nyc food adventures

*this is from an email i wrote with some minor changes*

when sarah and i got to nyc we were pretty hungry. i was kinda disoriented and blanked out on where to go so decided we'd just walk around and find a place nearby the hotel (oddly enough the hotel didnt have a restaurant that served dinner... only breakfast)

we started walking and found a place called 'the Volstead'. it was more of a bar/lounge but looked really nice in there. the food was fine but sarah ordered this 'steak frites' and she didnt like it because it was too chewy. i told her not to order steak every time she goes somewhere but why would she listen to me? ofcourse my grilled tuna with stir fry was awesome.

bilu finally arrived in nyc after his epic adventure with northwest airlines... they cancelled his 11am flight from detroit due to a non-existent tornado in nyc and basically effed him around until he got on a 8pm flight. he met up with us and we all walked over to 53rd&6th. i had some of his food but unfortunately i had just eaten so i couldnt eat too much. it was good and talk about a long lineup!!

the next day (saturday) sarah and i ate at a 'cafe metro' for breakfast. nothing fancy it was a quick thing to eat. we met up with some friends and did a 'duck tour' around the city and into the hudson river. walked around a bit and decided to grab a bite before we all went to see lion king on boradway. they took us to a place called 'cafeteria'. at first i was like 'um what?!' but then they said it wasnt an actual cafeteria but a restaurant that got good reviews. we went there and the place was happening... but the waiters were extremely feminine. other than that and a long wait for our food i liked it. lion king was good by the way

on sunday, our friends invited us to brunch at some place called 'doves tail'. i had never heard of it but i wanted to go since they invited us. we show up to his fancy place... sarah, bilu and i were like shit we're underdressed haha. but we werent that underdressed really (since it was brunch) and we had an awesome meal there. that night my friends wanted to go to that kebob king place but i wasnt in the mood for desi food. plus they started singing that jingle for the place and that was a big turn-off haha. we went to a place called patsys pizzaria for some new york pizza and it was sooooo good. i loved it

monday is when we really started to eat at some iqballin' places. first we went to little italy for lunch and just randomly chose a place to eat. thankfully the three of us (sarah, bilu and me) enjoyed our food. i had this extremely tasty seafood risotto. i dunno why but i ate a lot of seafood while in nyc, just happened like that. the place was called Lunella. the reviews on tripadvisor.com are pretty crappy but we had a great experience there.

we hit up the brooklyn bridge but that day was beyond hot; very sticky and humid, we could barely handle being outside. we (sarah and me) eventually went back to the hotel and rested and showered up and then went to this place called Tao for dinner. it was insane in there. i told a coworker yesterday about it and she said she saw it on 'sex and the city'. i, thankfully, did not know about it from that show or i probably wouldnt have gone there. but it was crazy busy and the food was seriously fancy and effin' good. i was worried going for 'chinese food' but this place was the next level. great service and great food. the place was jam packed on a monday night too and by the time we left the place at 9pm there was a huge crowd waiting to be seated

on tuesday we went to gordon ramsay's restaurant 'maze' at the london hotel. it was a really nice place as expected. top notch service and the food was great. sarah ordered this seared tuna appetizer that she loved and i got the lobster bisque. they brought me a bowl with a lil itty bitty chunk of mashed up stuff in the middle and i sorta gave it a WTF look. after a dramatiq two seconds, they poured in the lobster soup stuff. it was really good. sarah got some chicken for her main and i got a super juicy ribeye steak. no complaints for sure. the dessert was above average... chocolate cake thing for sarah and cheesecake for me. we ended up swapping because we liked each others dessert better. i found that the cheesecake looked better than it tasted and maybe that threw me off. after the bill they gave us peanut brittle and these chocolate truffles. i think the peanut brittle was really good but i wouldnt know since sarah ate it all. the truffles were pimpin. that was a nice way to end the food aspect of our trip