Shop 'til you drop

For a girl who loves her factory outlets, Woodbury Common is a scene of plastic fanatastic. Sunday was spent entirely at Woodbury Common, an hour's drive north of New York City, and home to a staggering 220 factory outlet shops.

The shops are stand-alone "shacks" in a bizarre ski-village type setting amidst the mountains. There are four giant parking lots and enough reduced tags to send any sensible shopper into an adrenalin-frenzy.

There was regular watch checking with reference to map movements (you really could get lost out here) and more than a couple of shopping bags were filled.

Monday involved another day trip, this time to Hoboken, New Jersey (now stop laughing New Yorkers). From what I can gather, New Jerseyans are oft looked down upon, mainly for their lack of driving skills in a population-bereft state (compared to New York).

The PATH train begins at the World Trade Centre, and we had a contemplative visit to the Twin Towers site beforehand. It's hard to fathom the events of that day and the timelines, people's stories and memorial plaques were all touching and sobering.

We had actually chosen to take a PATH train just so we could head through the World Trade Centre site, as the subway no longer stops at Cortlandt Street. There were some great views of the Financial District on the other side of the river in Hoboken, and we were pleasantly surprised by the wealth of eating options.

We found a fantastic wholefoods eatery, the Frozen Monkey Cafe, which makes all its own spreads, uses artisan bread and sources hand-made mozzarella. My grilled panini with arugula (rocket), roasted peppers, fresh mozzarella and pesto was divine, and I had the black bean soup which was thick, chunky and deliciously spicy.

Our freshly made blueberry pancakes were absolutely chockful of blueberries although we weren't so enamoured with our roasted almond fudge Tasty D-Lite ice-cream, which tasted of marzipan (bleargh).

Coming back to the World Trade Centre, we foolishly joined the Christmas crush at Century 21, the bargain department store for all New Yorkers. It was utter chaos and confusion. I have no idea what we were thinking!

The Met and GC Oyster Bar

A day at the Met today, a huge feat for any first-time visitor. The Met is huge. The information booth is manned by twelve staff members for pete's sake.

We checked in our bags and coats, only to return a minute later to relaim them again. Since the Met was open until late, we instead started off with a trip to The Cloisters, an hour's bus ride away in Fort Tryon Park, Upper Manhattan, and included in the price of our Met admission.

Devoted to the art of medieval Europe, there were sculptures, tombs, restored arches and jewellery, and an impressive series of unicorn tapestries.

Lunch was had back at the Met cafeteria, with a surprisingly tempting array of hot foods and help-yourself salads.

We did a whirlwind tour of the Met, concentrating mainly on Modern Art, Egypt (amazing Temple of Dendur), the Rara Avis costumes exhibition (from the eccentric fashionista Iris Barrel Apfel) and a fascinating exhibition on Spanish artist and architect, Santiago Calatrava.

A day of culture could only be concluded with a visit to the Grand Central Oyster Bar. I had the Grand Central Oyster Platter, a sampler of eight oysters which were unfortunately unlabelled and our waitress' eye could not be captured. The oysters, I could see from the menu, could have come from Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, Rhode Island or Oregon. In fact they had 30 varieties available on that day's hand-written menu.

The Oyster Bar is famous for its smoked sturgeon, trout and salmon, but for my main I had the Maine Lobster Roll, a dish which had always intrigued me (lobster in a sandwich?). The lobster was surprisingly tasty, a whole lobster tail torn into chunky pieces, smothered in a light sweet mayonnaise and served in a soft hot-dog like bun. The side dish sweet potato chips were wafer thin and crispy (a littly oily by the end of it) and the Jamaican coleslaw was an intriguing mix of shredded carrot and grated apple? methinks.

My friends had the New England clam chowder, the medley of shellfish, broiled Bluepoint oysters and the Coquille St Jacques (gratineed scallops).

Dessert was a shared key lime pie which was sweet and refreshing, although not as tart as I had anticipated.

Afterwards we checked out the Christmas window displays at Saks Fifth Avenue (would you believe we had to queue for about 10 minutes?) which told a story of individuality, harmony and peace. Then there was the mesmerising light show of giant stars on the Saks facade, illuminating and flashing in time to a booming heart-fluttering classical soundtrack (what was that tune?).

Down the block was the Rockefeller Centre, filled with shrieking whooping ice skaters under the giant Christmas tree. And wouldn't you believe it, we were there at midnight when a guy got down on bended knee. Awww... (and yes, of course she did).

The Girls Who Ate Everything

Meeting up with other food bloggers is always fun... you know you will have tooooonnnnnes in common: there'll be restaurant gossip, foodie musings, unashamed dessert pinings and whenever there's food, there'll be a simultaneous reach for the camera.

I met Robyn for the first time today, a New York City food blogger whose foodie adventures I've been following for some time. She suggested we meet at Economy Candy on Rivington Street.

One push of the door and sweet tooth heaven beckoned. Walls of shelving held jars of individual sweets, boxes of chocolate and aisle upon aisle of sucrose, fructose and chocolate satisfaction. There were old-school Lucky candy cigarettes (long outlawed in Australia), Pop Rocks, gobstoppers, giant one-metre Pez dispensers, Jelly Bellies and they even sell M&M's by individual colour!

I spotted Violet Crumbles and Crunchies here too, both Australian bars of chocolate-covered honeycomb. Robyn was spotted immediately and we headed out for a bite to eat.

After a brief meandering tour of Rivington Street, we finally found Robyn's restaurant of choice, El Castillo de Jagua, a specialist in Dominican cuisine. The dishes were unsurprisingly meaty. We shared two dishes: roast pork and an oxtail stew. Each came with gigantic plates of rice (we both chose yellow rice over white) and I threw in a last-minute side order of fried plantain bananas as well.

The papaya juice had been highly recommended and when it came out it was thick, frothy and somewhat painfully sweet. There was way too much food and even Robyn had to give up after valiantly consuming 2/3 of her rice. The rice was tasty. The waitress said it was only yellow from food colouring and nothing else was added, and although it looked like basmati it almost had the sweet sticky texture of short-grain glutinous rice.

Pork was meaty and the crackling was generous. The oxtail stew was tender and the plantain bananas were delicious at first, but the taste of lard started to coat my tongue by the third mouthful.

We rolled out of the restaurant bloated and replete. We could not fit in another thing... until the mention of dessert opened the emergency stomach.

Robyn led the way to her favourite dessert destination, Sugar Sweet Sunshine; an alliterative cafe name which begged the corners of the mouth to creep upwards in joyous anticipation.

There were plenty of things to crow about in the cosy cafe and bakery: a display cabinet filled with perfectly decorated cupcakes, a shelf of puddings, and an array of biscuits, slices and gourmet teas. It was enough to make you skip around the room with delight.

We must've spent at least ten minutes drooling over the choices... there was much pondering, deliberation, elimination and finally negotiation. We ended up sharing so we could double our dessert bases.

A slice of peanut butter ice box pie was had--a nutty gooey concoction of happiness in a sugar-encrusted buttery pastry base; as well as a pistachio cupcake, a delicate fluffy peak of perfection, swirled with pretty buttercream icing and sliced open to reveal genuine pistachio green within.

Our forks dug in greedily and as the last crumbs disappeared over mouthfuls of ginger and lemongrass tea, Robyn commented that "It's really bizarre but I feel like I could start eating all over again".

She was right. I felt exactly the same way.

The Lower East Side

New York's Lower East Side is packed with history. It's long been home to thousands of hard-working immigrants, and it's estimated that 80% of New Yorkers can trace their roots back to the LES.

We visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum today, a fascinating look into the heritage-listed buildings on Orchard Street. A tenement simply means a building for lots of people, and in the 1870s they sprung up like wildfire here in the rapidly burgeoning garment district.

The rooms have been restored to different time periods and not only was it sobering trying to imagine 8 people living in a one-bedroom apartment, but the resourcefulness and resilience of the people here was much admired too. Leather-look wallpaper was achieved by lacquering potato sacks on walls, and the decorative plaster motifs on the walls are wonky because they were handpiped with a piping bag, rather than using a mould.

We attended both tours: "Getting By -- Immigrants Weathering Hard Times" and "Piecing It Together -- Immigrants in the Garment Industry".

Like most immigrant gateways around the world, the LES has come full-circle and what was once rundown and undesired is now hip and happening and escalating in rental prices. Much of this is apparent in the types of shops now proliferating the neighbourhood, but as always, I only had eyes for the food.

I loved the idea of Gus' Pickles, a shop entirely devoted to pickles, gherkins, sauerkraut and olives. The sidewalk was crammed with giant 5-foot-high pickle barrels and the friendly female vendor was more than happy to provide free samples.

We did some serious taste-testing at The Donut Plant, which offers a peek into their kitchen producing a mouth-watering array of both yeast and cake donuts. I had the vanilla bean yeast donut which was good but even better was their coconut cream donut--a square of yeast donut filled with milky coconut cream and dunked in a freshly shaved coconut encrusted glaze. Two sticky thumbs up.

If I'd had more room I would've investigated the pomegranate donut (with a crown of ruby red jewels), the Valrohna chocolate donut, the custard one, the sticky bun, the .... drool. The donuts are a little pricey at about $2 but hey, welcome to New York right?

Two doors down was Kossar's Bialy, maker of the bagels little cousin, the bialy. A small circle of chewy goodness encrusted with enough garlic to repel all of Transylvania. Guaranteed vampire security for only 50 cents. Bargain.

We had lunch at Broomedoggs, a nifty hot dog joint with a long benchtop of DIY fixin's. I had the bratwurst pork sausage in a bun, a modest-looking affair served in a square cardboard box. Getting $5 worth was easy, piling my bun high with mounds of sauerkraut, pickle slices, chopped onion, and lashing of relish and mustard.

Did someone say mustard? There was mustard relish, ketchup relish, spicy mustard, honey mustard, cajun spice, chilli flakes, celery salt, sriracha chilli sauce, potato chip dust (crushed up potato chips!) and pineapple cumin mustard. And damned if I didn't manage to get every single variant onto my sausage in a bun (the pineapple cumin mustard was the clear favourite by far).

This was knocked back with a bottle of genuine root beer and followed up with a visit to Il Laboratorio del Gelato. Oft worshipped by NYC foodies for their scientific approach to innovative flavourings, we were disappointed to find that their famous dark chocolate gelato wasn't on offer today. I had the grape sorbet which came in a goregous deep crimson colour, and the toasted sesame, which tasted much like a sesame snap converted into ice cream. Both were very tasty.

My buddies sampled pear, mango and the honey lavendar as well. The lavendar flavour really came through although eating lavendar always makes me think I'm nibbling on a perfumed drawer liner, but maybe that's just me.

There was a pit-stop too at Babycakes as well-- a pretty cupcake parlour with gluten-free goodies. And you think that was it? Ha. I had yet to meet up with Robyn. You think I eat everything? She eats more.