NEW YORK

Hello all! This is not our weekly update, this will be a post dedicated entirely to the 2 days we spent in New York a couple weeks ago! So sorry it’s been a while since I’ve been able to finally come in here and update everyone. But for a few days we were all out of commission with one after another 24 hour stomach bugs that had us randomly hurling. Anyways! Here we go!

Alright so we’ll just start from the beginning to keep things in check! We flew with United because Josh travels for work so he had airline miles and used some for this trip. We ended up only paying $22 for both of us! So we fly there, get on the train to go to Penn Station, and then go off to look for all the random foods and shops we wanted to try. Josh made a pdf map that had an icon for all the different places we wanted to go so we could keep track of it all without having to worry about constantly trying to remember what each thing was called.

Our first stop after Penn station was MOOD! By this point you know that I love crafty things, another thing I love is reality TV. Ya girl loves drama (as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with my life) LOL! So as a HUGE fan of Project Runway, I told Josh that I absolutely HAD to make a stop at Mood Fabrics. It was incredible, with two levels that were just filled to the brim with isles and isles of fabrics. Some of the things we looked at were $900 a yard! I wouldn’t know what to even do if I had the kind of money to buy something like that. Here’s some pictures to give you all a better idea!

Next stop: Salswee! There were so many people I saw on TikTok who RAVED about Salswee, so naturally we had to check it out. We chose four things to try: Cloud, Yuzu, Spinach and Mozzarella Croissant Quiche, and the Pain Au Chocolat.

I’ll be honest with you guys, we were not impressed by many of the ones we chose. The Spinach and Mozzarella Quiche was warm on the outside but the Spinach Mozzarella in the middle was just a cold lump of mush, it was extremely disappointing because I genuinely think it would’ve been delicious if it were thoroughly heated.

Next was the chocolate croissant, which looked really beautiful. But it was a HUGE mess, the flakes went everywhere. And it too should have been warmed because the chocolate in the middle was so cold that it was like putting chocolate in a fridge and eating it after it’s been in there for a while. Now, keep in mind, we didn’t have it warmed, but that’s only because we were not asked if we wanted anything warmed or toasted. Our mistake on that front, but I hope if you’re trying it, you will remember to ask for it!

The Cloud was really cool looking, but it was a bit of a let down, the white chocolate mousse itself didn’t have much flavor, and added with the hazelnut almond cookie and jelly on the inside didn’t much enhance the flavor we were thinking it would be. Also, the website doesn’t tell us the description of the foods, it’s only showing the ingredients.

The Yuzu was the saving grace at this place. We loved this pastry. It was bright and citrusy and had the crunchy rice krispie base that gave it the different mouth feel. If we went back, we’d definitely try this one again, but the other three options would have to be different.

Ok next place we stopped was Hashi Market. We weren’t planning on going here but as we were walking somewhere else we saw this and had to stop in. We got a peach fanta that was FANTASTIC! Not too sweet, and very light. Mitarashi dango which is the dango with a brown sugar sauce. I’ll be honest, I absolutely LOVE Hanami Dango (which is the pink, white and green ones you see sometimes) but I was not a fan of this and it was sad to not finish it. I go a spicy tuna onigiri that was AMAZING, not as spicy as you would think, but so delicious and definitely fresh. I’ve had some where you can tell the rice has been sitting in the fridge for a while because it’s lost all sense of moisture and is just a grainy mess, but this was delicious. I’d definitely get it again. And last but definitely not least was the scrambled egg potato chips which LITERALLY tasted just like scrambled eggs. They were SO good. The chips themselves were airy almost like munchos, so they weren’t hard or too heavy feeling. When Josh was in Taiwan he went to a convenience store to get snacks while we were on Facetime, and he asked me what to get and I kept seeing a bag of fried egg flavored lays behind him and thought it would be funny. He got it and they were amazing. He brought home two bags for us then and we’ve been searching all the Markets we can to try and find them with no luck. These helped to scratch the itch!

Back on the way to our next destination we stopped at Ole & Steen because they had a sign out for hot chocolate. I absolutely LOVE hot chocolate and would consider myself a connoisseur. Man this hot chocolate was one of the best I’ve ever had. It had a giant (looked like it was made from scratch) square marshmallow on top that actually cooled the hot chocolate off as you drank it. The cocoa itself was creamy and very cocoa filled, it was INCREDIBLE! I WISH I could go here every day for one.

After a quick stroll through Bryant Park, we finally got to our destination: Book-Off. Which is a bookstore that has old games, game systems, figurines, and anime merch on the bottom floor. The top floor being where they keep all their discounted books. We got some stuff for the girls here because they also had a section in the back for Disney World stuff. We collect popcorn buckets so for our oldest, we got here a Frozen popcorn bucket lantern that’s from Tokyo Disney. And Josh got a Baymax hat from here for $25 (which I know is a lot, but many resellers are trying to get it for minimum $60).

Another bookstore we went by was BOOKS Kinokuniya; which has three stories to it. The main floor that you walk onto are all the normal books you’d see at your every day book store. The bottom floor is FULL of stationary and cute office supplies. With cute little Studio Ghibli stuffies and blind boxes scattered throughout. Our oldest is obsessed with stationary supplies, and if we brought her with us we easily would’ve spent $300 on that alone. The top floor of the store was dedicated to all things anime; both English and Japanese mangas, figurines, and a small cafe area (which I’m not sure if that sold drinks or if that was just somewhere to be able to sit and read out of the cold).

Alright, we finally get to our hotel which was the Double Tree – Chelsea. It looked like an older hotel with smaller rooms, and only 1 working elevator; but we were only there for the one night so we just stopped for a quick rest before the big event.

THE CURSED CHILD! Our whole goal was just to see this performance and try to meet Tom Felton and get an autograph from him. I’ve never read the book so I had very little idea what it was about, but it was truly an amazing performance that made me cry many times just from the sheer beauty of it. There’s a scene were dementors come down from the rafters above the audience and grab some of the actors on stage as well; and just the beauty of the fabric that they chose was incredible it was so flowy and ethereal to look at. They also use a time turner in this and every time they did the lights would make the stage background and props look like they were actually distorting through time, it was ingenious. Tom received a HUGE round of applause during his first appearance and I was one of those people cheering as loud as I could. He also later delivered his iconic line “Scared, Potter,” to which everyone broke out in cheers again. It was AMAZING. But as much as I love Tom Felton, I genuinely thought that Aiden Close MADE that performance. He was INCREDIBLE! SO animated and funny, and such a sweetheart when we came out later that night and was talking to some people near us. I’d love to go back and get his autograph and tell him how incredible he was if I get the opportunity. SO, after the play, we stood outside in the 6° (felt like -2°) weather for 2 hours waiting for Tom to come out. I did get the autographs of Trish Lindstrom (who played Ginny Potter), who was an absolute sweetheart, and Janae Hammond (who played Rose Granger-Weasley) and she sat and talked with me for a few minutes about the balaclava that I crocheted, she was wonderful. We DID get Tom’s autograph, but he was so busy because there were so many people there waiting just for him; so he just went down the line doing autographs and thanking everyone as he went. Obviously it was freezing so he was trying to get done as quickly as possible, but I’d love to go back and give him the sweater I’m STILL working on. Fingers Crossed. Afterwards, we went to Raising Canes, because our toes were freezing and we needed something hot because we didn’t eat much before the show!