Hester Street Fair & Seaport

I met up with Phil's family and his cousin, Lucia, for a quick lunch at a Wonton Noodle place on Canal Street while Phil went to see the dentist. Mmm...wonton noodle soup. There wasn't much flavor, but it still hit the spot.


After lunch we walked around the Chinatown area where we happened across a groundhog! There's a park near Grand Street that's being rennovated so it's fenced off. I'm not sure what a groundhog was doing in the middle of Chinatown, but he got a little spooked when we spotted him and hid underneath one of the palettes of concrete. And since we kept staring we started to draw a crowd - people started yelling out things like "Look, it's a giant rat!"

We made our way to a small "fair" that was setup at Seward Park for the summer - little tents with people selling homemade wares, clothing, jewelry and food. Aside from tourists roaming Canal Street this is probably the biggest group of non-Asians I've seen in Chinatown in a while.

Phil's sister, Winnie, checking out the menu at the Thai food tent.

We stopped by Luke's to try their lobster rolls. Lobster with some kind of sauce smushed in white bread.

Phil and I tried the lobster roll and the crab roll. $8 for a small roll! It was good, but not sure if I'd pay to eat it again...

Afterwards we made a stop by the "La Newyorkina" popsicle stand. Fresh fruit popsicles that came highly recommended by Lucia, and boy was it tasty! They had everything from raspberry and coconut to passion fruit and spicy mango. Definitely worth a try if you're in the area.

Me and Lucia outside the park with a passion fruit popsicle.

Our next stop was the South Street Seaport.

Lucia led us to a little Italian place called Barbarini. It's a restaurant/market complete with a butcher. It had a very European feel. We stopped to try their gelato which made it on an online top 10 list. I'm no gelato expert, but I thought it was quite good.