice cream for soooo long.

The chef’s selection that day was the strawberry coconut soy, mango, and vanilla chocolate. THEY WERE SO GOOD. Seriously guys, it was soo creamy from the coconut milk that you can’t even tell it’s dairy free. To this day, I am still thinking and wishing that I had Candle 79’s ice cream again.

My favourite was the strawberry, and I found myself savouring every creamy bite. The mango, although it was called a ‘sorbet’, was really creamy and tasted deliciously creamy as well. I found the vanilla chocolate to be too sweet, and that one melted quite fast, while the other two didn’t melt.


Whether you are vegan or not, Candle 79 is a delicious restaurant and worth trying out. I will continue to think about their vegan ice cream over and over again, especially since the weather is getting hotter now.

Thanks for reading!

Carmen

Candle 79 Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: dessert, food & drink, New York City, travel, USA, vegetarian/vegan Tagged: dairy free, food, food blogger, food lover, foodie, ice cream, nachos, new york, new york city, nyc, vegan, vegetarian

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

Hello!

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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