Tricia

BlogHer 2010 – The Party’s Over

The trip to New York was planned so I could attend this year’s BlogHer conference. (Haven’t missed this annual conference yet!) Every year is special in its own way. And it always comes down to the “BlogHers” I get to meet.

This year I summoned up the courage to go solo to the Mighty Event and meet internet rock stars Maggie Mason and Laura Mayes. I was supremely nervous and vaguely remember babbling and gushing at them. Sorry Ladies.

While I was there I met the wonderful and very hard working @avb. A New York native, she gave fantastic advice on places to see and on finding the best cupcakes (Amy’s Bread).

I enjoyed chatting with @ljc whom I first met at the first Chicago BlogHer in 2007. (I’m pretty sure I gushed at her in our first meeting, thankfully she doesn’t seem to hold it against me.) And I had a nice visit with @lish while at the Chevy Recharge area.

I thought I would just “run into” all the others that I usually find at BlogHer, but the conference has expanded and I now know that I’ll have to make more of an effort to firm up plans to actually chat with people like @fourthbreakfast, @kikarose, @debroby, and so many others that I missed.

At least this year I grabbed a ticket to BlogHer Food early. Only 2 months away!

So much food, so little time… NYC Restaurants

There were only so many meals we could fit into a day. I think I managed 5 meal stops on one of the days. Here are a few highlights.

Grimaldi’s Pizza in Brooklyn

Key Lime Pie and Peach Lemonade at Bubby’s in TriBeCa

Dinner at Bar Americain with Fried Chicken ala Bobby Flay

Devil’s Food Cupcake from Amy’s Bread in Hell’s Kitchen

Big fat pastrami sandwich from Carnegie Deli

A Fresh Fruit Tart from The City Bakery

I created a map with all the restaurants we visited during our trip. I’m sure everyone knows that I only had a taste of what the city has to offer. I guess I’ll just have to go back sometime soon.

View NY Restaurants – 2010 August in a larger map

I had gathered recommendations from friends, and found lists/reviews various places online. New York Magazine had the most helpful restaurant section for pre-planning. During our trip, I found that the Yelp app on my iphone was the easiest to use when we were out and about. What made Yelp so convenient was the feature that sorts bookmarked places by proximity to you at the time. So while we were walking around and wanted to stop to eat I could easily see which places were nearby and click on the link that would give me directions and a map.

NYC First Night Food

Our vacation this year was to New York City and arrived just in time to check in and head to dinner. We quickly discovered that Radio City Music Hall was right around the corner from our hotel.

I found Menkui Tei on yelp and we went in to try their ramen. I took the wall menu postings and inclusion of Hiyashi (cold) ramen to be good signs.

Hubby had his ‘usual’ Miso Ramen and I tried the Hiyashi Chuka.

Neither of us were disappointed. Hubby even went back a second night and had the same thing with an added egg.

Next up Dessert!
Just a little further down 56th Street, Momofuku has a “milk bar” selling cookies, soft serve and a few other select sweets. Hubby tried their soft serve flavor of the day, salted pistachio caramel.

A selection of cookies made it back to the hotel room.

The “compost” cookie included whole mini pretzels and cornflakes.
They were all very rich and tasty, but I liked the peanut butter the best.