Summer in the City – Day 1: Pancakes, Wine & Cupcakes

Greetings from Penn Station! Chris and I are now waiting for our train back to Albany. We had a great time in the city this weekend. We got into the city at around 10:30 on Friday morning. We dragged our luggage 10+ blocks from Penn Station to our hotel, which was right outside of Times Square (near Hell’s Kitchen/Theater District). We stayed at the EconoLodge! The hotel was TINY! But that’s okay, since it wasn’t too expensive (for a hotel in the city), and we really just needed a place to sleep.

The rooms were even smaller than I thought they’d be.

Yeah, teeny tiny.

After we dropped out stuff off, we met one of my friends/old college roommate, Krista, who lives in Queens, at Riposo 46, around the corner from our hotel. I found out about Riposo after Kath wrote about it! I looked it up, and found out it was really close to our hotel. It looked really nice, so we decided to check it out.

The view from our table.

Since Riposo is wine bar, of course I had to order some wine. I ordered a Shiraz.

The Steeple Jack Shiraz was delicious. So fruity and sweet and had a great nose. 🙂 I could tell from first sniff I was going to enjoy this wine!

The restaurant offered brunch, along with some delicious sounding flatbreads. As I checked out the menu, I realized I hadn’t had pancakes in forever! I figured that would be the way to go, since it was still brunch time. I ordered the mixed berry pancakes with strawberry butter.

These were seriously some of the best pancakes I’ve ever had. They were crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. And the berries were phenomenal! I wasn’t sure what the dollop on top was, but figured out it was some sort of fresh whipped cream. Amazing!

Chris ordered the eggs benedict and said they were really great as well. Riposo had really good presentation of the dishes!

Krista, Chris and I had a lovey brunch and Krista and I caught up! It had been a while since we last saw each other.

After brunch, I was in the mood for some NYC cupcakes. 🙂 Cupcakes were one thing I knew I had to get while in NYC. After an earlier recommendation from Rebecca, we went to Crumbs.

So. Many. Cupcakes. I had a hard time choosing. Not really. I wanted the s’mores cupcake.

The frosting was a sugary and chocolatey goodness. The cake was moist and had a marshmallow buttercream center. I only ate half, since they were HUGE! I wanted to save the rest for later. 😉 I will be dreaming about this cupcake for a while.

Chris, Krista and I enjoyed our cupcakes outside in Bryant Park.

Chris’ peanut butter cupcake was great too–I tried a little bit!

Oh, I also had an iced green tea from Crumbs. I drank a lot of green tea this weekend. 🙂

After cupcakes, Krista and I went our separate ways, Chris and I headed to the New York Public Library. Of all my times visiting the city, I had never been inside the library. Its so famous! This was Chris’ first time really exploring the city, and the library was one of his must see stops while we were here.

The library was so quiet and serious. And people were actually doing work in some of the rooms! It would be so weird to be working on something in a library while tourists were wandering around the rooms looking at you.

We explored the city for a little bit after we saw the library.

Breakdancers!

Bryant Park.

City streets.

I love New York.

So there is more to come…including three hours at a tiki bar in the East Village, and an awesome indie band. 🙂 Stay tuned for continuation of Day One!