Brooklyn

We returned to New York about 9pm to bitter coldness. DC was so mild and temperate that the reacquaintance with a New York winter was doubly harsh. The crush of people, the traffic, the bright city lights, was also a stark reminder that we had indeed returned to the Big Smoke.

Today we headed to Brooklyn, checking out the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and stalking every squirrel we could find (no, we don't have squirrels Down Under). Much of the gardens were iced over (including the Japanese lake looked over by an elegant pagoda) but it was still a pleasant wander.

Afterwards we had pizza at Grimaldi's, candidate #1 as New York's best pizza provider. Grimaldi's sits underneath Brooklyn Bridge, with red and white checked tableclothes, plenty of Hollywood photos on the walls and very cool metal stands to hold your giant 18" pizzas. The pizza was good. A thin crispy base topped with plenty of fresh mozzarella slices and adorned with a handful of fresh basil leaves.

Dessert was had at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory on the pier (their famous vanilla ice cream was a little sweet for me, but I've always been a fan of Blue Ribbon buttermilk) and a spicy hot chocolate (with chipotle chilli and spices) from Jacques Torres (a former pastry chef turned master chocolatier).

Jacques Torres has a whole dentists' retirement of sweet stuff with handmade chocolates as well as chocolate coated peanut butter pretzels, crystallised ginger, graham crackers and ever cheerios! There's a window too to watch them in production, but when we were there they were only packing boxes =(