Paris Sandwich

...is located at 213 Grand Street on the border of NYC's SoHo and Chinatown.

Vietnamese Banhi Mi sandwiches are one of my favorite lunch foods. There are several offered at Paris Sandwich are a great deal for $4 each. I tried the #4 BBQ Pork Baguette with pork and pate - delicious. with cucumber, shredded carrots and cilantro and vietnamese mayo. The baguette was warm and crusty.

They also offer other traditional Vietnamese fare and pastries.

Spot Dessert Bar

...is located at 13 St. Marks Place in NYC's East Village. They serve dessert all day long. What a great concept!

So for lunch I had 3 tapas for $20 (your choice of any 3 seasonal tapas desserts).

I had the following:

- Yuzu Eskimo ($7.50) with strawberries, oreo soil and passionfruit - very citrusy and refreshing

- White Miso Semifredo ($8.50) with olive oil cake, raspberries, candied sesame and crushed walnuts - the cake was dense like sponge cake and I liked the candied sesame

- Butterschot Torchon ($8) with gingered pineapple, macadamia and thai tea whip - all of the flavors were very strong...too strong for me.

Next time I would like to try one of the cupcakes and cookies which looked very good.

Midnight Food Crawl

This past weekend I went on a midnight food vendor crawl in Jackson Heights - NYC's borough of Queens along Roosevelt Avenue. This hispanic neighborhood is filled with food vendors, restaurants and bars. My group of 70-80 people started at 10am in a local bar, then roamed around hitting up every food vendor on the way until 2am.

At two different vendors I tried a bistec taco (steak) and a chorizo (spicy sausage) taco - both for $2/each. The third vendor was out of carnitas (shredded pork) and pernil (roasted pork) by the time we made our way down to them.

"E" tried a veggie taco at one cart, an Arepa at another and a quesadilla de Huitlacoche – filled with mushroom smut and cheese and a third. In between we stopped into a Dance Hall, a Gay Club and finally a Thai Karaoke bar.

UN

Well you know retail is soft when the United Nations Gift Shop is having a 40% off sale!

Governor's Island and Etsy

I went to Governor's Island to check out the Etsy shop, but it was small and had mostly jewelry.

I stopped by the Water Taxi Beach and had a hot dog ($5), fries ($4) and a bottle of water ($3) before taking the ferry back to Manhattan.

Boi again

is located in NYC's Garment District at 240 West 40th Street.

I had a Smoked Duck Banh Mi Sandwich with mayo, cucumber, cilantro, carrot and daikon radish $6.89 and Mango Juice $2.07.

The toasted baguette is light and crisp and the duck was flavorful. There was just a hint of spice to give the sandwich a nice kick.

Johnny Rockets

Johnny Rockets is a chain of retro diners. This one is located at 930 Third Avenue in NYC's Midtown East. "J" and I stopped by for a little thirst quencher - rootbeer floats ($4.95 each).