NYC – Part 4, A Foodie Day Including Smorgasburg Prospect Park
After a late night on the Saturday, and the Freakshake containing more than a day’s calories, I opted to walk from the Empire State building to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, admittedly at the time I was slightly fragile after a late night out with friends, I somehow thought I’d punish myself further, by walking the 7 miles to Brooklyn to work off the excess calorie intake, from alcohol and dessert. The walk over wasn’t too bad, I stopped for a quick orange juice along the way at a health food store and met my friend at the gates of Prospect Park. Our aim today was to visit Smorgasburg; which is a weekly food and a spin off from Brooklyn Flea market. They operate in two locations, on a Saturday at Williamsburg waterfront and on Sundays at Smorgasburg Prospect Park. The New York times has described it as “The Woodstock of Eating.”, big words and I went in with high expectations. I’m a big fan of Streetfeast in London so was looking forward to trying what our friends across the pond had to offer.
For the first time in many years, I was left speechless, there were over 50 different stalls offering different forms of cuisine from around the world alongside local delicacies. It was the type of feeling I used to get when going to Toys-r-us as a kid, instead of all those toys under one roof I had so many different dishes to choose from. I opted to have some Poke from East Coast Poke, An Indian style taco from Goa Taco, a lobster roll and a Chocolate Wowfull from Wowfull’s.
The chocolate wowfull was my favourite thing out of the four, and I was also glad that the friend I went to Smorgasburg with was vegan – it meant that I didn’t have to share! I’m like Joey from Friends, I don’t like sharing food, especially dessert!
After all that food I decided to walk back into Manhattan and ended up on Avenue of Americas near Radio City Music Hall (a good 7.7 miles walk). Avenue of Americas was completely closed down and full of market stall’s and food stalls, I opted out of exploring these and quenched my thirst with some lemonade. I then braved Times Square which I was trying to avoid due to the sheer volume of locals and tourists in the area. Having spent a quick few minutes there I decided to come back much later on in the evening.
I met up with a friend at a middle-eastern bar/restaurant called Pergola where we caught up over a shisha and a few beers, in usual style my friend was late so I spent some time talking to the bar staff who were from Europe, discussing travelling war stories and they were kind enough to comp me with a few pints of IPA.
Despite over indulging at Smorgasbord Prospect Park, I was keen on one last meal in NYC, we opted for an Italian restaurant called L’Amico ,where I enjoyed burrata for starters, wood roasted chicken for mains and of course Gelato for dinner. I spent the rest of the evening wondering the city and before I knew it, it was 4am and I was in Times Square which was relatively quiet, other than the clean up crews and the Chile fans celebrating their Copa America victory over Argentina.
It was now time to end my NYC adventure and head West to California. At this point, I’d like to add I somehow walked over 60 miles in my four days in NYC, in some rather uncomfortable shoes for such distances!
Links: Smorgasburg, East Coast Poke, Goa Taco, Wowfulls, Pergola NYC, L’Amico and NYC Part 3.
