Bostonian in New York (Day 1)

The last time I explored New York, I stayed in a hostel with two friends and my high school English teacher. I was the typical NYC tourist, sticking to the quintessential places and venturing through Time Square, Hard Rock Cafe, museums and cathedrals galore. But what I mostly remember is getting miserably lost on the streets and learning the hard way that "East" and "West" matter so much more when you're traveling in NYC, eating the world's greasiest pizza from V&T and gorging on hand-pulled noodles on Canal Street. It was really fun.

I've been wanting to go back to explore the 'hoods, eat some good food, meet up with friends and catch some live show tapings. Oh, and perhaps most important - visit my sister. Although Boston is forever in my heart, I felt like that perhaps there was extra room for NYC as well.

By going on Jan 5th, I was hoping to miss the heaviest wave of holiday tourism craziness, even if it meant I would be heading to a less pretty, glitzed-out New York. I was hoping that post-holiday catharsis would mellow the city - but when have "mellow" and "NYC" ever been in the same sentence?

My "food budget" was $100 for the 4-day trip, averaging out to $25/day. I felt like a poor man's Rachel Ray on $40 A Day, and my best friends were Yelp and TripAdvisor.

Now let the adventures begin...

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4/5
DAY 1 (January 5th, Monday): Adventures in Brooklyn 86th St/Chinatown

My friend and I met up in Chinatown, and of all places, under the giant golden arches we Americans never seem able to escape. We strolled along Canal St and Grand St, passing by numerous asian bakeries and boba tea shops, street carts featuring cheap scarves to cheap persimmons and finally, a strip of colorful, cheapo-kitschy souvenir shops from which aggressive storeowners hawked at passerbys and sketchy dudes on the sidelines rambled "Rolex-rolex-rolex-rolex...", as if they were pushing the real deal.



Out of all the bakeries in the area - and there are many - Tai Pan bakery is one of the most well known; however, today I learned that you should count yourself incredibly lucky if you can get in and out of the store unscathed and without shoving some poor grandmas to the side. On an early Monday afternoon, I barely managed to step three feet into the store (but not after bumping into grannies and a mom/stroller) and exited as quickly as I could, before claustrophobia got the better of me.

I had lunch at Good Century Cafe. When you first enter, you will find an asian bakery with your staple boba drinks and breads, but when you continue walking towards the back, you will come upon a lunch corner with big steamed buns, rice lunch boxes and - cue the angels - fresh dim sum.

At lunch time, the sitting area is mostly crowded with grannies and grampies digging into their rice lunch boxes. I take it as a positive sign when you see a store is popular with the elders because usually it means the food is more authentic; or at least, that's what I like to think.

My friend's (incredibly sweet) father treated me to a Combo steamed bun, which is a large, fluffy bun filled with chicken, chinese sausage and a quail egg. Delicious, surprisingly filling, and absolutely affordable! I love this place.

Also, on the topic of grannies/grampies -
One gramps walked right up to our table and stood behind me and my friend as I ate my lunch. And just stood there. Hovering. I kind of took the hint and quickly finished my food. The moment we got up, he sat down. Lesson learned: Who runs Chinatown? Them old folks do.
Although, after watching my friend expertly ram through crowds of tourists, I can definitely see where they come to develop that kind of moxy. I need that.

At Yaya Tea Garden: Supernova w/oolong + popping lychee

We also stopped by Yaya Tea Garden, a cute, kind of hip, boba tea shop with quirky drink names like the "Boyfriend", "the Hulk" and even the "Don't Order Me". Yes, you can buy all the Avengers in the form of boba drinks. And yeah, you can get a "large, hot Boyfriend" if that's what you fancy.
I got the Supernova with oolong tea and popping lychee boba, which was super fruity and sweet. If it wasn't 20 degrees outside, I would have definitely enjoyed it more, but it was still a tasty drink. And popping boba is just ridiculously fun. The drinks also come with little "fortunes" underneath, which is cute.

We also enjoyed some cute graffiti under the bridge.

At the Elizabeth Center: Is that a stuffed turd for $18? Yes, yes it is.

While there, also made a stop in the Elizabeth Center, which my friends says was once the hangout hubbub for young students looking to chillax or shop for cheap goodies, but has since lost its steam in addition to most of its stores due to unaffordable rent. It was quite a sad sight. Half the plaza consisted of vacated room after vacated room. Most of the small stores that remained sold a variety of cute asian novelty items (see the stuffed figures above) and the like.

For dinner, we took the D train and met up with some more friends for a brief venture down 86th Street in Brooklyn. We went to HK Tea and Sushi because my friend wanted to try it after many recommendations.

I never knew baked cheese and rice dishes were a HK thing until I came here. In fact, I'd always laugh and wrinkle my nose at friends who'd melt cheese over their rice. I mean, I still feel the same way about it ("bleh"), but hey, to each their own.

No, that's not yellow water. It's...tea.

The first thing I noticed was how the tea was not served in teacups, but rather, regular ol' glasses. I've never seen an asian restaurant do this before, so I was surprised.

I ordered the fish fillet with bittermelon over rice. I'm always curious how restaurants cook bittermelon because it can be very difficult to mask or complement its, well, strikingly bitter taste.  I thought the bittermelon was cooked alright (some sauce, some oil = alright), but the fish fillet was deep fried and too greasy. The overall portions were sizable, and I had quite the food belly going. For $7 (and that's including tax + tip!), I won't complain. Even more amazing - we sat there eating and chatting until almost 10pm, and the servers made no effort to rush us; instead, they'd come by periodically offering us, "more tea?" That was certainly an unexpected change.

Day 1 Food Total: $11.00

Today, even with the icy wind whipping our faces, was really fun. It was exciting to see a Chinatown still thriving and expansive, unlike the Boston Chinatown, which is being increasingly encroached upon. And because I always do, I tripped on the stairs going out of the subway, and at one point I did get lost even though my destination was a 5-minute walk away. I am definitely gaining an appreciation for the incredibly extensive and far-reaching NY subway system, though.