Autumn Day Trip New York 2019













Autumn in New York: The Day Trip

Recently I went to NY for a day and it was absolutely real and spectacular!
Mostly ate and drank all day then headed back to Chicago.

Starting the day at the Union Square Farmers Market. Plenty of local food, wine, spirit, fruit, vegetable, and meat & seafood vendors. I decided to focus my attention on the whisky, cheeses, chips, spreads, and sauces.  After plenty of deliberation from tasting plenty of goodness, I ended up settling on a small bottle of Unburdened Barrel #19 Blackberry flavored Whiskey which would be my friend in need throughout the day. It had a very artisanal small batch quality and just happened to be the very last one in the batch this season. In case you didn’t know, I’m a sucker for limited edition items. After tasting plenty of delicious spirits I decided to roll with this one because the flavors used personified a sunny Autumn day in New York with a tad bit of quite interesting. 

Another one of my favorite vendors was Mountain Sweet Berry Farm’s Farm-Made German Butterball Potato Chips. The buttery flavor went well Blueberry flavored Whiskey and also afforded me an opportunity to snack, sip, and walk at the same time.

Next stop was to actually get some breakfast in the form of bagels, bagel sandwiches, and spreads. We attempted to try Russ & Daughters on Houston Street primarily because I wanted to try something new but he line was super ridiculous and the spot was packed. After waiting 15 minutes while trying to gauge how fast the line was moving we realized it was going at a 4 customer per 15-minute clip. Upon little deliberation we decided to go to Ess-A-Bagel. Years ago this was my first real bagel experience. Throughout my life I always thought bagels were hard and chewy. When I reached into the bag to grab one it was warm and pillowy soft. I then looked behind the counter to see bagels floating on top of water. I never experienced this before.
At Ess-A-Bagel the line was long but tolerable and it was moving. While perusing the menu I of course had a few questions I needed answered prior to placing my order. The one constant is everything bagels. The variables needed clarification like; "tell me about this Kippered Salmon". I knew all I need to know about the scallion cream cheese. The olive cream cheese was something that was new to me so I tried something new. Glad I did. The Kippered Salmon was only sold as thick slices.  I wasn’t able to try it because they weren’t giving samples. Without me knowing how it tastes and the thought of paying 11.99 per ¼ pound did not sound too inviting to me.  I was able to taste the spread and immediately told them to “sign me up for that”. While indulging in the sample I was able to engage in conversation with the manager who gave some generalities on how they prepared it. They simply add a little mayo and the rest is Kippered Salmon. The flavor resembled a mildly smoky flavor with a hint of sweetness.

Now that the bagels were still warm to the point where they had steam oozing out of them once split open, it was time to spread the spreads on the bagels. I don’t know if any of them stood out more than the other. They were all delicious in various ways. The olive spread was new and interesting, the scallion spread as always was very complimentary with my everything bagel, and the Kippered Salmon spread gave the bagel an elegant yet great taste I had not yet experienced until now.

Later in the evening after attending a Whiskey tasting it was time to get some food to absorb the liquor so I tried celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsey’s 5 Napkin Burger. It was very delicious. I ended up getting the Impossible Burger, which was good but should’ve tried something that I had not tasted before. This burger was dressed with Lettuce, Tomatoes, Pickles, and Burger Sauce. Pretty standard. It was cool but wish I would’ve tried something else like the 5 NAPKIN BURGER 10 oz. all natural beef, imported gruyere, caramelized onions, rosemary - garlic aioli. I tried a small portion of my friend's and it was absolutely off the chain!  The DOUBLE 5 CHEESEBURGER SMASH two 5 oz. all natural beef patties, cheddar, griddled onions, b&b pickles also grabbed my attention. The fries were fresh cut of the shoestring variety. Good but not great. The onion rings were good. They came with blue cheese for dipping. In addition I asked for the rosemary-garlic aioli.  Now that I’ve done plenty of eating and drinking I acquired “the itis” and sleep is what would be next on the menu.

-FILTER'd by Sean Alvarez

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