After a day of whiskey, we were definitely gonna take it easy on Day 3. Since some of us have never been the Brooklyn, Rose offered to show us around the area so we got on the subway and got a taste of NY's hipster central, Williamsburg!
Before that, we went into Eataly to get some water to re-hydrate ourselves and some coffee to wake us up.
Cafe Mocha. Lavazza coffee.
Cafe Latte.
Ahrhan and her espresso.
At the Williamsburg subway station, "B" for Brooklyn.
Egg
135 N 5th St
Between Bedford Ave & Berry St
Williamsburg - North Side
Brooklyn, NY 11211
First stop, Egg for brunch. Egg is this super super super super super hipster brunch spot. REALLY hipster.
Part of the menu. Nothing looked exciting except for the Eggs Rothko. Oatmeal... plain pancakes and others make up the rest of the menu. Later confirmed by others that everything else on the menu was average besides the Rothko.
Got a lemonade... only drank half. Way too sweet.
Eggs Rothko with thick brioche, then a circle is cut out in the middle, filled with an egg, then covered with melted cheddar.
Combination of buttery brioche, egg, and cheese is fantastic.
Candied bacon was literally strips of bacon then glazed with sugar. Worked well with the rest of the dish since I can take a "break" and have something sweet in-between.
Oven-roasted tomato had a nice tartness to it! Great with the heaviness of cheese.
Diana also got the Eggs Rothko, but with country ham and it was not as enjoyable.
Country ham was way too salty.
In the end... I didn't really understand why Egg was so popular. Maybe it is popular because they have their own farm and source other ingredients from local source so hipsters love it? Or maybe hipsters here just like bland food like grits and oatmeal... or they just like to overpay for a simple sausage & gravy.
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Saint's Alp Teahouse
164 Bedford Ave
Between 7th St & 8th St
Williamsburg - North Side
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Was walking around and found a Saint's Alp!! Saint's Alp is a chain of teahouse that originated from HK. Never knew they had branched out to US, let alone NY.
Milk Green Tea, with less less sugar. It's actually pretty good, except expensive as hell... Essentially, the price I paid can be a large at many places, and the regular size here is smaller than the regular size anywhere else! Their large is like.. TapEx's regular.
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Brooklyn Brewery
79 N 11th St
Between Berry St & Wythe Ave
Williamsburg - North Side
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Yup, the Brooklyn Brewery is located in Brooklyn. What a surprise! :P
Tanks.
Some malts.
There's also a tasting area where you can buy tokens for $5 each and receive a cup of beer with each token. Fresh draft!
Promoting their summer ale.
Where you pick your beer.
Others didn't really want to drink after a full day of drinking yesterday so Audrey and I decided to split a Mary's Maple Porter! It's a draft-only seasonal from Feb-April so we were able to catch it. It's a little hoppy with strong notes of the maple and hints of caramel, chocolate, and coffee from the roasted malts and the maple syrup added to the fermentation.
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When we were walking on Bedford, I saw people eating these crazy slices of pizza. I had to stop and get one as well, and turns out Vinnie's is quite popular for their crazy toppings on pizzas!
Vinnie's Pizzeria
148 Bedford Ave
Between 8th St & 9th St
Williamsburg - North Side
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Store front.
The Farmer's Daughter, which is topped with garlic sautéed spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, portabello mushrooms, and melted herbed goat cheese.
No tomato sauce. Lots and lots of spinach on the pizza. Very light. I like the thin crispy NY-style crust!
Ben's Chicken & Ranch.
Great BBQ chicken with ranch.
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Part of the reason for going to Brooklyn is to check out the Brooklyn Bridge! We went on a really beautiful day and we were able to get a good view of it, as well as Manhattan.
Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory
Fulton Ferry Landing Pier
1 Water St
Brooklyn, NY 11230
Brooklyn Bridge! We didn't walk across it since we didn't have time. Maybe next time.
There's also the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory!
Line was looooong on a nice day. Would've took over 40 minutes.
Somehow Audrey went in, did her Audrey thing, convinced a guy to sell her Vanilla by the pint even though they do not that. *Bows down*
Our pint of old fashioned Vanilla! Vanilla is my favorite and you can really tell how good an ice cream shop is by their vanilla. It's easy to make but so hard to make it good.
Peeling bag the paper to reveal the vanilla ice cream!
So... how's the Vanilla? Fawking awesome. It's creamy, smooth, and it just has that texture that old fashioned ice cream is suppose to have. Good job Audrey!
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After Brooklyn Bridge, we took the subway back to Manhattan, more specifically SoHo, since we wanted to do a little shopping, and that's also where one of my favorite, Uniqlo, is! Before we went though, we stopped by Rice To Riches since a few of us wanted to try it. I was never a fan of gooey desserts like rice pudding but figured... it must be popular for a reason so why not.
Rice To Riches
37 Spring St
Between Mott St & Mulberry St
Nolita
New York, NY 10012
All the rice pudding on display.
HAHA they call toppings "Jesus Droppings." The whole shop has a bunch of these remarks throughout.
We tasted a few, but Diana and I went for the Almond Shmalmond.
All orders come in cool containers like this, but you definitely paid for it. Our "solo" size was a little over $5. You get even get one that serves 10 and they call it "moby" ahaha.
Rice To Riches logo.
We topped ours with homemade graham crackers. The Almond Shmalmond was WAY too sweet. When we tried the little sample, it didn't taste as sweet but holy.. I took 4-5 bites and I was done. Probably used a little too much of that almond flavoring. The graham crackers were awesome though. Very buttery and a little bit salty so it helped offset the sweetness.
Somebody's Cheesecake. MUCH better. Less sugar and it really does taste like a cheesecake.
Ahrhan's Chocolate and I think Cookies & Cream? Whatever... not a fan of rice pudding.
So in the end, I found out that I do not like rice pudding :P The concept and the execution of Rice To Riches is exceptional but it's just not for me.
Afterwards, we did a bit of shopping, but since it was a Sunday, most stores were closing around 8pm. With a little over 2 hours to kill, we decided to head back to the hotel and rest up before our huge dinner at 10:30pm at Momofuku Ssam Bar for the Bo Ssam!
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