New York City Birthday Trip!!

Ron knows I love NYC. Love it. I would actually live there if I could make that possible. So one day he asked me to make a list of all the places I'd like to visit in New York. Since I've been there many times, I've seen all the major sights of the city. BUT, there were a TON of foodie places I had always wanted to visit. Places I had read about in magazines or had seen on The Food Network. So for my birthday he took me to NYC! :) He took me on a tour of three of these "foodie" places that I had been dreaming of visiting. Starting with Chelsea Market in the meatpacking district. Chelsea Market is underneath The Food Network Studios. Chelsea Market is an enormous Wholesale/Retail Food complex that takes up an entire city block. In 1898 it was the original Nabisco Bakery where the Oreo Cookie was created. It now houses 12 of New York City's finest specialty food shops. We took a tour of the market and we learned about its history, viewed original artwork and granite sculptors from local New York artists, and learned how it became the ultimate indoor food paradise.

After taking a three hour tour of the market we decided to take the subway uptown to the upper west side. I had heard about Levain Bakery on the Food Network when Bobby Flay challenged them to a Throwdown a while back. Supposedly they make the best chocolate chips cookies. So I had been dying to try their famous cookies!! So we traveled up about 60 blocks to this small basement bakery, Levain. When we walked in we saw these HUGE cookies and noticed that they were $4 each! A lot for us "non-city" people ;)

As you can see Ron LOVED his oatmeal cookie. So my verdict is...these cookies are THE BEST COOKIES I'VE EVER HAD!! :) I had the chocolate chip walnut cookie. And yes, we did pay $4 for each of them. So worth it though...so very worth it. After we visited Levain Bakery we decided to head across town, through Central Park to Serendipity 3. I had seen this restaurant in a movie once (Serendipity) and thought it was so cute! We had tried to visit it on another trip to NYC a few years ago but it was closed for renovations. We decided to try and see if we could get a table, knowing very well that probably not. So we took the city bus across town to 60th street between 2nd and 3rd avenues. When we got there we were told the wait would be an hour and a half to get a table for dinner. So we put in our name and took a seat on an outside bench to wait. We waited only 20 minutes and the Maitre d' came out and asked us our name and we were in!! We were so pumped! The menus were HUGE. I ordered a cheddarburger (I know simple, right). No way! It was so delicious. The outside crust of the burger had a great crispiness to it. They must have seared it really well. It really was the best burger I've ever had. really. the best.

We had to finish our trip with Serendipity's famous Frozen Hot Chocolate with peanut butter. It was Divine! So very good.

I had a wonderful time in New York for my birthday. It was a blast tyring new foods and visiting places I had only seen on TV. Thanks to my very sweet husband for planning this day for me, babysitter and all (thank you mom!!). I love you so much.