Edo Sushi - Union Square/Flatiron District

So this was from a few weeks back but my friend and I had been planning to go to the Madison Square Eats, a street festival-like event at Madison Square Park where you can get some delicious food from a collection of local food vendors. 

Well unfortunately, we misread the duration of the event and ended up going there the day after the festival ended. 

Bummer! 

So instead, we went on a hunt for some Japanese food near the flatiron district and we ended up at Edo Sushi, a small Japanese restaurant on 17th and 5th ave.

The interior

The menu here is very typical of a Japanese restaurant (rolls, tempura, katsu, etc.) but at a pretty decent price. 

They also have a lunch bento box which comes with a bowl of salad, fried shumai, rice, and your choice of main dish. I was really craving some crunchy and crispy katsu so I got the bent box with the beef katsu.

The appetizer salad that came with the bento box

The bento box!
It came with 2 layers of beef katsu which was more than enough to get me stuffed.

I would say this was a cute little restaurant with pretty decent Japanese cuisine. Nothing too spectacular but definitely satisfying!

Yelp Rating - http://www.yelp.com/biz/edo-sushi-new-york

Julep Maven

So recently I've been noticing that beauty subscription ads are popping up all over the internet and that there is an increasing number of these subscription companies (Birchbox, Glossybox,  Myglam, to name a few.) For those of you who may not have heard of this program, it's basically a subscription service for beauty products: each month, members receive a box containing different beauty goods (usually sample size products.)

So for those of you who want to see what sort of products are out there, subscribing to one of these services may be a good way to test out different products and discover the ones that you like!

To be honest, I never really cared for these services. But one day, their online ad finally got to me and I decided to give it a try. The company I subscribed to was called Julep Maven and they specialize in nail/hand/foot care products.

This is what the box looks like.

These are what's inside the box: 2 nail colors, a sample size of pedicare cream, and a pair of toe separators

The products I received weren't random because when I was signing up online, they made me take a short test to see what type of 'girl' I was. I got American Beauty and that basically determined the fate of the box I got. (However, I heard that you can switch to a different category if you wanted. I just decided to stick with whatever I got from my test.) 

Here is a close-up of the two polish colors. Pretty!

So overall, I'm pretty satisfied with my first Julep box. But I don't think I'll be continuing with the subscription for a while since I did tell myself that I'll only do it just to try it!

Hane Sushi - Stuyvesant Town

So recently, I began working in a research lab and this past week was my first, full week working full-time. And today, a rather sunny Friday, was the most perfect day to have a get-together dinner with some of my fellow student researchers.

Since we each have a different work schedule, we decided to go somewhere close to our labs. We ended up choosing Hane Sushi, a Japanese sushi bar and restaurant between Stuyvesant town an Peter Cooper Village. 

Outdoor seating area.
(Sorry for the badly-taken photo but this was my attempt at sneaking a photo without making the customers who are eating outside feel uncomfortable!)

Le menu!

The menu was quite extensive (especially the sushi menu.)  But fortunately, they had a picture along with a short description for each dish so that was very helpful in getting me through my indecisiveness. But honestly, I was pretty starving after getting out of the lab so everything on the menu looked quite enticing to me!

Dragon roll Eel, cucumber and avocado topped with tobiko

Hane Spicy Salmon
Roll topped with salmon marinated in some "special" sauce

I forgot the name of this dish but it was a roll topped with crab meat and tobiko .

Although people don't usually expect to get dessert at a restaurant that serves mainly sushi and sashimi dishes, we decided to take a look at their dessert menu and were pretty impressed with their unique desserts. I got to try green tea tempura ice cream for the first time and despite its weird name, it was surprisingly delicious! 

Green tea Tempura Ice Cream

The sushi here was pretty good and I really enjoyed the tempura ice cream (come on it's fried ice cream!) So if you are planning a casual sushi night around Stuyvesant Town area, give this place a try!

Yelp Rating - http://www.yelp.com/biz/hane-sushi-new-york

Eda's Birthday!

One of the ways I get to explore little corners of the city is through my amazing friends and I would like to dedicate this post to my friend, Eda, who's birthday just passed this May.
She held a fabulous and intimate celebration on the rooftop of STK, a very chic and sophisticated lounge & steakhouse in the meatpacking district. It's also a hotspot for celebrity-sighting including Cameron Diaz, Kim Kardashian, and Beyonce!
We had a really fun night just lounging, chatting, and sipping on some interesting cocktails they served. Everything was swell, although there was this foreign guy who looked quite drunk and who tried to start a fight at our table. Uh-oh! But all was good in the end and most importantly, we all had a fun and amazing evening in each other's company.

Snapshot with Eda. Her outfit was so cute and glam at the same time!

Champagne toast to the birthday girl! 

The view from the rooftop.

Group Pic! This would have been a great picture if we had normal eyes. 

Thanks Eda for a fun night and happy birthday (again!)

STK website - http://www.stkhouse.com/

Saint's Alp Teahouse - East Village

A casual and quite popular tea house located on 3rd ave and 10th, Saint's Alp Teahouse is one of the top hotspots for students in East village. It's impossible to remember how many times I've visited this teahouse because it's one of those places where you stop by regularly, whether to simply take a sip of their delicious bubble tea or to just get away and de-stress yourself after a brutal exam.

They have pages of menu just for the drinks and a pretty wide selection of food and appetizers as well. The different types of drinks they serve include traditional tea, milk/bubble tea, sorbies, nectars, yogurt drinks, and milkshakes.

Back - sesame milk tea with tapioca, Front - coconut milk tea without tapioca
WARNING - the black sesame in sesame milk tea will get stuck all over your teeth

Left - Almond milk tea with tapioca
Right - sorbie (flavor unknown!) with tapioca

Taro Sorbie!

Matcha with red bean - possibly my favorite drink here

Their food isn't bad either and you'll find a variety of noodle and rice dishes as well as smaller dishes like dumplings and desserts. Their toast is actually really delicious (try the condensed milk toast!)

What you see below is the marianated minced pork in broth with green tea noodles on the left and curry chicken on the right.

Saint's Alp is also a great place to go for a late rendezvous thanks to their late hours. They are open until midnight Mon-Thurs, until 1 A.M. Fri-Sat, and until 11P.M. on Sundays. I remember staying there for over 3 hours chatting with my friends and the servers never gave us the death stare to make us leave that we ended up staying until closing time. I don't recommend doing this since I felt pretty terrible for hogging the space for so long but this just shows that it's a great place to enjoy your food and company without feeling rushed (a pretty rare feeling to have in the city!)

Yelp Rating - http://www.yelp.com/biz/saints-alp-teahouse-new-york 

Kickboxin' like a pro!

For a long time I've been wanting to try a new sport. Luckily, summer break finally gave me the time and opportunity to explore a new activity - kickboxing! 

Actually, my very adventurous and sometimes crazy friend, Jocelyn, half forced me to sign up for a class with her and that's how I got my first kickboxing experience.

The place where we got our lesson was called Tiger Schulmann's Mixed Martial Arts and they seem to offer a pretty wide variety of body conditioning classes. I don't have much pictures to share because I had to put everything away before class (and I'm pretty sure pictures are not allowed anyways.)

Pretty hardcore logo hanging outside their building

This was one of the classrooms.
As you can tell from the stand-up punching bags, this is the kickboxing room.
I sneaked a picture while waiting in the lobby to register.

Kickboxing gloves provided at Schulmman's MMA

The staff was very professional and friendly and the lady who was in charge of registration really tried to help us by asking our purpose and goals for joining their center. I just told her I wanted to try it for fun but Jocelyn was more serious about taking classes regularly. So Jocelyn's friends and foes better watch out because this girl is going to learn to kick some butts!

The lesson was PRETTY intense. It lasted for slightly over an hour and I was pretty much knocked out by the end (not to mention the soreness next morning.) It was a really cool class though, and I would definitely consider taking more classes but as of now, I'm going to stick to my good old jog in the morning.

Since I don't have any kickboxing pictures, here's me goofing off on the street after the lesson.

Hot Chocolate Battle!

Hot Chocolate is a pretty common drink found in most coffee houses and dessert shops. 

But which of them make the best hot coco? 

Well that depends on the individual's taste but here are some of my favorite places.

The first place is Max Brenner, which is probably not surprising since they specialize in chocolate desserts.  They have several different types of hot chocolate including milk, dark, and white but they also have some interesting flavors like the Mexican Spicy Hot Chocolate. I personally prefer the regular milk chocolate flavor because I didn't quite like the Mexican Spicy (it's actually spicy) but it was worth a try!

This guy is making my Mexican Spicy Hot Chocolate.
I tried to take a peak to see what  their secret ingredients are but I couldn't read the label on the bottle.

During the evening, especially on weekends, the line here can be really long (and what I mean by long is 30-60 minute wait) so if you are here just for the hot chocolate, I recommend getting it to-go. 

The small size to go cup. It's a pretty teeny tiny cup.

 Up next is L.A. Burdick and this is my ultimate #1 favorite spot for hot chocolate. This place is a small chain (total of 4 shops across the U.S.) and my first visit was actually in Boston, right in the lively location of Harvard Square. I googled this place as soon as I was back from Boston and was so happy to find out that there is a NY location right on 20th street and 5th avenue.

The White and Milk Hot chocolate along with two tiny macarons

I fell in love with the white hot chocolate the moment I took a sip - the richness of the flavor along with the thick, smooth texture was just incredible to say the least. The white may be a bit too sweet for some of you because it's definitely sweeter than any other hot chocolates I've tried in the past. They also have a pretty large selection of pastries but the hot chocolate alone is probably enough to satisfy your sweet cravings.

Another place known for their amazing hot chocolate is The City Bakery, located in Flatiron District. It's a lively place for food or baked goods in general and Carrie and Samantha have lunch here in one of the episodes of Sex and the City.

This place even holds annual hot chocolate festival every February during which they make a different hot chocolate of the day for the entire month. So definitely try this place out in February because they create very unique flavors during the festival like "Chinese Cinnamon Hot Chocolate" and "Moulin Rouge Hot Chocolate."

But their regular hot chocolate is delicious as well, although I've seen a few people say that it's too sweet for their taste. It's definitely really rich (almost like melted chocolate) with heavy, thick texture.

City Bakery hot chocolate with homemade marshmallow

 Godiva is perhaps the least exciting of the bunch since it's a pretty well known chocolatier.

However, not many people try their hot chocolate served at the store. 

Their milk hot chocolate has a very thick and viscous consistency as some of the other hot chocolates I introduced above, but the flavor of Godiva is much deeper, rather than sweet. So if you don't like your hot chocolate overly sweet, you might enjoy a cup of Godiva.

Yelp Ratings

Max Brenner - http://www.yelp.com/biz/max-brenner-new-york

L.A. Burdick - http://www.yelp.com/biz/l-a-burdick-handmade-chocolates-new-york

City Bakery - http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-city-bakery-new-york

Godiva - http://www.yelp.com/biz/godiva-new-york-3#query:Godiva%20nyc

Jadis - Lower East Side

Lower East Side (L.E.S.) is home to some of the best and diverse eateries in the city and Jadis, located on Rivington street, was one of the first restaurants I have ever visited in this neighborhood. It's a very cozy and romantic wine bar with dim lighting and they have a range of small French dishes to accompany their wine. The atmosphere is very casual, yet intimate, and it would be a great spot for a relaxing break after work.

They have a pretty great selection of wine which you can order by the glass, carafe, or bottle. The food menu is not as diverse as the drink menu but it consists of some delicious nibbles that taste great paired up with the wine.

Riesling Kabinett "Niersteiner Spiegelberg"
This is a German white wine with a fruity aroma. I recommend this if you like wines that are more on the sweet side.

Escargots
Probably one of my favorite French dishes. But I do understand that eating snails may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Bacon wrapped scallops
One word. Yummo!

Quiche  Loraine served with some greens on the side

One of the Pressed Sandwiches (I'm not sure which kind it was), also served with greens

This place opens at 5 p.m. and stays open at least till midnight. But they are closed on Sundays, in case anyone thought of making a trip down here on a Sunday night!

Yelp Rating - http://www.yelp.com/biz/jadis-new-york