NYC Eats – March 2025
Hi, friends! I’m here to document another trip I went on this month. You know I was in San Antonio last weekend… this weekend, I was in NYC. Now, I wouldn’t normally do out-of-state trips back to back but I booked this NYC weekend trip, a few months after the San Antonio trip was already planned, for a concert which ended up being indefinitely postponed (I am still very sad about this 🥺).
Anyways, we made the most of it by eating lots of food and seeing a Broadway show instead (watched Six which was different and fun)! We ate a lot and we ate nonstop so brace yourself!!
Our first meal was at Tensai, which was a last-minute decision as we were getting hangry. Thankfully, Tensai was a 5 minute walk from our hotel (stayed at San Carlos), and their food was delightful. Pictured is the Ebi Niku which was a noodle (udon?) dish with shrimp tempura and simmered beef. We also shared karaage and fried octopus to start.
Had to go back to Sundae’s Best in Koreatown! They’re a Gelateria with Asian flavors, and it’s such a struggle every time to pick which flavors to get. I just looked on their website, and it looks like they have a location in Flushing too.
Before we came back to the hotel for the night, we picked up drinks and snacks (including soondae or blood sausage pictured) from H-Mart and then stumbled upon a Japanese grocery store called Hashi Market where we picked up some sushi (nigiri and inures pictured). A lot of these were 30% off since it was after 8pm, and they SO hit the spot!!
The first meal on our first full day in NYC at Noodle Village in Chinatown. We shared several dim sum dishes family style, and they had best dumplings I’ve ever had!!!
For late lunch (lunner if you will), we made it down to Flushing to get Mala Tang! This was at the food court at the New World Mall. It was my first time trying Mala Tang, and it read to me like a dry / drained hot pot. What I know for sure is that it is delicious!!!
Since we didn’t have a proper dinner before the show, we wanted go grab a little snack before heading back to the hotel. We took this as an opportunity to try Jollibee, a Filipino fast food chain. We got their chicken nuggets, (sweet) spaghetti, adobo rice (went really well with their gravy sauce), and ube pie. Jollibee exceeded my expectations–wish we had one in NC!
Couldn’t leave NYC without getting bagel sandwiches, of course. Thankfully, we had an Ess-a-bagel near us so we had some for our first breakfast on Sunday.
Our second breakfast on Sunday was at Yubu. I had been seeing them on the Internet for a few years now so when we stumbled upon it on the way to afternoon tea, we gave into the temptation. These are Yubu (Inari) with torched salmon.
One of the first and only reservations we made for this trip was for afternoon tea at Cha-An. For tea itself, we chose Hojicha and Rose Green Tea. I will say this afternoon tea was very sweets-heavy. I ended up bringing some of the small cookies back to NC to share with Rex!
(For the month of April, they have a seasonal special for Strawberry afternoon, which I definitely feel FOMO about.)
Omakase at Tsumo was the other reservation we made for this trip. Tsumo is the most affordable omakase I’ve done and it was still unbelievably good for the price ($58 per person for a 13-course dinner). This was my third time doing an omakase meal in NYC, and it has become a must!!!
We were still a little bit hungry after the omakase meal (generous amount of fish but the nigiri didn’t have a lot of rice) so we ended our last night with some Halal Guys on the hotel bed. Did you see they are opening a location in NC?!
P.S. I may or may not be going back to NYC this summer….
