Yes, yes, I know.  This is probably the Nth time that I’ve been to NYC, but there’s always something new to see, something new to buy, and something new to try when you are in the Big Apple.

Things I ate:

My brother took us to three new restaurants.  The first one was Milos.  This is a Greek restaurant that serves pure seafood.  If you are a fish lover, this restaurant is for you.  I recognize this restaurant because there is a location in Montreal as well, but we never went to try it because we thought that it would be too expensive.  Turns out, the fish dishes are for sharing and the prices are by the pound, so we ended up ordering the octopus appetizer, the daily fresh fish grilled with lemon, the grilled vegetable platter and the Galaktoboureko for dessert. The fish was cooked whole on the bone and then de-boned and served to us which is not as common in Western restaurants.  Everything was very tasty, except I can imagine some people may find the fish a little bit bland.  I thought it was pretty fresh and would have been good with a bowl of rice!

The second restaurant is called Convivio.  This is a Southern Italian restaurant.  The ambiance and decor of the restaurant was really good and they had pretty good service.  My brother decided to go with the 4 course prix fixe for $59 USD, while my mom and I ordered a la carte.  For the prix fixe, we got sliced yellowtail with olive oil and pistachios, tuna-tomato filled pasta, grilled lamb chops, and coconut custard with mango sorbet for dessert.  Other dishes we got were the crispy oysters, malloreddus with crab meat and sea urchin, and tagliatelle with clams.  I didn’t actually see any sea urchin in my pasta but I guess it was dissolved in the yellowish sauce.  It tasted great nonetheless!

Last time when I was in New York, I didn’t get a chance to try the cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery, so I made sure that we went this time.  Their cupcake is really fluffy and their icing is fresh and creamy.  I think they taste a lot better than the ones you can get from the Cupcake Shoppe at Yonge and Eglinton.

Another place we went to is the Sobaya for some soba, udon and other donburi.  Their food was good but pretty typical stuff.  We got the nabeyaki udon, chirashi udon, and tartar don.

At the Rheon Cafe for lunch, we tried their wagyu-style half burger on ciabatta bread as well as their salmon burger, potato cheese balls and green tea muffin.  This is a great little lunch place in Soho.

Finally, we got some handmade truffles from Kee’s.  Pistachios, green tea, black sesame and almond truffles melt as soon as you put them in your mouth!

Things I bought:

I didn’t buy that much stuff this time around.  There weren’t any sales really.  I just bought a few pieces of clothing, picked up my Christian Siriano for Payless shoes and bought my Marc by Marc Jacobs bag that I’ve been eyeing.  Bloomingdale’s has 10% off for all visitors to the US, so it was a great discount compared to Holt Renfrew.  Also got some cute Rachel Rachel Roy earrings as well.

Celebrity sightings:

As we were shopping on Mercer St. in Soho, we came across these four guys with camera lenses 100x the size of crazyPyxo’s, so immediately, I look all around me to try and spot a celebrity.  All of a sudden, in front of me was a man with a prominent bald spot and then I recognized the voice of Jon Gosselin.  My mom and I tried to walk out of the way of the paparazzi but we still managed to be caught on camera with Jon Gosselin!  How embarrassing!  Catch the rest of the pics here.  Looks like he was shopping with his mom too, haha.

Another less exciting celebrity that I saw in Soho was Jay Manual from America’s Next Top Model, who was shopping at a furniture store with some dude.  There was no paparazzi following them.

Other random things:

On Park Avenue, I came across some sculptures and fountains of Hello Kitty, Miffy and My Melody.  They looked like they were made of paper mache, but they are actually constructed out of bronze by this artist called Tom Sachs.

They were giving out free Diet Coke on 5th Ave, so we strolled in to enjoy some cold drinks and free food.

Stay tuned for my review of The September Issue!