The City of New York is undoubtedly a paradise for food lovers as there is always an innovation and something for everybody. On our recent trip to New York we visited some interesting and trendy places to eat.

Located right in front of Google’s New York office, the Chelsea Market is an indoor food complex, home to food and drink vendors offering wine, tea, coffee, cheese, food ingredients, fruits and vegetables, breads, cookies, cakes, ethnic foods, books and kitchen paraphernalia.

The Chelsea market opened in 1997, in a historic building where the Nabisco Company launched its ever-popular Oreo biscuits in 1912. Today it attracts more than 6 million visitors annually from all corners of the world. We visited near the end of September, still weeks from the Christmas season, but the market is already festive with lights and colors.

Doughnuttery is not a big outlet, but its line of customers is longer than the conveyor belt producing bite-sized sugared doughnut flavors. We settled with the traditional powdered sugar although it has quite a number of tastes such as flower power (hibiscus, honey, rose petals) and bam berry (blueberry, acai, maqui).

 Image: Chelsea Market Baskets

Num Pang, a Cambodian sandwich shop was where we stopped for lunch, attracted by its colorful chalk decoration on the wall. We settled for a scrumptious spicy organic tofu sandwich

A shop that we spent quit sometime browsing was the Chelsea Market Baskets. The shop basically deals with mail-order gift baskets, but has a selection of baskets, imported cookies cakes, sweets, teas and jams. We ordered a Breakfast Baskets filled with goodies for a family member and quite happy with the results.

There are approximately 47 specialty shops in Chelsea Market, but after buying some cute pumpkins, we ended our rainy afternoon at Posman Books, a boutique independent bookstore with a unique selection of books, including the Chelsea Market Cookbook.

The Juice Generation is a coo place to visit for a healthy pick-me-up juice. Founded in 1999 by Eric Helms it now has 15 outlets in New York, including the 117 W 72nd St that we visited several times. The mission of Juice Generation is “to create a friendly, accessible juice bar where New Yorkers of all lifestyles, ages, and dietary backgrounds could experience the energizing effects of fresh, raw juices made with premium ingredients—conveniently and affordably.”

Eric Helms has fulfilled his mission, judging from the customers and the menu options of smoothies, fresh juices, cold pressed, acai bowls, juice farmacy, shots&boosts, raw food and bakery. Signs that say “USDA Organic” and “Non GMO Project Verified” seem to gain the trust from its loyal customers.

We have yet to buy Eric's first book, The Juice Generation: 100 Recipes for Fresh Juices and Superfood Smoothies.

We love exploring New York food joints on our own, but rainy days, limited time and the desire to see more of the unknown made us take a tour. We were not disappointed as several hours with The Brooklyn Food & Culture Tour we visited six places in addition to getting information on notable sights along the way.

At Russ and Daughters Appetizers in Lower East Side Manhattan, a 101-year establishment, we tasted rugelach, a Jewish buttery, flaky and sweet pastry filled with groundnuts and honey. The appetizing shop initially opened to cater Jewish immigrants in the area, with appetizing that means the foods one eats with bagels, such as smoked and cured salmon, homemade salads, and cream cheeses.

Greenpoint in Brooklyn is also known as Little Poland because it is home to a large concentration of Polish immigrants in the United States. As such, there are a number of Polish Restaurants in the area. The place where we had lunch was Krolewskie Jadlo or King’s Feast, owned by Chef Krzysztof Drzewiecki who used to work for Nobu, the flagship restaurant of Robert De Niro and Drew Nieporent.

Having taken a food tour in Warsaw, Poland and this place with a medieval themed décor really lives up to our expectations of authentic Polish food. The mushroom and cabbage pierogies, kielbasa sausage with mashed potatoes and apple crepe transported us back to our visit to Warsaw.

Table 87 in Brooklyn is known as the first pizza parlor that sells Coal-Fired New York Style Pizza by the slices. We can see pizza makers throwing dough up in the air and expertly place pizza toppings and put the trays in a hot coal-oven. The place is so popular that Table 97 developed packaging and freezing methods to offer frozen, coal fired pizza available in supermarkets.

The margherita pizza with house made mozzarella goes by 12” and 20 inch” with a number of toppings. The most expensive topping combination is burrata margherita w/’nduja (spicy calabrese sausage) while the seductive ones in our opinion are fontina cheese, wild mushrooms, truffle oil, in addition to fig, speck, arugula, mozzarella, san marzano tomatoes.

Our last visit during the trip was Jacques Torres Chocolate Shop in an area called DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Torres, a French pastry chef has 7 outlets, but the one in DUMBO was his first shop. His effort to build the chocolate business is as impressive as the selection of chocolates in the store. He began working at a small pastry shop at age 15 and at age 19 he honed his skills under the tutelage of a two-star Michelin chef and eventually completed a Master Pastry Chef Degree. After moving to the US and worked at Ritz Carlton and Le Cirque he opened his chocolate factory and shop at DUMBO in 2000 at the age of 40. Chef Torres has a number of prestigious accolades, including the James Beard Foundation Pastry Chef of the Year, Meilleur Ouvrier de France, the Chefs of America Pastry Chef of the Year, and Chartreuse Pastry Chef of the Year.

The landscape of coffee shops in New York is dizzying and sophisticated as some online reviewers mentioned. We stumbled upon The Elk on Charles Street in the West Village of Manhattan on our way to lunch.

Founded by Claire Chan, it is a specialty coffee shop offering coffee, espresso, americano, macchiatto, cortado, cappuccino, and latte. Chef Sam Talbot created appealing healthy bites such as avocado bahn mi sandwich (avocado smash, citrus, spicy aioli, cucumber, pickled carrot, herbs, served on demi-baguette) and kale Caesar salad (tahini Caesar dressing, tomato confit, homemade croutons, parmesan cheese).

The Elk’s décor is an outdoor style, with a sign on every table that says “this table is designated laptop free.” Claire Chan is obviously working on her vision of a community coffee shop where people hang out, feel comfortable and be inspired.

The finale of our food travel in New York was lunch at one among 30 of Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s restaurant empire. Perry St. Restaurant, featuring American, French and Asian contemporary cuisine, is located in an expensive and classy residential area of West Village on 176 Perry Street Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River.

Cedric Vongerichten, the executive chef, is Jean-Georges’ son who started early in his career. Cedric traveled to and worked in his father’s famous establishments in London and Hong Kong, before he entered the Culinary Institute of America and apprenticed with chef Ferran Adrià at the world famous elBulli in Spain.

We are grateful for the lunch invitation by Ochi Latjuba Vongerichten, Cedric’s wife who also graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. She explained the dishes listed on the menu and we savored Chef Cedric’s creations.

In the appetizer episode came rice-cracker crusted tuna (sriracha-citrus emulsion), house made burrata (olive tapenade, Meyer lemon jam, shishito pepper), and roasted autumn mushroom (pecorino sardo, pine nuts, sherry vinaigrette).

The entrees that we had at Perry St. restaurant consists of pan seared black sea bass (grilled maitake mushroom, aromatic basil broth), butter poached lobster (lemongrass and kaffir lime broth, potato ravioli) and caramelized beef tenderloin (roasted market broccoli, broccoli pesto, chimichurri).

We concluded lunch with desserts of roasted corn soufflé (caramel popcorn, chipotle ice cream), peach pavlova (ginger, blackberries, olive oil ice cream) and chocolate pudding (lightly whipped cream, crystallized violets).

Cedric Vongerichten’s flair of cooking and his flavor-texture combinations are divine and make the Perry St. Restaurant stands out with the best among 45,000 restaurants in The Big Apple.

--------------------

Images: Omar Niode Foundation, unless otherwise noted.