Just two newlywed (6/2017) NYC-based Terps deciding to document their travels and search for the next delicious thing. All to avoid being hangry with each other.
📍Pisticci, Morningside Heights, NY
🗓August 22, 2017
It is a secret dream of mine to go to one of those truffle festivals in those quaint countryside towns in Italy. I may have to trick Nate into making an Italy trip and not fully disclosing that the primary purpose will be to indulge in truffle everything.
Pisticci’s is another Columbia gem where all the students take their parents because it’s more impressive than taking them to the local bar or Koronet for a jumbo slice. It’s also always filled with professors, grad students, families, and couples. It’s frequently crowded but I never have to wait too long for a table (they reserve a bunch for walk-ins). They have classic Italian fare and rotating daily specials, one of which is frequently the Linguini di mare which my heart skips a beat for whenever I see it on their specials board. Otherwise I almost always get the Fettucini ai funghi and yes, pay the $2 (I believe) extra for truffle oil. We once took Nate’s aunt here and she raved about her meal and then had a taste of mine and ate way more bites than I would have let anyone else who wasn’t marrying us take from my plate! Nate is partial to the classic Meatballs with polenta. They also have some excellent cocktails and wine options.
Nothin like a little 🌘 eclipse action to make you appreciate the last ☀️rays of summer. Dolla oysters, pitcher cocktails, and harbor views also help 😉 🌇
📍Pier A Harbor House, Battery Park, NY
🗓August 21, 2017
The day of the eclipse, I felt a little sad to be missing out on being one of those people that drove down to an area in the path of totality. Instead I was stuck at work in an area where only about 70% of the sun would be blocked out. Luckily my co-worker bought enough glasses for us to share and another co-worker showed us how to get to the roof of our building. It was pretty amazing. Science is awesome. I cannot wait for the next one.
Pier A is kind of bougie. The oysters were questionable (I had some stomach issues later which may or may not have been due to these oysters but I lit’relly cannot say no to doller oysters)! The cocktails, while not that pretty or “gramable” were strong and come in pitchers. My friend and I split the “Albatross” aka the Paloma, which included tequila, Italian grapefruit soda, and lime. Then we both got the Monday $10 Burger which was generous enough to come with bacon but also some sad limpy fries. These views though were unbeatable with the sailboats drifting along and Lady Liberty winking at you. Ended one of the last truly warm days of summer stumbling home pleasantly tipsy through Wall Street singing Hamilton tunes out loud to the subway. New York, I love you.
Who else is of the opinion that some of the best hidden gem restaurants are the ones that don't fret about not having their name posted outside? 😅#ifyoucookittheywillcome
📍Malay Restaurant, Flushing, NY
🗓August 20, 2017
Good luck finding this place unless you know about it already. Seriously. There’s no sign out front. It’s a small hole in the wall and if you’re squeamish about some of the dingier options that Flushing has to offer, you may want to avoid. Although you’d be missing out on some seriously delicious eats. Sorry I can’t tell you more about what we ordered or link to a website. Just use your trust Google Maps to help you locate this yummy Malaysian restaurant and if you’ve stumbled into a glorified hallway with a giant painting of Malaysia and its surrounding countries on the wall, you’ve stumbled into the right feast.
Trying to think of what special occasion I can come up with to justify a trip to Tanoshi… Labor Day? 1.5 month anniversary? Monday? 🤔🍣
📍Tanoshi, Upper East Side, NY
🗓April 18, 2017
Omakase. What a perfect meal. The chef chooses. You sample a huge variety of foods. Everything is fresh. Perfect - except the price. Tanoshi is famously one of the more reasonably priced omakase options in the city yet we still need a special occasion to justify going. Especially when we order off the regular menu and get some more items after the main course is done.
Tanoshi has two spaces which are separate from each other although they are also right next door to each other. You must RSVP in advance because they only seat about 20 people total, so they do 3 seatings a night. I have gone with a group of three (including me) and one lucky guy saw our crowd, asked what was going on, and filled in the extra one seat left by our group. It’s also BYOB so you can stop by a nearby liquor store and get some sake. I also highly recommend you make an evening of it and go to (with reservations) nearby Seamstress for pre- or post-dinner cocktails. This is the XXX roll - uni, roe, and quail egg. The textures (especially with the raw egg) are just as special as the flavors.
From left to right: shaved parmesan ➡️ balsamic dressed mix greens ➡️ heirloom tomato ➡️ grilled peach ➡️ prosciutto 🙌🏽.
The perfect summer salad. Forgive the poor lighting; it's the price we pay for romantic candlelit dinners✨
📍Max Soha, Morningside Heights, NY
🗓 August 17, 2017
Max Soha is one of those dreamy Morningside Heights restaurants that seem to really cater mostly to locals. The tight space never feels too crowded or loud. The yummy staple menu is always supplemented with a constantly changing daily specials menu that always has delicious appetizers, pastas, main courses, and desserts to keep each experience fresh and interesting. Summer is my favorite time to visit since they have a great outdoor seating area that’s partially elevated. Their cash only policy keeps prices low and their staff is so great.
Whoever invented late happy hours like this one that started at 9:30pm was a GENIUS.
📍Gyu-Kaku, Times Square, NY
🗓August 10, 2017
Seriously though. As someone who will starve all day in preparation for what I know will be a delicious meal, I am a strong believer that good food is always worth the wait. My budget agrees and adds on good and cheap(er than usual) food is worth the wait. Enter late happy hours. Sure there’s the normal rush after work to down as many cheap cocktails & appys happy hours, but not enough places extend their happy hour times long enough to make it worth the rush and fight the crowds. But if you go for a later happy hour, there’s less people, and you can still save yourself some room for delicious food specials at a “reverse” happy hour. And what better place than the city that never sleeps than to roll these out?
I went with two friends, one of whom keeps kosher so he stuck to the vegetables and fish which were delicious. We also had two rounds of ordering. The first round involved a Spicy Tuna Volcano appetizer that my friend demanded we get. It was good. I wouldn’t demand it again. I would, however, strongly request the Vegetable Garlic Noodles because they were delicious. We proceeded to the Kalbi Short Ribs, Premium Rib Eye Steak, and Mushroom Medley. After deciding we could eat more (and, at these prices, why not?), we ordered the Harami Miso Skirt Steak, Filet Mignon and another round of the mushroom medley because they are my passion. All truly delicous and 100% worth returning for. Maybe even at full price…
“Let’s get the ‘Pure Snow’ sake in honor of Jon Snow.” 😂 #wellthen I need a good Game of Thrones food pun - any takers? 🍣🍶⚔️ #whitefishwalkers #MotherOfDragonRolls #imbadatpuns
📍Mido, Upper West Side, NY
🗓August 14, 2017
I need someone to teach me how to drink sake. Also beer. And wine. And liquor in general. Anyway my neighborhood doesn’t have that many great sushi options so I didn’t mind when my best friend suggested a sushi place near her for our semi-weekly dinner. Mido is relatively new and a solid UWS sushi joint. The chirashi, which is what we both ended up ordering, was fresh enough if not pretty basic. The restaurant is also spacious with a very friendly staff. I sipped the Pure Snow Sake but I think next time I’ll stick with my green tea…
Red. Velvet. Waffles. WITH FRIED CHICKEN. AND BOURBON. MAPLE. SYRUP!! 👅💦#brunchisserved 🍴
📍Streetbird, Harlem, New York
🗓August 5, 2017
Let’s talk a second about a kind of dirty secret of mine. I don’t really like breakfast food. Or breakfast. I mean… I have grown up and grown into it but for the longest time I really avoided breakfast altogether. My parents were never up early enough to make my brother and I breakfast on the reg and if we did anything ourselves it’d cut into our Pokemon-watching time before the bus arrived.
Nowadays though as a working adult with a taxing job I know I need a little something in the morning to get me through lawyering so I’m amenable to yogurts, even some eggs, a bagel if I know I have a big day ahead of me or I’m hungover (which means I have a big day ahead of pulling my act together). This lifelong breakfast avoidance means I LOVE having non-breakfast foods for breakfast. Like fried chicken. Who came up with this? They’re amazing.
For a few dark months Streetbird took away their red velvet waffles in their Chicken & Waffles brunch staple and it legit broke Nate’s heart. Now it’s back with a vengeance and I can 100% get behind this breakfast. Also, when we’ve gone for brunch if I’m feeling another meal (aka Nate orders the chicken & waffles and I know I can steal off his plate) I am also in love with their Crispy Bird Sandwich. It’s the most delicious chicken sandwich AND it comes with tater tots. Heaven.
I think I have a matcha obsession. Yes, I have become that obnoxious person who travels to Japan for two seconds and is now obsessed with matcha. In all fairness, I have been a green tea drinker pretty much since I weaned off the formula milk. My mother was a solid believer of tea after dinner and I always preferred it over coffee.
Ten Below is a pretty typical rolled ice cream joint popping up everywhere. It’s nice to think of your ice cream being “freshly made” and of course, it makes for a fun experience. The lines can get pretty crazy though and the crowds push through to the glass to watch it all go down. This right here is their Matcha Made in Heaven with green tea & strawberries, topped with more strawberries and teddy grahams. I think I preferred I-CE NY only because it felt like there were more flavor & topping options but really it’s all delicious!
We interrupt these travel adventures to bring you the most perfect umami-packed roasted brunch tomato 🍅
📍Flat Top, Morningside Heights, NY
🗓 July 30, 2017
Flat Top, to me, is one of the best classic “New American” restaurants in the Columbia area. It’s a great place to bring your parents (and yes, I am specifically speaking about my immensely picky) mother. The menu is that sweet spot between overly simple where you flip it over and go “that’s it..?” and overly complicated where you don’t recognize half the ingredients.
There’s outdoor dining space when the weather gets warm (like during this brunch), and you can watch all the Columbia kids roll by plus those open air tour buses that rumble down towards Harlem headed for the Apollo Theater. Their brunch is simple and their coffee is excellent. I’m a smoked salmon benedict gal and Nate went for steak & eggs which, admittedly, did leave a little to be desired. For dinner, my parents rave over the bone marrow appetizer while I indulge my mushroom obsession with their three mushroom risotto which comes with parmesan foam which always interests me. Is there a wrong way to eat cheese? I haven’t found it.
I think Nate and I discussed our honeymoon before we discussed our wedding. That might say more about my feelings toward wedding planning than it does about my feelings toward traveling though to be honest... There is nothing wrong with sitting on a beach for two weeks and blissing out for your honeymoon. Planning any wedding is stressful. It sucks. Turning off your brain and only using it to remind yourself to re-apply suntan can do wonders to counteract all the wedding planning stress. However, we are not those types of travelers and our travel philosophy is usually to see/eat/drink/do all that we can. So when we started to brainstorm locations these are some reasons we had that led us to Japan & Thailand and how I started to make it happen...
Our reasons for going to Japan & Thailand:
I’ve been to China (3x), Hong Kong (1.5x), and Taiwan (1x). Nate has never been to East Asia. Japan and Thailand have been on both our lists.
We wanted a nice long honeymoon and, in my opinion (which I know is shared by many), it’s not worth going to East Asia unless you go for a minimum of 10-14 days. The longer the better. That full day of travel from NYC/America is just not worth a short turnaround.
FOOD (admittedly, this list is not in priority order).
We figured Japan would be a nice starting point if we went to Tokyo, as it’s more modern and honestly more New York-like, before we made our way to the jungle mountains of Chiang Mai and beaches of Phuket. Also, the food.
It’s JAPAN AND THAILAND.
(My mouth is watering looking at this gif)
Thereafter, we decided on Tokyo, Kyoto, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Phuket. Tokyo is the obvious choice. Kyoto is pretty popular too. I think when we were only going to be in Japan for a week, going with the more popular options makes sense unless you have more specific interests. If/when we go back, we’ll definitely want to see Osaka, Hiroshima, Mt. Fuji, etc. Next time.
Bangkok is also obvious given its capital status and it’s pretty trendy. Chiang Mai for the elephants (and now I know, for the food too!). Phuket was a tougher choice because my well-traveled friend was yelling at me to avoid Phuket and go to Krabi. In the end, going to a touristy place last where we just wanted a nice beach wasn’t a bad choice. It’s also nice to land in an airport and just take a taxi without worrying about other modes of transportation.
We were travelling during the monsoon season which I agonized over a little. In the end, I decided it would be fine. And it was. We did get some massive downpours but luckily they were short and usually only during travelling and not during any activities. It did mean the waves were pretty rough and we missed out on Phi Phi islands which I’m sad about, but all in all it was an excellent trip with excellent locations.
Now that we had cities, I had to figure out how we were going to get there and where we’re going to stay...
Flights & Hotels
I am a big fan of DIY travel plans (obviously, as this Tumblr exists). I am also a huge proponent of the flight tracker app Hopper, which alerts you when flight prices drop. We planned a five-city tour, with bullet trains and flights in-between. I then excitedly tried to book one flight online (I believe it was Bangkok to Chiang Mai) when I saw cheap prices and arrived at a website that was legitimately all in Thai. While Google helpfully offered to translate the website, I’m not in the habit of providing my credit card information to sites that REQUIRE GOOGLE TRANSLATE.
Therefore, I decided to turn to a travel agent to help book flights and hotels. I originally reached out to Liberty Travel, who I thought came up with a fine itinerary (although looking back at it now that I’m more familiar with the areas of the city it wasn’t as great as what we ended up with), but then I read these horrible reviews of them and decided to try something more local instead.
Finding a travel agent is actually more difficult than finding a good restaurant. I’ve never used a travel agent. I actually googled multiple “why use a travel agent” articles on Google. I also rely my life on Yelp and internet reviews, of which there are not that many for travel agents which is frustrating. I ended up going with Gina at G World Travel based off her positive Yelp reviews (of which there are only 13). Gina was great and a great choice. We only communicated over email. She gave me alternative options when I asked her about different times we could leave and when we decided to knock off a day at Tokyo to give it to Bangkok. We are also of the mind that, when you spend all your travel time outside exploring, there’s no need to go higher than a 3-star hotel, which Gina was great at accommodating with affordable hotels in great locations close to public transportation. At one point she selected a nicer hotel than we needed, and easily changed it to a cheaper option once I asked.
Nobody is perfect, so I will be honest with some of the issues too. She required a lot for the deposit which was fine for us but may not be great for others (although it may have also just been the nature of this trip). At one point early in the planning she had our dates mixed up but that was easily addressed. The biggest thing was that every hotel in Thailand required our “vouchers” which we had no idea what that meant. I ended up having to forward our itineraries to the hotel staff at all three hotels which I don’t love doing since it has some personal information on there. I also wish she was more forthcoming with recommendations for activities or travel tips, but maybe she would have if I asked. Who knows?
However, all of that was really minuscule in comparison to everything Gina did. She picked good hotels in our budget (and almost all of them had some upgrade or complementary thing to celebrate our honeymoon), all of which were in great locations for travelling. She also selected a quieter part of Phuket away from the hormonal fratty tourists which I didn’t appreciate until after we arrived. We had five cities, five hotels, and with layovers we had 7 flights to catch. It all ended up great and I would definitely use Gina again and I would 100% recommend her to anyone planning a trip abroad.
Activities & Excursions & Food!
Like most travelers, I rely heavily on TripAdvisor. Luckily, I also have a good amount of friends who have gone to Japan & Thailand, so a call out on Facebook for recommendations was a good start also. I always look at the most popular things to do on TripAdvisor, make a list, and star it on Google Maps so I know where everything is (I also star our hotel so I know where our home base is). Then I make a big list that includes where the location is, a summary of what it’s about (because when your list grows it’s hard to remember what everything is!), and other details like prices (if applicable), time constraints, location details, and anything else that might be helpful. After that, it’s just a lot of re-arranging until you get the perfect itinerary! Also, I work a lot around food....
20-something year old lawyer, NYC transplant since 2011 (although I grew up in Jersey and came in to see family in Queens nearly every weekend of my childhood), food and travel enthusiast, type-A travel planner, recently married (6/25/2017) to a fellow Terp.
What’s this for?
An easy and fun way to document our travel and food adventures. Also, hopefully an easier way than multiple forwarded emails to share my intense travel planning work with friends and friends of friends and family and now Tumblr.
On that note, I’m a type-A planner. My friend still makes fun of me because I once sent her an itinerary that said things like “walk five streets, then turn slightly left at the diagonal and walk two more streets to the phallic shaped pond.” It can be a little intense, but I am not above spontaneity (I just like structure as a backup...).
What’s with the name?
I am constantly thinking of my next meal. I will fast and wait hours if I know something delicious is coming up. Nate doesn’t obsess over food as much (or at all really), but he does get super hangry if he doesn’t eat regularly. As our primary adventure planner, this works as I plan around food to look forward to and to avoid #HangryHulkNathan.
What’s going on here?
As much as I would love to be one of those people who can post a new travel location every week (or even every month), I have a full-time job which pretty much confines me to the Bronx. So besides all the travel planning and trip documenting, I’ll probably post more NYC-based food adventures between travels.
Anything else?
I once decided to end a (not that strong to begin with) friendship because a friend’s travel blog, based on their limited experience in a tiny part of a massive country, generalized so much of the people and culture based on their relatively short time there. I (hope I) get it (as best as I can). You would laugh at anyone who showed up to the middle of Idaho and said “wow all Americans really love their potatoes.” My opinions are my own. They’re super limited. Please feel free to engage if you feel like I have an opportunity to learn more.
I hope this blog is mainly fun, but also would love if it helps anyone with their travel and food planning, and of course, #hangeravoidance.
Also on Instagram @hangeravoidance
Photos clockwise from top left:
Brooklyn Bridge, New York, NY (8/2014)
Old Bridge Gelateria, Rome, Italy (8/2014)
Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, Thailand (7/2017)
Paris, France (8/2014)
Breakfast was delicious and wriggling at Sushi Dai, our first meal when we touched down in Japan for our honeymoon and a good way to get over that jet lag 😉 More details soon to come!
Best way to see Tokyo? Driving a suped-up go-kart through rush hour traffic in a Mario onesie. This was the (new) husband's favorite honeymoon adventure. More details on this and our other Tokyo plans soon to come!
