Ice Cream for Dinner

The sun was shining again today – and it was a perfect, sunny New York day.

After breakfast we went to explore our local neighbourhood. We had a lunch reservation at 1:30pm in the Upper West Side so planned to hang around here for a bit before heading up that way.

We didn’t make it far before we stopped for coffee. We think this place was a fancy shop or something but we just liked the green seats and the cafe part looked cute. Yes, that’s how we decide where to stop for coffee. Colour and cuteness.

We sat here for about an hour I’d say, then had a bit more of a wander through Little Italy before getting on the Subway to Times Square.

Times Square really is a world away from the Lower East Side. It’s like it’s a different city. I mean, it’s kinda cool in its own way, but I wouldn’t want to stay near Times Square.

We decided to walk the rest of the way to our lunch, which by the way was at Momofuku.

We went past the Ed Sullivan theatre – back in 2009 we got to see a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman here which was cool. Now the Late Show is no more which is a bit sad. And the Hello Deli next to the theatre that David Letterman used to visit on the show is shut down and boarded up.

We found Momofuku which was located in a strange shopping mall. We were a bit worried it might not be good – again the last time we went to Momofuku was in 2009, and that was the East Village restaurant.

Anyway – we went in and it seemed nice . We opted for the Prix Fixe menu, which was clearly going to be too much food but how could we resist.

First up – cucumber salad and daikon salad

Then we got a Bao bun each. Steve got pork belly and I got shiitake mushroom

And then…a big bowl of pork belly ramen! It was really good! I nearly finished mine.

For dessert we got a large Miso and burnt butter cookie.

All in all a good and delicious experience. Would go again.

After lunch we were very full and so had to have a bit of a walk. Luckily we were headed for Central Park where walking is the main thing to do.

At Central Park I was desperate to see squirrels. They didn’t disappoint. They are so cute. I wish we had them in Perth.

We walked around a bit, it was really busy in the park today. We were feeling very tired after lunch so went and sat on a bench for about 2 hours.

There was a free concert happening in Central Park tonight and we were trying to stay awake to go to it. We really only wanted to see the first band – Sharp Pins.

At 5pm we headed over the concert site and realised it was much more elaborate than we thought. It was set up a like a real concert with food and drink vendors and all. And it was really popular – mostly with excited young people but there were a few oldies like us.

We chilled in the shade until Sharp Pins played, then went up closer to watch them. It was really quite hot in the sun. Sharp Pins were pretty good.

We considered sticking around to watch the other bands but it’s going to be a band heavy weekend so we decided to go get ice cream instead.

We walked through Central Park a bit more and saw some more squirrel cuties.

Once we left Central Park we walked through the swankiness of the Upper West Side until we found Salt and Straw Ice cream. We last had Salt and Straw in Portland, Oregon. They have lots of unusual flavours.

I got Salt & Caramel ribbons and Raspberry Marzipan Princess Cake (yeh I know!) and Steve got the salt and caramel too and pistachio and ricotta cannoli.

We sat outside and ate them and watched a family feed a small tub of ice cream to their dog whilst the dad repeatedly stood right in front of Steve with his bum in his face even though there was PLENTY of space for him to stand elsewhere. Weird rich people.