The Devil

in sugar form

Exploring NYC

This weekend, one of our best friend's Charlie told us that his girlfriend was going to be in NYC for a conference, and would we please spend a little while with her. Oddly, I didn't take a single picture of any of us that went out, but I took lots of randoms of the stuff we saw!

 Trailer Park Lounge in Chelsea is one of our favorite places to take out of towers. Since Marla is from Florida, she felt right at home. She introduced me to X-rated liquor, which is pink grapefruit flavored, pink, and delicious.

 This lady guards the cans of PBR & bottles of High Life in a tub of ice.

 Elvis pours the beer.

 Home, sweet home.

 I might have to drunk ebay one of these mirrors.

 The ashtray outside.

 Tuck Shop! I've been wanting to try this place since I saw the Chelsea Market location, and was thrilled to find out that there was one in the East Village.

 Look at those!

 I had Guinness steak & mushroom. It was fantastic.

 Hop Devil Grill. Had a crazy amount of taps, like 24 or something. Met the owner, Markus, who was really nice and eager to make all the customers happy.

 Who would throw away such a great coin organizer?

 I want this cab to pick me up!

Sassy table tops at Yaffa Cafe.

I was amazed when we got home and realized that it was 4:30 A.M. These old fogies haven't been out that late in forever.

Why watch the parade on TV when you can go watch it!!!

 So many things we didn't think about life in NYC before we moved here. So much goes on! NYC is where it's all at!

 I took this picture for my sister, Monica. She loves Snoopy. We positioned ourselves in Times Square, but we were about a hundred people deep in the crowd away from the actual parade. It was hard to get the 2 boys out of bed and drag them down there, so next year I am going to plan it a little better.

 And took this picture for Charlie's niece, Lillian. We could only see the balloons from our position in the crowd, not the performers, which was a shame. Put go to a different location next year, or try to watch it from someone's apartment.

 Here comes a Paul Frank monkey. Charlie had to explain who and what this was.

 Then we headed down to the Brooklyn Bridge to walk across it. Unfortunately, it was already dark by the time we made it there, and figured out how to get on the darn thing ( a lot more complicated that you would think)

 It was SO CROWDED! It's such a popular tourist attraction. My favorite part was seeing all the cables up close. You really need to see them in person to get a sense of how massive and powerful they are.

 Our first week in NYC, we got ourselves a couple of Brooklyn Bridge tattoos. Another post for another time.

 After a trip to Junior's, which I completely failed to take photos of, we headed to our watering hole, Keg n' Lantern. Arie was there and, and by the looks of these photos, all the food from Thanksgiving settled in my chin.

And Charlie made a pilgrim hat for Godel.

Spronkles

This is what happens when you get Sprinkles Cupcakes, put the box in your purse and then ride trains all day. They still tasted great, though. Orange-Cranberry with White Chocolate icing for me and Salty Caramel for Ryan.

2nd best

Hmm, I'm craving a square doughnut, filled with seedless blackberry jam and then dunked in a peanut butter glaze. Where can I get that? www.doughtnutplant.com

 Everyone knows that Peter Pan is the best doughnut shop in NYC, but everyone else needs a little time in the limelight. Doughtnut Plant has 2 Manhattan locations, and I hit the one up on the Lower East Side!

Lobster Joint

 http://lobsterjoint.com/

 There is no shortage of deliciousness in Greenpoint. One of my favorites is Lobster Joint, which is exactly what it sounds like. The salad above was greens, avocado, radishes, about 1/2 a lobster and a peppery lemon dressing. SOOOOO delicious!

And under this massive side salad is a lobster roll, it's just hiding!. This is our new favorite place to take out of town guests! Won't you come visit so that I have an excuse to go back???

Burger Challenge # 3

 Tons of fun neon outside. Terry's Turf Club in the East End.

 Tons of fun neon inside!

 At this time, Ryan was busy in NYC and I was still livin' lonely in Porkopolis, so Karlen, my burger loving friend, came to the rescue. Ryan and I have been to Terry's before, so he wouldn't be missing out.

 Bottled beers are stored in bottle shaped refrigerators called Bevadors.

 I kinda want to trade in our little beer fridge from Best Buy for one of these.

 No shortage of good beer.

 Don't fill up on peanuts.

 Ahh! Here we go. This is a burger for each of us and a shared order of fries. Yes, 1 order is enough for 2. Don't make this rookie mistake.

 Karlen's. I can't remember what Karlen's burger was exactly, but you can see the organized ticket below for mine.

 My order ticket. She spelled my name wrong, but since I ordered a sauce made with white Zinfandel called a rose sauce, I thought it was funny to see that combination written out. Rose was my middle name before I got married.

My monstrosity. Posting this makes me really miss our burger adventures. We'll have to go through all of George Motz's New York City ones and start a new feature!

This is the seventeenth trip of our burger challenge; to eat at all 40 places on Cincinnati Magazine's list of the best burgers in town and Terry's was number 3 on the list, hence the title of this post.

Here is what we've had so far:
# 7 Oakley Pub and Grill
#9 Keystone Bar and Grill
#14 Lavomatic
#17 Arthur's
#19 Cafe de Wheels
#22 Habit's
#24 Zola
#25 Chalk Food + Wine
#26 Five Guys
#27 Maribelle's Tavern
#28 Doris and Sonny's Homelike Restaurant
#30 Quarter Bistro
#31 Quatman Cafe
#35 Gordo's Cafe
#36 By Golly's
#37 Fatburger

To see the photos from our hamburger Ohio trip, where we checked out the 6 best burgers in the state, according to George Motz, click here.

To see the photos of our Hamburger Honeymoon, click here

There are burgers in NYC!

 Loved the cool, back-lit wall! It was the menu!

 They serve sliders, only, you won't get anything this good at palace blanco.

And tater tots! Yeah.

They have at least a couple locations here in NYC. I highly recommend it!

Peter Pan Donuts

 I first learned about Peter Pan Donuts from Sheryl, or more recently, Sheryl Yvette. She's a vegan now, though, so she probably isn't eating there too much anymore. She'll get her own post here soon. She's the reason we moved to Greenpoint.

How cute are their green & pink uniforms?

I think Tina Fey summed this place up the best:

"Fact: Peter Pan Donuts on Manhattan Avenue in Greepoint is the tastiest (and cutest) donut shop in all the land. (We'd rank the Donut Plant #2, and, speaking of Greenpoint, Anella chef Joseph Ogrodnek makes a pastry basket that's quite exceptional.) That Peter Pan dominates the donut game is hardly a secret, as demonstrated by the throngs crowding the register on weekend mornings. But now that Peter Pan has just scored a big Tina Fey bump, you might need to wake up even earlier to score one of their amazing whole wheat donuts. The 30 Rock star told Esquire recently:

The best doughnut? That's Peter Pan doughnuts in Brooklyn. It's a Polish bakery. We shot nearby once for 30 Rock. It's a white-cream-filled powdered doughnut. And I really believe, when I first tried it, if I had a penis, I would put it in this doughnut. I finally understand what you guys are thinking about and what motivates you guys.

For the record, those promiscuous little donuts made the first move—it's not like we forced ourselves on them. [Via Greenpointers]" -Gathomist.com

Don't go misconstruing the topic of this post

Well, well, well. Here we are. Yes, we made it to NYC. It took a month to get the internet.

I should post pictures of our apartment!

Our new hood!

Our hangouts!

Ryan's office!

But no.

The first blog post as a brooklynite will be on the topic of the Pickle Eating Contest that Ryan participated in. Sponsered by Brooklyn Brine and hosted by Black Rabbit, which is one block away and made us feel quite at home here, we decided we'd invite the few friends we'd made so far to watch Ryan chug some vinegar-y delights. Ryan's friend from work, Justin, couldn't resist joining, too. Here they are, ready to go.

 This is the announcer with his mega-phone. He tells us that there was a cash prize last year, but this year, they will pick up the bar-tab for the winner as a prize. Last year's winner showed up, found out there was no cash prize, and left. Apparently, he was a professional eater. Whose profession is that? Seriously. I mean, I would love to eat professionally, but I would also like a toilet seat made of gold. That's our friend Arie, in the front, in the conductor's cap.

 The chow down begins.

 What are they looking at?

 Something has caught their attention and distracted them from eating the pickles at a winning rate. We're about 2 minutes into the contest at this point.

 There were 20 whiskey sour flavored pickles in the jar. That's a lot of pickles.

 Forget it. This guy here ate all 20 pickles AND DRANK THE BRINE in less than 5 minutes. He even enjoyed some fried pickles afterward.

 Who wants to do it next year? Me! It looked like so much fun! Ryan only polished off about 5. I can totally take him!