Jersey Diary: NYC with the Cousins

One of Phil's cousins was visiting from San Francisco, so it was back into the city on Saturday. We went back to Congee Village for lunch. Since there were so many of us they sat us at one of the larger tables in the back. Here we are still a little disheveled from the cold wind outside.

There was a portion of the floor that was decorated with this really nice backlit glass pattern. Too bad it was completely covered by our table. You would think with something so pretty they would have put it somewhere people could actually see it...

There were about 10 of us at lunch, including Phil's parents, his aunts and uncle and 3 of his cousins, and we still managed to eat for less than $60! The joys of cheap eats in Chinatown ^__^

we had 3 huge bowls of congee... and that tofu looking thing at the bottom was like a Chinese donut which you dip in a sweet frosting. Yum! Who said you can't eat dessert first.

Then we had 3 noodle dishes. I took a picture of the flat noodles we had. There were also 2 dishes of Singapore noodles.

And, to end with, a bowl of beef tendons. The bowl was deceivingly shallow...

Phil and I posed with the cousins near the front entrance before we headed back into the cold.

(Left to Right: Phil, Lucia, Kevin, Lydia, me)

After lunch Phil and I walked around with his cousins Lucia and Lydia. Our first stop was a little coffee shop and chocolatier called Cocoa Bar. It's a tiny little shop and was full of New Yorkers working away on their laptops. They had a whole display of different kinds of chocolates. Although with $3 prices for something the size of a Hershey's Kiss we decided to pass on the chocolate and just order some drinks to keep us warm.

Phil and I shared a mint hot chocolate. It was very rich, and also a little chunky...not sure if that was intentional...Lydia ordered a spicy hot chocolate. I didn't try it, but it came in a cool glass cup where the inside looks suspended.

After we finished our hot chocolate we made a stop at a restaurant deli called Katz's so Lucia could buy some pastrami for a Super Bowl party.

Once you enter the restaurant deli you get a ticket that you take with you when you order, and then you have to present it to the cashier when you leave to pay for everything. I didn't realize it until Lydia pointed it out, but apparently a scene from the movie When Harry Met Sally was filmed here.

Our last stop before heading back to Phil's parents' house was a cupcake place called Sugar Sweet Sunshine. Considering how cold it was there were a decent number of people crammed inside the store enjoying their cupcakes. We took ours to go.

Here we have the "Bob" cupcake on the bottom and the "Ooey Goey" at the top.

The cupcakes themselves didn't look super fancy, but they tasted pretty good. The "Ooey Gooey" tasted like it had a hint of cherry, although Phil didn't agree. I think he was still sour about being caught on camera while he was trying to enjoy his cupcake.

After dinner with Phil's parents we headed back home. But we didn't leave empty handed. For those of you who know Phil's mom or have at least heard stories from us before about the mounds of groceries, Saturday was no exception. These are all the bags that we ended up bringing back with us. Now, some of you may be saying to yourselves this doesn't look that bad...so I took some more pictures to put it into context.