Philadelphia is the little spoon of New York City

Back on the Bolt bus.  This little trip to New York was a quickie, but we still had a great time.  Lots to recap.

Last night for dinner I went to Les Halles on Park Avenue which is a nice french bistro with Joe and my friends Alli and Erica.  Alli's uncle had recommended it, and it was definitely delicious.  (And I should know because I had a bite of everybody's meals).  Before dinner we enjoyed...

A couple of these...

And this beautiful view

For dinner, Alli and I did splitzies on the quiche of the day (which happened to be tomato and goat cheese ---SUPER good) and salmon in a red wine sauce and shallots over potatoes.  This plate looks like a hot mess because after drinking a few glasses of wine I forgot that I'm a blogger and basically just threw everything together on the plate without making it look nice.  Sorry guys!

We skipped dessert and headed to the bar with some friends.  The bar of the evening was Turtle Bay, and i was a really great time.  Please excuse my haggard looks.  We weren't smart enough to take the pictures early in the night.  Dancing around all night and getting sweaty certainly didn't help the situation either.

obviously the person taking the picture didn't notice it was totally blurry...haha

I don't think we're leaning...that's just the angle obviously.

Today for brunch we hit up Cinema which was around the corner from where we were staying.  I definitely would go back to this place.  I had a lot of trouble deciding on what I wanted to order, but eventually decided on a Croque Monsieur (which would put my version to shame) and tomato soup.  Joe got a breakfast salad with spinach, poached eggs, bacon, potatoes, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  He was being way more behaved healthy wise than me.  After taste testing all of it, I determined that his salad was good, but would be better with a less bland dressing (the balsamic was really bland for some reason).  My sandwich was the best sandwich I've had in a long time, and the tomato soup tasted unbelievably fresh.  Like they just made it while I was sitting there with fresh tomatoes.  Maybe they did?  I plan on trying to recreate the breakfast salad at home this week! 

Then we went and walked around the city!  We hit up canal street and haggled for some goods.  I walked away with knock off Chanel sunglasses and perfume.  Joe got a knock of pair of fresh white Oakleys and 2 ties.  It was a fun little adventure.  

Then it was time for dinner again!  Always running from meal to meal.  For dinner we wanted Italian so we went to a place close to us.  It was called La Giara, and it was alright.  I enjoyed our dinner, but I don't think I'll be returning. 

We started out with 2 salads to split.  The insalata mista and buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes.  The insalata mista honestly sucked.  How do you mess up a salad?  It was really bitter tasting, and we were unsure whether or not there was dressing on it.  If there was you could not taste it one bit.  The mozzarella and tomatoes was good, but for $11 we decided that we didn't need the 3 pieces of cheese.  Maybe we should have skipped the aps.

bread, olives, and bruschetta

secretly deceptive bad salad

yummy but overpriced salad

Then for entrees I had spinach and ricotta raviolis in a sage butter sauce with a little parmesan cheese over it.  These were excellent!  Joe and I split dessert which was crepes coated with chocolate.  Fantastic and nice because we don't ever usually order them. 

After dinner it was time to pack up our bags and head back to the bolt bus where I'm currently blogging from (again).  It was a great and low-key 2 days!  I already can't wait to come back up here!!!  There are also a lot of fun things we want to do here outside in the spring or summer so we will have to plan another trip, maybe this time a full weekend?  Stupid work always has to get in the way.

Didn't hit up the gym today.  Decided I didn't want to have to pay for yesterday and today, and just walked around the city all day for exercise.  Joe and I decided that we love New York, but we also love Philadelphia.  It's not as expensive, a bit smaller, and easier to get around with less complicated public transportation and more parking.  Plus it's our home.  

When you guys go to New York, what is usually on your agenda?

Obviously I cared most about the meals and less touristy stuff this weekend