saturday evening

Last night I met up with an old friend for dinner at Lamarca (no website). It was tiny, VERY casual, delicious and only $14 for a salad, bread and large pasta dish. They’re only open on weekdays and they close at 10, so we headed out to find some dessert. Landing just a few blocks away at Max Brenner, I ordered the smallest serving available of their chocolate pizza, which actually turned out to be two New York slice sized chocolate and marshmallow covered pieces of sweet bread. I was in heaven.

My first Saturday alone in New York was today. I finished some homework, ran by the UPS store to overnight some things back to work and made a list of shops I wanted to see. I started walking towards Greenwich Village, and passed Eskandar, which was organic hemp-looking clothing, not my style, but they had an excellent selection of books in their gift section. There was a darling looking little Italian place across the street that I wanted to try. It was a beautiful section of peaceful street.

I passed a hole in the wall Italian place called Piadina, which was also about $14 per meal–must check that out later. There were alot of cute cafes at Perry and 4th Street, I made note, and a bevy of shopping. Three Ralph Lauren stores, a Juicy Couture, Marc Jacobs, Olive and Bettes, Cynthia Rowley. I finally made it to my destination–Camp, and Hable was right next door, as well as Kaas. Note: there were also a lot of cute cafes on Hudson and 11th.

I still haven’t had a cupcake since I’ve been here. I was in Magnolia Bakery‘s neck of the woods today, but the line was out the door and around the corner. Buttercup Bakery, City Cupcake, Cupcake Cafe, Sugar Sweet are all places I want to try. I’d take a load of treats from Babycakes, though–it’s all vegan, and would be great for snacking.

I was getting hungry, so I stopped at Sant Ambroeus, and had linguini with red pepper, garlic and olive oil–divine, but probably fattening. I keep thinking olive oil is OK because it doesn’t have any saturated or trans fats, but I need to remind myself that it is 14 grams of monosaturated fat per tablespoon–and there were probably two on that plate, at least–and I think I’m supposed to keep the fat grams somewhere around 40 per day. Having slightly renergized myself, I started the trek over to John Derian–worth every minute of the walk.

The day finished off with a dinner at Cipriani (exquisite), a jaunt to Tao (dull) and then the highly recommend, but rather disappointing Pink Elephant (night clubs are the same everywhere and do not fascinate me. At all.)

I still want to go to Charlotte Moss, Tinsel Trading, and What Goes Around. And I’m going to have to keep walking if I plan on eating at all those cupcake places listed above.