It may not look like much, in fact it’s pretty ugly, but what lays inside this concrete building has people flocking from all over town to get their fill on flakey and sticky Middle Eastern pastries. Got the midnight munchies? Yep, they’re open pretty late.

As soon as I walk in the immediate thing that hits me is air that’s dripping with the scent of sugar and rosewater. To the right is one long cabinet filled and topped with those large, round baking trays laden with a huge variety of pastries. Most things are pre-sliced so it’s as simple as requesting whatever you want, it’s weighed and boxed. Sometimes they’ll even let you try before you decide.

To the left is another long cabinet filled with Western desserts and pastries, chocolates, cellophane-wrapped gift packs, even kiddie themed sweets. Our small group grabs a few plates of pastries and sit with an average coffee whilst sampling each one of them. Admittedly there were a few hits and misses but it’s all about trying just about everything. Right?

Whether you’re here to sit and have a coffee while you down copious amounts of sugar-soaked pastry or grab a mixed box to take to a bbq, Abla’s sure is worth a schlepp to the west.

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New York is a place you either love or hate. It’s big, it’s busy it’s fantastic. I can really understand why people say it’s the centre of the universe as when you’re there it almost feels like it is. Everything you need is on the island. Well, almost. Maybe all those bridges are there to keep it connected to the rest of the country and prevent it’s residents from being even more insular than they are.

As a foodie, New York is beyond plentiful with foods from countries across the world, plus American stodge and progressive food that blends flavours and styles of different cultures. Most of my New York posts so far have covered individual restaurants so to speed up our eating holiday I’ve made this small compilation of places we covered over the two weeks in NYC. Otherwise I’ll never get to the next leg of our trip. Not that this will be the last NY post. A couple more to come!

Shall we start with a diner for breakfast?

A miserable day calls for staying in and watching television or hitting the streets and braving the wet and gloomy weather. We didn’t go to New York to sit and watch tv so after purchasing a couple of pocket brollies we grabbed a quick breakfast at this classic Chelsea diner – Moonstruck. Sinking into the vinyl booths and taking a quick glance around made me feel like I was in the centre of a movie set. I love places like this. The service is relaxed and uninterested, on that particular day it was, and the menu probably requires a good 10 minutes to get through. Loads of egg dishes, 7 varieties of French toast, waffles, bagels, about 36 types of salads, 20 burgers, 19 “Diet Delight Platters”, pasta’s … it goes on.

The lightweight settles on a very ordinary bagel with cream cheese and juice, a bargain at $4.25 and I go for a more filling 2 eggs with corned beef hash. I could have easily ordered a coffee but, well, I’m not one to drink that diluted drip stuff. You don’t come to places like this for a culinary journey other than one that takes you down a simple and stodgy road. It’s all about big portions and reasonable prices. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Breakfast: Mon-Fri 6am-11am
  

In the thick of West Village is this great little place tucked away on leafy Bleecker Street. August dishes up some market-driven edibles that cover some Mediterranean and northern European flavours in its split dining areas. The conservatory set-up out the back has a relaxed vibe about it while the front feels more like a rustic wine bar with tight window seating and semi-communal benches. The heart of the place is undoubtedly the wood-fired oven and grill that’s lovingly handled by paddle-weilding cooks.

Weekend brunch was the way to go for us and the braised pork belly was the way to go for me. Now this was a first for me. Not the pork belly, but instead the marriage of it with scrambled eggs, slow cooked beans and pickled onions. Was I in heaven? Hell yeah. From one belly to another, I was relishing every tender mouthfull. Straight out of the wood-fried oven we also had the Andalusian – baked eggs with chorizo and blistered peppers in a cast iron cocotte. Nothing outstanding about this dish but far from shabby either.

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A visit to New York simply must involve Central Park, somehow. The lungs of the city are there to escape, explore and lose yourself in. Admittedly less than an hour was spent traversing its pathways and greens but at least I got familiar again with one of my favourite parks in the world.

There was a reason for traversing Central Park. The last time I was in town I fell in love with black & white cookies and after gorging on a fair share of them, even attempting to make them at home, I made sure that a visit to Central Park involved a visit to William Greenberg Jr. Desserts. This Upper East Side kosher bakery supposedly serves up the city’s best black & white’s, something I simply had to try. For the uninitiated, it’s more like a flat dense cake iced with vanilla and chocolate. I love them. The bakery itself is tiny and stocks pastries, cakes, breads and cookies, shipping them all over the country. The red velvet whoopie pie went down a treat as well.

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I didn’t make it on the previous trip but I made sure it was ticked off the list this time around. Katz’s Deli. That highly-touristed place famous for its pastrami sandwiches, and that orgasmic Meg Ryan scene. The set-up is pretty staight forward. Grab your ticket from the dude at the door then head up to one of the counters and order what you want while your friend joins the shit-fight in trying to score a free table. Hold onto your ticket so you can pay on exit. Lose your ticket and you’re in trouble. There is a table service area along the left wall if you’re not into joining the throngs to order your own.

The pepper-crusted pastrami is really good. It’s juicy, a little oily and supremely tender; overflowing my sandwich big-time. It’s a bit of a bitch to try to keep it all together when you hold and take a bite, making for an unglamourous sight. But if you look around you’ll see there’s nothing glamourous about the place or its clientelle. Even on a hot day the chicken noodle soup went down a treat, packed with all that good stuff. Would I return for the pastrami on rye? I reckon I’d give another place a go. It was a good sandwich but I think there’s more hype around this place than there needs to be.

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Mere metres away from Katz’s is another Manhattan institution – Russ & Daughters. This is the Mecca for all things smoked salmon; choose a bagel and they’ll smother it with cream cheese, onion, capers and salmon, bag it up and send you on your way. Strings of dried mushrooms hang in the window above dried apples and stone fruits, barrels of pickles sit by the counter. It goes on. It doesn’t take long for the tiny shop to resemble Grand Central Station but if you’re patient, wait your turn and get right in there.

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On the many eating visits we made to the East Village we started out by chilling back at this place with a few bevvies before moving on to the restaurant of choice. VBar St. Marks is a little bit of a hipster hang-out that’s diluted with just enough real folk to make it an appealing place to settle in. It was the wines that had us returning several times; wines from Europe (mainly Italy) as well as South American and of course American. The window seats are a prime spot to watch the people parade streaming past and, when open, breathe in that fresh New York air. Food-wise, I only got as far as having the beef carpaccio as a wine accompaniment but the rest of the menu is a good mix of Italian-esque offerings. If we had more time I could have easily settled in for a long afternoon of sipping and nibbling. Next time.

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Dean & Deluca is a bit of a New York institution, showcasing a great bunch of fresh fruit and veg, bakery items, local and imported dry goods, meats & seafood, kitchen accessories, cheese and pre made food to eat in or take home. It seems the locals gripe about the inflated prices but in a place like this I can only expect a higher price tag. Well worth a visit.

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Timing had it that we were in town during Little Italy’s Feast of San Gennaro, an 11 day event that closes off Mulberry Street, extending up to Mott Street. Small tents line the streets and offer loads of edibles from grilled sausages and meats, traditional Italian cakes and sweets and some not-very-appealing stands selling cheap watches, stuffed toys and key rings. I guess this is on the cusp of Chinatown. The side-show alley area was a real turn-off which made us exit as quickly as possible.

Not that it has anything to do with the Little Italy visit, I felt a little snacky one afternoon and dropped into Mexicue for a quick bite. This commercialised Mexican franchise has a simple menu of taco’s, sliders and not much more. The Berkshire pulled pork slider is nothing much to rave about but it certainly hit the spot. You can’t go wrong with the price of $3.50.

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A catch up with a colleague that now lives in New York fell on the wettest day we had in the city. It was seriously bucketing down, especially when we arrived at Habana Outpost in Brooklyn. I was hoping for a nice sunny day where we’d sit beneath the brollies and tuck into decent Mexican fare but we were having none of that. The entire restaurant was devoid of people except for us so we took up the inside bench and devoured some pretty good food. I still can’t get over how cheap taco’s are in this town so it was a given that the chicken and pork ones made it to our spread. Not the extensive selection we found at Tehuitzingo but they were almost as good. A huge plato of diablo chicken sits on top of a pile of yellow rice and black beans and is slowly polished off by the expat.

I couldn’t help myself with the juicy Cubano sandwich; a lightly toasted roll generously packed with roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese and pickle. It was mouthgasm time. The grilled corn on the side comes “Mexican style” with Cotija cheese, chilli powder and lime. Sublime. Who cares if it’s pouring outside, food like this is all that matters.

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Checking out a growers market in New York was a given and considering this one at Union Square runs over four weekdays it was a little unavoidable. Well, unavoidable for this foodie anyway. On any ordinary day Union Square is part thoroughfare and part relaxation space, shaded by trees, over-run with very friendly squirrels and scattered with seating to take a load off.

Saturday seems to be the biggest day where most of the vendors set up temporary shop beneath canvas marquees showcasing the fresh-from-farm produce at very reasonable prices. Some of these guys even donate unsold fruit and veg to City Harvest where it’s prepared at soup kitchens for the less fortunate. A market with a heart.

The fruit and veg vendors sit with cheese, meat and condiment vendors. There are bakeries selling artisan breads and pastries, seafood merchants, florists, anything you’d expect at a market of this type. We couldn’t help but try a couple of cakes from one of the bakeries.

Not that it’s part of the Greenmarket, the stretch of Broadway between West 14th & West 10th Street is cut off to traffic to hold another market of sorts featuring Middle Eastern and Greek meat grills, cake stands, Mexican food and others selling lovely vinyl purses, keyrings and t-shirts. It may just be held on Saturdays before the cars and traffic reclaim the road.

You could easily spend a few hours around Union Square just meandering, grazing or sitting in the park playing chess. Love this city.

Arriving in Manhattan was a bit of a surreal experience. We were there nine years prior, way too much of a gap I know but when you’ve got a whole world to explore it can take some time for revisits to take place. 12 hours from SYD to LAX and a connecting 4½ hour leg across to JFK, it wasn’t all that bad. I’m loving the new-ish AirTrain to Queens where you simply transfer to the subway and you’re on the island in no time. It only truly felt like the holiday began as soon as we trundled up the stairs from the subway (luggage in tow), skyscrapers towering above with our senses being smacked with that fantastic New York madness.

Food trucks and carts grapple the sidewalks on just about every street corner, a constant blur of yellow cabs scream past and the familiar shove of hundreds of people on their own mission to get somewhere. I was getting hungry. Once checked into the hotel it was already dark and where to have our first meal didn’t take long to decide. I had a list of options from weeks of research plus tips from friends long enough to last a months eating in New York. It was time to tick one off that list.

First “cab off the rank” came as a recommendation from our next-door neighbours. They were here a couple of weeks before us and were also recommended to drop into this little Mexican grocer on 10th Avenue. I mean look at it! Tehuitzingo Deli & Grocer is a bit of a one-stop shop for Mexican food products to take home and snack on or whip up a meal. Bags of cornmeal, many types of dried chillies, tinned beans, pastes, salsas, fresh vegetables, Mexican beer and spirits, you name it. We weren’t here to pick up any provisions and instead walked past the goods, making a bee-line for the dancing disco lights shooting across the floor, walls and ceiling. It’s a short and narrow corridor alive with colourful streamers, lanterns, plastic flowers and neon, Mexican tunes blaring from speakers and a few stools for those lucky enough to nab them.

A pair of small saloon doors mark where the kitchen is and as soon as you’ve given the menu a once-over, simply place your order to the hard-working cook, take a seat and wait to be called. What’s on the menu? Some damn fine tacos, quesadillas, breakfast plates and tortas. As we waited we helped ourselves to beers from the fridge and before we knew it we were tucking into some of the best tacos I’ve had outside of Mexico. I wish tacos were this good back at home. Lengua (beef tongue), chicharron (pork skin with salsa verde) and barbacoa (goat meat) were my choices. Chorizo con papas (sausage with potato), al pastor (roast pork) and arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) were for the other half. Help yourself to the cannister of chillies or sauce on the bench, sit back and immerse yourself in the trippy green light and munch away. Man these things are good.

Most of us know the feeling of waking up in a bed that is not our own; you open your bleary eyes, look up at the ceiling and for a brief moment have no idea where you are. Someones couch? A friends place? Or a hotel room on another continent? Case in point one morning before I jumped out of bed, shuffling across the floorboards to open the window shutters on our apartment, being instantly reminded where we were. Blue sky, soft light illuminating the buidings up and down the street, mums taking their kids to school and an old bloke riding a bike with a baguette wedged under his arm. Good morning Paris!

It didn’t take long before one of us had a baguette in hand, plus a few glistening and flakey pastries, returning from the local pâtisserie while the other was upstairs setting the table and putting some coffee on. I could get used to this. It also wasn’t long before breakfast was done and dusted and we were trapsing the web of streets in the Marais passing locals as they made their way to work, appreciating the fact that we weren’t.

Today was market day and unbeknown to me there was one not too far away. A leisurely walk takes us through Pletzl where we meander beneath covered galleries that lead out from Hôtel de Sully and step onto the glorious Place des Vosges, a beautiful square of green grass, hedged trees and bubbling fountains all surrounded by red brick and stone pavillions. Paris, you’re just too beautiful.

It isn’t long before you’re in the shadow of the Colonne de Juillet, a columnal commemoration to the French Revolution of 1830 where King Charles X was knocked off his throne by his own cousin. Fast forward from those political times to the 21st century and you find yourself standing on a congested traffic circle with roads heading every-which-way; including Boulevard Richard Lenoir that is home to the bi-weekly Marché Bastille.

Paris seems to have three types of markets: covered markets (such as Le Marché de Enfants), roving markets and merchant streets (like Rue Montorgueil). Open-air roving markets generally gear up at dawn beneath shaded canopies along the footpath or median strip and tend to disappear soon after midday. Marché Bastille is one such market. Twice a week – Thursday and Sunday – this mostly gourmet roving market pops up on the tree-lined median strip offering a plethora of edibles to locals, visitors and anybody else that is interested.

Brightly-covered stalls, more than 100 of them, are stacked high with seasonal produce. This is where people wake up early in the dewey morning hours, flocking to the busiest market in town with hand trolleys and empty bags to shop for fresh bread, pungent cheeses, seafood and gorgeous rotisserie chickens dripping their savoury nectar onto golden peeled potatoes. The market has a real pulse to it. It’s where elderly ladies don’t hesitate in elbowing past you to get to the front of the line for their poisson or where that grouchy cheese merchant amps up his French tone when you point a camera at his prized fromage.

Ethnic food stalls sit side-by-side with fresh meats, fruits and veg, amazing local cheeses, ready-to-eat treats like grilled German wûrst with golden chats as well as non-food bits like jewellery, shoes and clothing. This is one market that covers almost all bases.

Feeling proud would have to be an understatement for the vivacious young woman behind GourmetRabbit. Who would this be? Well, none other than Denéa Buckingham. Cause for celebration and a kick-start to it’s launch was held at the heritage listed Harts Pub in The Rocks – pub by day and on this particular night, a rabbit warren buzzing with foodies sipping, nibbling and nattering.

The cosy rooms of Harts Pub transformed from places to sit and dine to areas showcasing foods from contributors of GourmetRabbit. Markus Gerlich and Michael Grinyer were applying finishing touches to their spoons of salmon when I arrived a little early. These boys from Regal King Salmon were eager to offer me tastes of their prize-winning products such as the the salmon pastrami that won two stars at the International Taste & Quality Institute (ITQI). They even won an innovative seafood award two years ago in New York.

I’m not surprised when all you need to do is open a packet and drape gorgeous ribbons of salmon pastrami onto a serving plate and be done with it. Too easy. I especially liked the salmon tartar – a spoonful of diced smoked salmon topped with pickled cucumber, salmon crackling, salmon roe and a few micro herbs.

Joseph Raineri from Raineri Italian Fine Foods was hacking into a massive wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano when I arrived, something that made me stop in my tracks. His set-up of various Italian cheeses, charcuterie and marinated vegetables had everyone crowding in for a sample. And how about that truffle popcorn? I loved it!

The delicious prosciutto was sliced so thinly that it dissolved on the tongue before you even had a chance to bite down and that bresaola topped with artichoke and white truffle honey was nothing short of being orgasmic.

Platters of hot food meandered through the crowd to help soak up the variety of Rocks Brewing Company beers brought around on paddles. It wasn’t just beer, though. The gin-based Martinez and Americano cocktails also lubed up the food folk as they tucked into fried goodies like battered fish, karaage chicken, Cajun crocodile and pan-fried chorizo.

The final room was decked out in Asian imports from Ettason; products like seasonings, preserved fruits, aloe vera juice, instant black sesame dessert, Dragon Heart Candy and most importantly … Tsing Tao Beer. I’m loving this beer at the moment!

Platters of hot apple turnovers and warm choc chip cookies rounded things off for anyone that stuck around long enough and sadly the cookies got away from me before I could whip out the camera and snap them.

Big congrats to Denéa and the team and thanks to Harts Pub and contributors for a great night. Cheers!