Eating Out NYC

The best part about being in New York by myself was I got to eat where I wanted to.  I felt like Madeline, a little person in a big city.  I didn't have anyone telling me, "Really, that ramen place? This ramen place is better" or "I really feel like eating pizza."  I made all the executive decisions and I loved it! It did get old second guessing myself on what to order and the benefits of tasting your dining companions meal is out of question.  Also conversations with yourself do not fully drown out the other conversations of others around you. Nonetheless, I had a good time entertaining for one.


My goal was to eat at places that I owned the cookbooks.  For the most part I was quite successful. I didn't eat in the hotel where I was staying and I sure as fuck didn't get my coffee from Starbucks.  I walked everywhere within thirty minutes of where ever I was. My souvenirs from this trip were menus, coasters and cookies that I bubble wrapped before they went into my luggage.

Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop located in the Gotham West Market. I can daydream about that egg all day.  It was perfect. 

Baohaus. Eddie Huang doesn't have a cookbook, however, I do own an advanced copy of Fresh Off the Boat, his memoir. 

Momofuku Milk Bar.  I ate at the Midtown location every morning. After I ate at Baohaus, I took a cab back to Midtown and a quick right turn revealed there was another Milk Bar in SoHo.  I gasped in and was quickly sad because I could have gotten dessert.  

Totto Ramen: It was like I was in Japan.

The Breslin. Where your cocktail cost more than your meal at least that was my story. Ever since I saw April Bloomfield make a Scotch Egg on Mind of a Chef, I decided that I was going to have try it. I sat at the bar because I was too embarrassed to sit at a table for one and I probably looked cooler sitting at the bar with a $14 cocktail and an $8 meal. The person sitting next to to me was fucking disrespectful. First off he blew the smoke from his vape pen right in my face. Second, he ordered a Sauv Blanc, a grown ass man at a cocktail bar.  Then he asks me if the sausage in the scotch egg was made of bacon.  He ordered the boiled peanuts.