New York - The Village

We spent our second last week in the West Village, staying at a gorgeous apartment right in the middle, near Magnolia Bakery and the Bleeker Street Playground, on West Eleventh Street.  It was a great location - strolling distance from the main Bleeker Street shops, within a few blocks of dozens of great bars and restaurants, across the road from a playground for Tabitha, and right near two separate Subway lines.

Having the park was brilliant - last week Tabitha really started to walk with assistance (e.g. holding our hands) and it is ALL she wants to do!  So having loads of space (with nice spongy padded rubber playground flooring) was wonderful.  She also loves climbing, and watching children play, so it was great all round.

I've bought Tabby a few pairs of jeans over here - they look so cute, I don't want to dress her in anything else!  Except that, since I myself tend to wear jeans and a blue top, and now Tabitha wears jeans and a blue top, we are a very Matching Family:

Tabitha has a small pink plastic hairbrush belonging to a My Little Pony (part of the Fun and Exciting toy collection we bought her to keep her entertained on the plane).  She is pretty obsessed with it, and likes to carry it around wherever she goes:

We went out to dinner at Pearl Oyster Bar in the Village.  It has a reputation of having the best Lobster Roll in NY.  I completely concur!  It was excellent.  The fries were unusual, really thin, almost like those French Fries chips you buy in a foil packet in Australia.  Lobster rolls here have SO much meat - almost a whole small lobster.  At any rate, I can generally find both pieces of claw meat, whole or halved, in the rolls.  I am really going to miss lobster roll in Australia.  I'm sure I could make it myself, but it would probably cost nearly $50 a roll, instead of around $20 here.

Lobster is one of Tabitha's favourite foods - she too will miss the cheap lobster when we come home.  I am not buying lobster at $99 a kilo for a baby, that's for sure!

After dinner, we wandered down to Milk and Cookies (remember, the awesome cookie shop from the food tour?).  We ate ice cream sandwiches - peanut butter crunch cookies filled with rich chocolate ice cream.

In search of New York's best pizza, we found ourselves at Lucali in Brooklyn.  I had done a lot of research, and Lucali kept coming up - it's a tiny place, just six or so tables, and a large woodfired oven.  The decor is minimal - though dark and vaguely romantic.  Some candles, low light.  A nice place for a casual date.  It's also BYO (or BYOB as they say over here).  The 'kitchen' (really just a wide wooden bench by the woodfire oven) is completely open, with the pizza chef facing the room as he works.  They don't take bookings, and are incredibly popular - if you want to sit down before 7:30pm, you need to arrive and line up outside by 5:45pm.  We did this, and were seated when they opened, on the dot at 6pm.

The menu features just two items - Pizza or Calzone - with an option of around half a dozen basic, exceptionally high quality toppings:  field mushrooms, basil from their garden, goat's cheese, artichoke hearts, artisan pepperoni, spicy sausage, shallots.  Nothing else - no salads, no bread, no dessert.  We ordered a pie with half mushroom and basil, half pepperoni.  The tomato sauce is made each day - a tangy, fresh and richly tomato-tasting sauce.  The cheese is perfectly fresh buffalo motzerella - so fresh that the pizza chef pulls it apart easily with one hand as he works.  The ingredients sit on the workbench, whole, ready to be sliced carefully to order - when I placed our order, I watched the chef slice a whole large field mushroom into slivers, then tear apart some basil (from their cottage garden).

The pizza was perfection - crispy, charred and slightly chewy crust, soft, damp and lightly soggy middle.  Incredibly thin.  The sauce was delicious, the cheese was salty and full-flavoured.  The pie was enormous, however we finished it quickly!

We then ordered a calzone with shallots - and we are so glad we did.  Easily the best calzone we've ever eaten.  Filled with perfectly fresh ricotta (made nearby) and finely sliced shallots, the calzone was heavenly.

The waitress brought out a dish of the incredible, fresh tomato sauce to dip our calzone into.  Nice.

By the time we left, at around 7pm, there were already lots of people waiting.  Apparently, Lucale is Beyonce and Jay-Z's favourite local restaurant, but don't hold that against it!

After our transcendental pizza experience, we wandered down the road to Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain.  This is a real Brooklyn treasure - an authentic old-fashioned drug-store soda fountain, lined with the original wooden shelving and glass cabinets, displaying vintage and antique pharmacy bottles, jars, as well as all of the glassware and paraphernalia essential for the soda fountain drinks, ice cream sundaes and desserts, and of course the original gleaming steel soda fountains.

The soda jerks wear cute paper caps and t-shirts reading 'JERK'.  The drinks on offer include Egg Creams, Lime Rickeys, Root Beer Floats, as well as sundaes, pies and cakes.  We only got to stay for a drink, as they were closing early for a 16th birthday party (what an awesome party!).

Tabitha and I both enjoying our milky drinks:

The Daddy's Root Beer Float:

You can see the cute outfit of the female soda jerk behind me.  The guys wore the cheeky 'JERK' t-shirts, which you can also buy there as souvenirs.

We went to the Union Square Green Market.  There was a stall with over 20 varieties of heirloom tomato plants:

More radishes than I've ever seen before at once.  I like radishes, as they remind me of a t-shirt I once saw, which really made me laugh:  "If I were a vegetable, I'd be a radish, because I'm only kind of rad".

Lots of freshly baked fruit pies:

Baby salad leaves - over two dozen types!

After the market, we wandered down into SoHo.  My friend Miss Kitty-Cat had insisted we visit Billy's Bakery to try their red velvet cupcakes.  Sadly, they were out of red velvet, but I really enjoyed their chocolate cupcake all the same!

While The Daddy was trying on some shirts, Tabitha put on a cute little show for me outside the fitting rooms.  What a little performer!

We walked across to Katz Deli for lunch.  You may recall me mentioning that there is an ongoing debate in the food world over which New York deli makes the best pastrami on rye sandwiches?  Generally, Carnegie Deli and Katz are the main contenders.  We ate at Carnegie last week - the sandwiches were really nice.  Certainly big!  But after eating at Katz again (last time was nearly 5 years ago), I cannot for the life of me fathom how anyone would say Carnegie is better?!  The pastrami sandwiches at Katz are insanely good.  Mindblowingly excellent!  The hot pastrami is hand-sliced, so it is perfectly thick and juicy.  The meat is incredibly aromatic and flavourful.  The mustard was delicious.  I cannot fault this sandwich.  If I could, I would eat at least one a week.

The Daddy prefers corned beef (boooo!) but I must admit, the Katz corned beef sandwich is really exceptional.  I do like corned beef - but pastrami is so much better!

Tabitha liked both the corned beef and the pastrami.  Here she is with a mouth full of pastrami:

She was also a big fan of the lightly pickled cucumbers which were served with the regular pickles:

On the walk home from Katz to the West Village, we visited a playground in the East Village.  I must say, I do prefer the West Village and the Village to the East.  The East is a little more dirty, a little less child-friendly, I think.  Still, Tabitha had a great time playing on the equipment:

Down the slide with dada:

Check out the dirty knees!

Once we made it back home to the West Village, I discovered that all that walking had left me hungry enough for another chocolate cupcake - so I wandered down to Amy's Bread on Bleeker Street (home to the 'second best cupcake in NY' as voted last year) and snaffled a Devil's Food Cake cupcake.  It was excellent!  Very moist and rich.

Before dinner, we managed to fit in yet another play at the playground - this time, the nice little one across the road from us, Bleeker St Playground.  The Daddy and I (and Tabitha) really fell in love with this little playground, visiting it at least once a day.  We would be happy if it were our local.  In the morning, we got into the habit of getting our coffees from Cafe Cluny, then wandering down so Tabby could wear herself out for an hour at the playground - and there were always lots of other mums, dads and babies doing the same.

How cute are her little jeans?  Jeans are great for this age - perfect for protecting soft knees while crawling and learning to walk.