Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Daily Eats & Struggles! January 5th & 6th

These past few days I've been very busy... you'd think it would be easy to find a decent place to live in NYC, but think again! It actually takes a pain staking amount of work. If it weren't for the poor insulation in this building (and lack of heat), we'd never be moving again already, as we just did last January. So understandably my eats have been all over the map... Here's what I had yesterday...

For breakfast I tried one of the new Luna protein bars. I had tried the cookie dough one the other day (see here), but this time I tried the peanut butter one. I thought it was really good! It almost tasted like a Reese's peanut butter cup!


For lunch I tried out a new asian restaurant in the village... I say "new" because it is relatively new, and I've never been there before. I walk by it often, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's called Ritz Asia on Bleecker St. (b/w 6th Ave. & MacDougal St.).

For starters I tried their vegetarian spring rolls. These were good, although they were very generic and NOTHING like the description on the menu (which is really weird!).


The waitress told me they made vegetarian steamed dumplings, even though they aren't on the menu. So I figured I'd give them a try. You can imagine my surprise when 2 small dumplings arrived on my plate with no sauce to even dip them in! When I asked they told me to use the spring roll sauce! These were pretty good, but charging me $6 for 2 dumplings is criminal.


Since I was obviously not full from what I had just eaten, I decided to get dessert. Big mistake. I never thought I could dislike cheesecake, and mango cheesecake sounded interesting. But alas... First of all, it took them FOREVER to bring this to me. Their service was miserably slow (which is shameful considering I was one of the only two people in the whole restaurant!!), and this is weird considering most asian restaurants are SUPER fast! But worst still was that the cheesecake was kind of frozen and had this odd texture. It was supposed to come with fruit too, but they didn't give me any. I mean, why bother?! (I was so angry I felt like making a run for it when the bill came! lol)


Suffice to say I will not be going back to Ritz Asia. In fact I hope they close down and they put up another Wild Ginger in their place!!! :) The service and food sucked (oh, and there was this weird perfumey smell too to top it all off!), and I now see why there was no one there during peak lunch hour. It's a shame too because it's a pretty big restaurant and the location is nice. Oh well, this Veggie Girl will not be returning!!

So anyway, with all this stress, plus hormonal issues (aka "that time of the month") gave me a SPLITTING headache yesterday. I ate next to nothing the rest of the day, and the french toast my Mom made me for dinner I couldn't keep down. But I did manage to take a few pictures of Peanut! He looks like a little wooly bear with his winter coat! :)





Luckily I felt better today. I was very hungry this morning since I had nothing in my stomach, so I made myself a Food for Life cinnamon raisin english muffin topped with PB&J and had some orange juice with it.


I stayed in most of the day, on the internet and the phone looking for apartments. After yesterday's disappointment, I decided to order the reliable... spring rolls and pineapple fried rice from Qi Asian Eatery! They deliver & they're cheap. God bless them.



After I got back home from Tribeca (where I was apartment hunting), I made this CedarLane omelette thing that I found at Fairway. It's an egg white omelette with spinach and mushrooms and you can microwave it! It was pretty good, although it didn't cook that evenly. Oh well, I was hungry and ate it anyway (along with an orange - not pictured).


To get my chocolate fix I had a Cadbury Double Decker bar. These are AWESOME. And I love that you can find UK chocolates in some Manhattan grocery stores. I had eaten some of it for my snack on the way downtown, and had the rest after dinner.


For my snack tonight I made a favorite... my almond parfait. I use a container of Fage 0% greek yogurt, mix in some maple syrup and a dash of vanilla extract, then add in some chocolate chips and sliced almonds. And I top it off with some amber agave nectar!


I got this idea from that nut Bethenny Frankel. She eats two bites of everything (if you read her book "Naturally Thin"), but hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day! lol She has some good ideas too. :)

So my goal is to find an apartment this week. Then comes the packing, then the moving. And we'd better hit the lottery somewhere in between to pay for it all! That's all for now! ;)

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Brunch & Bitter Cold (January 3rd)

Today I decided to venture up to the Upper West Side (and in this cold, it is quite a trek from downtown Manhattan). I wanted to go to Fairway Market (since I haven't been in ages), plus I was in the mood for french toast and wanted to try a new place for brunch. Now I have lived in NY all my life (except for 5 brief months when I lived in California when I was modeling), and I literally can't remember a winter that has been THIS cold. It is absolutely bitter cold... below freezing, day after day! When I got off the subway, there was wind and snow to contend with as well! I literally couldn't even find my way to the restaurant! But eventually I got there... I had brunch at Josephina (at Broadway & West 63rd St.). It stems from the same restaurant branch that owns Josie's East (where I used to go all the time back when I lived on the east side), and Josie's West (I've been there once before, see here). By the time I finally found the restaurant, I was starving!

Luckily they brought me food right away! I loved the bread basket... there were cute mini muffins and they gave me delicious jam to spread on them too!


I got their brioche french toast and orange juice (not pictured). This is the best french toast I think I've ever gotten at a restaurant... and they were really generous with all the fruit they gave me too (as you can see).


I was full until dinner after the brunch I had... Josephina is a really lovely restaurant... the atmosphere, the service, and the french toast is out of this world!!

For dinner Mom made a vegetarian quiche. She substituted meat for mushrooms.


I had 2 pieces, along with an orange (not pictured).


For my snack tonight I tried one of the new Luna protein bars. I had never even seen these before until I saw them on Ada's blog. She told me she got them at Fairway, and lo and behold, that's where they've been hiding! (Because I've never seen these ANYWHERE before.) I tried the cookie dough flavor, because I usually love anything cookie dough. It was good, and I'll definitely buy it again, but it could've been a little better. These reminded me a bit of the cookie dough Slim-Fast bars. Still, I think I like them better than the regular Luna bars... I have a peanut butter one to try too!


I also had a Wallaby "down under" peach yogurt. Peanut is a fan of yogurt, especially anything peach. Speaking of which...


Peanut has been taking this cold weather like a trooper! And you have no other choice in my apartment, being that it's over the garage so it's ALWAYS cold. God help the poor souls who take over this place when we leave at the end of the month!!





This week I'll be apartment hunting, so I'll update when I can to let you all know how it goes! The sad part is that it's not supposed to get above freezing all week. :( Can anyone send me some plane tickets to Hawaii?! I hear it's great this time of year and I may even get to meet the president too! lol

Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Year! January 1st 2010!

Happy New Year everybody! Still can't believe it's 2010. I watched the ball drop on TV last night, followed by some old Honeymooner episodes! Mom made some Bacardi mixers (lol), but neither one of us got drunk per-se. More like mildly tipsy. This was good, because I had to actually pull myself together this morning to get ready for the blog lunch, which was hosted by the lovely Lynn from The Actor's Diet blog. It was a pleasure meeting her and the other bloggers. So, without further adieu, here are my first eats of 2010!! :)

I woke up early-ish this morning despite being up late, so I made a belgian waffle that I got from the Westside Market the other day. I topped it with a little butter & maple syrup and had orange juice with it.


The blog lunch was at noon at Spring Street Natural in Soho (at the corner of Spring & Layafette St.). I was the first one there, as I'm only 2 subway stops away! But soon the rest of the bloggers showed up. There were supposed to be 7 of us, but ended up being 5. I almost liked the fact that there were less of us, because sometimes I think at really huge blog meet-ups, you don't get to have as good of a conversation with everybody!

We started off with the lovely bread basket...


For my entree I ordered the frittata... it was very good, but I thought it would be thicker. It was basically just eggs with broccoli & other veggies in it. (Oh, and that's a dollop of ricotta cheese on top.)


My frittata also came with a side order of fries... I only ate some of them because even though they were good, they were too soggy for my liking.


After lunch, I walked back some of the way home with Ada from the NYCollegEats blog. (I had previously met her at the October blog dinner at Quantum Leap.) She wanted to stop by Baked By Melissa, the mini cupcake place in Soho. When she got her cupcakes I couldn't resist getting some too! I chose these flavors: cookies & cream, cookie dough (which I got 2 of), s'mores, red velvet cake, and cinnamon (a new holiday flavor!). They are delicious, although not the best value (6 tiny cupcakes are $5.50!).


When I got home, Peanut was playing his usual bathroom games. (Note how he always looks NOT pleased about being caught. haha)



For dinner I had an Amy's Baked Ziti bowl, along with an orange. (I also had a small piece of chocolate after dinner - not pictured.)


I was still quite hungry tonight, so my snack was more like a breakfast! I had a Food for Life cinnamon raisin ezekiel english muffin with pb & j, and a Stoneyfield peach super smoothie (which Peanut LOVES btw!).



And finally, Lynn was very prompt in sending us e-mails with the picture of us from the lunch today. I'd like to thank Lynn again for everything!! Here's the pic of us, along with a list of the bloggers that attended.




Nathalie ~ Freddie



I had a lot of fun! I want to arrange a meet-up one of these days too... maybe after I move! That's all for today!