Monday 29 June 2009

New York day 1 - Vietnamese theme

In Chinatown

On the first evening, back from Central Park to our hotel, we went to a small Vietnamese restaurant, in upper Manhattan, that was on our way, nothing worthy of a report I'm afraid (I think the restaurant was called Saigon, but I don't particularly want to remember it.. not very vietnamese really):
Vietnamese meal - first night (by Christ tell)
I suppose we were in the mood for Vietnamese food as we'd talked about a trip to Vietnam in the near future whilst on the plane.

Anyway,the next day we aimed at Little Italy and Chinatown after a walk on Broadway to hunt breakfast.... The weather was not very promissing: dark and rainy....
Lincoln Square in the fog (by Christ tell)Colombus circle in a dark moody morning fog (by Christ tell)
We started in Canal Street up Mulberry Street, in Little Italy. We did not fancy stopping at a restaurant in Little Italy as it seemed a bit too touristy to be trusted - and to be honest, after having been in Italy, I tend to avoid Italian resturants in other countries, It's never as god as the real McCoy I'm afraid...-
Little Italy (by Christ tell)Little Italy (by Christ tell)
Anyway, the quarter was lovely with restaurants in the 'Lady and the Tramp' style.
Some Delis attracted my attention though with a great selection of Ialian products, homemade cheese and pasta. (Ah, the Deli theme seemed to appear rather early!)
Little Italy (by Christ tell)Little Italy (by Christ tell)

Then we moved onto Chinatown, which we loved as it was so lively and busy, food everywhere!
We started watching carefully though as we were hunting for the Bahn Me Saigon, highly recommended by Mycookinghut.
We found it, a tiny little narrow shop with the Bahn Me counter at the back! We had our food radar on so we found it quite easily!
Saigon Bahn Me (by Christ tell)
We walked to the park, where there was quite a few people, found a bench and started eating our foodie treasure. It started raining, but equipped with our umbrellas, we were only reasonnably getting wet, totally absorbed in a vietnamese food vortex: the Bahn me was as great as Mycookinghut promised!. By the time we looked around us, it was pouring so hard that everybody else had vanished from the park. It was quite funny, we stayed there in a sort of 'Hamlet' moment...
Bahn me (Vietnamese sandwich (by Christ tell)

15 comments:

Simones Kitchen said...

I love that first photo where it really feels a bit like your in Vietnam (or Asia in general) while still being in Newyork... :) Except you're missing a million mopeds which would be driving around in vietnam. Looks like you had some good (and bad) experiences over there.

mycookinghut said...

So you tried Banh Mi!! It's good, right! I wish I could now get a quick fix of Banh Mi!
Did you order the chicken or pork?

Unknown said...

I can't wait to go to new york again, what an amazing place :)

Christelle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Christelle said...

Junglefrog: Thanks! :) I did not really have bad experiences, not reeeeaaally bad. We did not choose that first restaurant propperly because we were tired and hungry, our own fault. Had we pushed a little further we'd have found sthg wonderful I bet! :)

My cooking hut: I am so grateful for your good advice :)) We chose the pork version :) I think I am going to try and reproduce tyhe sandwich, it's too good, or I'll miss it badly :)

Heavenly Housewife: I completely agree, it's an amazing place! And I will definitely go back :)

Rico said...

Very entertaining and interesting post, beautiful sandwich shown there yay, thanks for sharing the experience. Rico

Adriana Mullen said...

Excellent post as always Chris. Shows your love for food and travel!

mycookinghut said...

Christelle,
I really miss the sandwich now by just looking at it!! I hope to do the same - to make it at home one day!!

ICook4Fun said...

I am going to NY with my sisters on Friday. Have to go and try out the Bahn Mi if we can spare some time. Glad that you had a great time in NY.

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Food For Tots said...

Looking at the Bahn me, I can hear drumming sound from my stomach. Looks so irresistable. ;)

unconfidentialcook said...

My favorite thing to do anywhere, anytime, is to walk the streets of NYC--nothing beats it! Lucky you!

Justin said...

thank goodness you avoided little italy. it's really awful. NYC has amazing italian food, just not in that neighborhood which is only for tourists. that's a great photo at the top of this post.

Unknown said...

Bánh mì is yummy food of VN :)

Christelle said...

The pork version :)