How Not to Eat Out in New York City (An Eatalian Meal)

Last weekend, Rob and I took a trip New York City. I thought Family Day was only a made-up holiday in Ontario, but it turned out February 21 was also President’s Day. Everyone had a long weekend!

I find eating through a cuisine a great way to learn about a new culture, which is what I typically do when I travel overseas. New York City is a foodie-paradise with abundant choices for high-end splurges, plentiful cheap eats, as well as a handful of grocery stores. Our main purpose for heading to New York City was a 9-course menu at Per Se, so I knew I had to save my stomach for the ultimate gastronomical experience.

So what’s the trick to eating healthy, plentiful meals while still wanting to experience everything NYC has to offer? I am sure not if we’ve mastered it just yet, but here are my tips to how NOT to eat out while in NYC.

The first step is to find yourself a kitchen, because that makes a world of difference. In a city where apartments are tiny, hotel rooms are equally as small and ridiculously expensive. We stayed at the Affinia Manhattan, across from Penn Station, with huge rooms and reasonable rates (we paid $139/night + tax). However, the main advantage is that each room has a kitchen, complete with a fridge/freezer, oven/stove, microwave, toaster and utensils/plates/cutlery. If you don’t have access to a kitchen, you may need to become more creative, storing food in the minibar, bringing cutlery/plastic containers, etc.

I will admit that we visited more grocery and food stores while we were in NYC than anything else, but that’s what we like! Trader Joe’s is great for picking up breakfast items. I bought some quick-cook steel cut oats (what an oxymoron, but true to the advertising they cooked up in 7 minutes over the stovetop) and we added some dried blueberries and bananas for a delicious breakfast. We picked up some apples, edamame hummus and baby carrots for snacks. Arugula and artichoke antipasto spread were bought for sandwiches. Other travelling-friendly breakfast options sans-stovetop would be granola overtop yogurt and fruit or overnight oats.

After Trader Joe’s, the next stop was Eataly, the upscale Mario Batali Italian superstore.  My main purpose was to buy mosto cotto, a condensed balsamic vinegar made with reduced Concord grapes (any clue where to buy this in Toronto?). While the prices are not cheap, Eataly is a good place to pick up high-quality items for sandwiches.

Armed with a loaf of “rustic” fig bread (slightly sweet from the figs), 18-month-aged prosciutto (nicely flavoured), and taleggio (a mild cow’s milk creamy, soft cheese), we had the fixins for a super sandwich. With a limited number of ingredients, quality is the defining factor of your sandwich. I found the flavours worked really well, with the slightly sweet bread topped with the silky artichoke dip.  Next, we topped it with overflowing arugula, laid a slice or two of prosciutto and lastly added a few pieces of silky, melt-in-your-mouth taleggio cheese.  All the ingredients lasted us a few meals with some food left over to bring back to Canada (the artichoke surprisingly did not set off the alarms at the airport, hehe). For a vegetarian option, roasted red peppers could be substituted for the prosciutto and for vegans, the cheese could easily be omitted.

I will also give due credit to the most wondrous milk we bought at Eataly – Soloriso basmati rice milk. With a delicate smooth flavour, I never knew rice milk could taste so good. With a side of edamame hummus and carrots, this is how a foodie does not eat out in NYC.

Where we ate elsewhere in NYC:

Ess-A-Bagel – There are Montreal-style bagels and New York-style bagels. When in NYC, you should  try New York-style bagels. Ess-A-Bagel is well-known for its huge, fluffy bagels (12 different varieties including whole wheat everything), and also serves up vegan-friendly tofu-spread in lieu of cream cheese (the traditional cream cheeses are there too, including the delectable lox cream cheese). The bagels are packed with filling, and 1 bagel could easily serve 2.

Alan’s Falafel – Battle of the street cart food falafel in NYC creates the most lusciously moist falafel with minimal grease. Get it in a wrap, a salad or combo spread with lettuce, tomato, hummus and a sesame dipping sauce. Can’t say I’ve compared it to Sam’s, but Alan’s was mighty tasty.

Candle Cafe – A long-time favourite vegan resto with a focus on local, organic foods. The collard rolls are a must-try!

Other worthwhile food-related places to visit in NYC:

Kalustyan’s – For all your kitchen desires, spices, vinegars, beans.. let’s just say I was stopped by the bean section, and didn’t really make it to any other floor (I think there are 3 levels). (Thanks for the tip, Joanne!)

Essex Street Market – For down-to-earth fresh produce and condiments

Chelsea Market – A bit too upscale for me (can you say not affordable?) but a cute, artsy renovated warehouse housing upscale gourmet food vendors, with the Food Network located upstairs

This is my submission for this month’s My Kitchen, My World, featuring Italian cuisine, and to Deb for this week’s Souper Sundays.

Asiago Crusted Baked Zucchini Sticks

Zucchini is a very versatile vegetable which is great when gardens are overflowing with zucchini. Sadly, I don’t have a garden, YET.  I have a balcony, still devoid of plant life, but no backyard, courtesy of living in an apartment. I was *this close* to signing up for a shareable backyard garden through Sharing Backyards or the Yes In My Backyard through The Stop Community Food Centre. But my mom convinced me not to do it this year as the backyards were a bit further than in my immediate neighbourhood. Our compromise will be a deep dish herb garden for my balcony. However, zucchinis won’t fit in there. It won’t stop me from buying them, though.

Adapted from Closet Cooking, this is an interesting way to bake zucchini into fries. Zucchini is cut into sticks, coated in egg and dredged in Asiago cheese and (panko) bread crumbs mixed with smoked paprika and oregano. My Asiago cheese was freshly grated and I found it a bit difficult to stick to the zucchini when in a 1:1 ratio with the breadcrumbs, so I diluted it with more bread crumbs which helped. I liked the extra smokey flavour brought by the paprika into the crunchy coating. A bonus for this recipe is that the zucchini is baked, not fried. Perfect as a side, and if you make big pieces, great for dipping into a marinara or tzatziki sauce as a appetizer.

This is my submission to Preeti’s Green Gourmet Event at W’Rite’ Food and my second submission to this week’s Blogger Secret Ingredient event, featuring Paprika, hosted by PreventionRD, and this month’s Side Dish Showdown.