I spent a little less than two days in New York this past weekend, and besides the Yankee game, I can’t really tell you what we did, except for eating and drinking. So, below is my restaurant guide for a New York City weekend:
I arrived in the city around 9:00, and the first thing we did was head to Union Square for breakfast, which ended up being at Pret A Manger. I love this place, but it’s not very new to me since I’ve been to them in New York and London. Still, I got a croissant, which reminded me of being in Paris!
After wandering around the vendors in Union Square’s Saturday market, we walked down to SoHo and ended up at DoJo for lunch near NYU. I think I mostly loved this place because for $10 we got a meal . . . AND a drink. While the other ladies went for mimosas, I had to go for the bloody mary.
We wandered around Washington Square Park for a bit, then headed back up 5th Avenue to our hotel on the East Side to get ready for the game. Now, not only was I excited for the game, but I was kind of looking forward to stadium hotdogs. Unfortunately, the game was postponed. But, we still managed to make it a great night. Not hard to do being a group of four lovely ladies.

Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village
Now, I am not sure how people ever did anything before cell phone technology. How did you find restaurants? Directions? I think we spent about 45 minutes searching Urban Spoon and Yelp for restaurant reviews before deciding on Amber, an Asian restaurant . . . no, a trendy Asian restaurant. It was delicious, and I believe everyone loved their food and drinks. Bindu and Natalie were especially happy with the lychee martini, and I was pleased with the tangerine chicken.
The night was still young and we wanted dessert. After more Yelp consultation, we headed over to Madison Avenue to visit Sant Ambroeus, which is probably the cutest place ever with the most amazing desserts. Described as a spot for the “ladies who lunch” crowd, it catered to our sweet tooth needs. Let me tell you, the pumpkin cheesecake was amazing!
Day two saw us dining at a local diner for breakfast . . . think of the restaurant in Seinfeld and you’ll get the picture. After dropping Natalie and Dani off at Penn Station, Bindu and I kept on our walking trek of the city. This is when our food choices went downhill. I don’t mean that we didn’t like the food, but we started to eat a lot of sugar. On our quest to find coffee that didn’t come from Starbucks, we ran across the Buttercup Bake Shop. Of course we had to stop in. Good cupcakes, but still doesn’t beat Georgetown Cupcake, except these were only $2, which is a steal!
After walking across Midtown to the west side (and still not finding coffee), I decided that we couldn’t pass up Pinkberry if we were in the neighborhood (considering we’d already driven past multiple locations in taxis that weekend). After that pitstop, I knew that if we continued north to the Upper West Side, we were sure to find some authentic coffee. Believe me when I tell you, all we could find were Starbucks. I think we passed by 10 of them before Bindu got desperate and I had to go to the bathroom. Such a letdown.
Since we were no longer in need of coffee, but still hours before game time, we decided to stroll through Riverside Park.

Riverside Park - beautiful in the fall!
So, we wandered around and made our way down Columbus Avenue, when wouldn’t you know it – we ran right into Shake Shack. Shake Shack had been one of our options the night before, but we opted to scale things up instead. This place has amazing burgers! I highly recommend a stop, plus it’s pretty inexpensive.
By this time it was time to head to the Bronx for the game. Sadly, the burgers filled us up so much that we never got our stadium hot dogs. We were content with our overpriced hot chocolate to keep us warm as we cheered the Yankees onto the World Series!
So, there’s my weekend restaurant guide . . . and literally all we did all weekend was eat. And it was great!