A Food Weekend

So as you've noticed I haven't blogged this last week so I'm going to catch up. This post is about last weekend 16-18.

Friday it rained again. Thus far it has rained every single Friday night. Rebecca and I decided to go to the Columbus Circle mall and go to Junior's.

Junior's is also known for it's cheesecake, but we got dinner as well. Junior's also serves pickles before your dinner arrives, plus beets and coleslaw. I actually liked this coleslaw! But the pickles were far inferior to Carnegie Deli's. For my meal, I had the "Something Different," consisting of beef brisket between two potato pancakes served with au jus and a side of applesauce. (I didn't take this picture and this one has syrup instead of au jus, you get to choose, but thanks mom for finding it!) It was very good, very big I took it home and had a friend put it in her fridge. Then there was cheesecake. Rebecca and I both ordered the Chocolate Mousse, their best kind. The chocolate mousse portion was quite amazing, it just melted into you mouth. The original cheesecake portion was good but I believe Carnegie Deli wins for having the best original cheesecake recipe.

So my personal comparison of Carnegie Deli and Junior's:
-Pickles and other complimentary food: Although you only get pickles at Carnegie Deli they are a knock out of the park. So good! The first and only pickle that has gotten this none-pickle-eater to wish for and think about pickles.
-For a full meal: I prefer Junior's they had a lot of choices and I really enjoyed my "Something Different."
-Cheesecake vs. Cheesecake: Carnegie Deli wins. Junior's is good don't get me wrong, it's just Carnegie Deli wins. Period.
-Ambiance and "feel:" Although I like Junior's roominess (not found in NY often), Carnegie Deli is special. It has the pictures of famous people signed lining their walls and the giant pickle at the entrance.
-Price: At Carnegie Deli I got one of the cheapest sandwiches at $15.95 at Junior's I got an average priced meal at $14.95. At Carnegie Deli the cheesecake was $9.25 (or 9.75, I can't remember which) at Junior's it was $6.25.
-Service: Carnegie Deli wins. They were so fast, but not pushy. He also read our minds, we were thinking of splitting the fresh strawberry cheesecake. He came by and we said "we'd like to split..." "fresh strawberry cheesecake?" he said. It was amazing.
-Misc.: Carnegie Deli only takes cash.

Both are really great, when my two separate sets of visitors come, I plan on suggesting Carnegie Deli for a slice of cheesecake.

LITTLE ITALY

Our Comms Interns group went to the Museum of Natural History, which was fun. Afterwards a group of 10 of us went down to Little Italy. Little Italy basically consists of Italian restaurants, gelato shops and souvenir shops. As touristy as it is I got something from all three. We split up into two groups to eat. We ate at a place I believe called "The Grand Italian Food Center" I'm not quite sure, it was one of the most affordable restaurants there. Although the service was slow, (they have a major hierarchy problem) the food was amazing! I got the chicken parmigiana and it blew my mind. It was the best I'd ever had.

Rebecca and I got some gelato. I love gelato, they have a gelato shop on Center street in Provo called Maestro's and I would frequent it as oft as possible. This was on par with Maestro's if not better, I got pistachio very tasty.

It was getting kind of cold and threatened to rain so Rebecca and I kept popping into the souvenir shops more to try and stay warm while the group that went to the other restaurant got gelato. But while in one of them they had really cute hats. I'd always admired these kind of hats and had thought about buying one, as long as I got confirmation that I could pull it off. I put on the first one I saw and asked Rebecca if I could pull it off, she said I could and I began to peruse for one in a preferred style. I then tried on this brown, black, navy, beige and white plaid/striped one (as seen to the right). I go to the mirror and this woman in the store says "You must get that hat. That other hat was good you were matching with your outfit, but this hat is SO YOU!" Rebecca says that's actually about what I was going to say. I thought it was hilarious that this random woman says "it's SO YOU!" Needless to say, I bought the hat. It was a really fun, food focused weekend.