Moved Out West...

I figured this massive change in my life required a blog post as it will eventually have an affect on my blog's content.... Three and a half years ago, shortly after graduating college, I moved to NYC. At the time I wasn't too keen on moving to the Big Apple. Senior year of college I had my heart set on moving to Southern California but after graduating I had an internship offer in LA and a job offer in New York so I took the job offer (and so glad I did!).

I knew I would like the city but coming from Dallas I was not looking forward to the cold weather or public transportation. A couple mentors of mine at the time told me to give New York a chance for 3 to 5 years and then move out West if that's still something I wanted to do. So here I am, three and a half years later, sitting in my new sunny Hollywood apartment!

I am thrilled that I have finally reached my goal of moving to California but incredibly sad that New York is no longer my home. I have truly fallen in love with NYC and know that I will miss it every day.

Things I will miss about New York...

• Obviously my amazing NY friends top the list along with the fabulous people in the New York office!
• The variety of restaurants within walking distance to wherever you are
• The abundance of taxis
• Central Park
• The running path along the Hudson
• Broadway shows
• Rolling my eyes at tourists who are so easy to spot once you become a local
• Having a NYSC on every corner
• Walking to and from work every day
• Bumble & Bumble
• The skyline, especially at night
• Working in a famous building (our NY office was in the original Superman movie!)
  

How my blog will change.... I am still not 100% sure what direction I want to take my blog but I think I'll be more casual about my posts and simply write about things that I've attended, tasted, enjoyed and hated- whether it's a restaurant, a spa, a movie, a comedy show, etc. I'll see how it goes and adjust accordingly along the way. However, there are a TON of New York restaurants that I still want to review so I will intersperse those with my other posts.
Hopefully you all will stay tuned and please feel free to give me feedback along the way!

Craft

This past week my mom, brother and I went to Craft in the Gramercy neighborhood of Manhattan (map). The restaurant, owned by the famous Tom Colicchio, is an amazingly cool space with modern hanging lights and a large leather wall. The menu lists our a wide range of meets, side dishes, salads, pasta, seafood and more and is served family style, meant to be shared with the table. We ordered a wide variety of dishes each better than the next! We started off with cocktails and two side dishes. My brother ordered the Crispy Bacon, recommended by our waiter, while I went with the Roasted Tokyo Turnips. The Crispy Bacon was four big slices of bacon, it was like nothing I had ever seen before, I never knew bacon could be so large. The bacon was sauteed in orange marmalade and my brother loved it. The turnips were very tasty and a great dish to share.
Before our entrees were served we were greeted with a shot-like portion of fava bean panna cotta puree. Thankfully I had mentioned to the waiter that I'm a vegetarian when we ordered our side dishes because they gave me the non-bacon garnished fava bean puree. :)
Our entrees included the Roasted Baby Carrots, Asparagus, Roasted Beets with tarragon, Gratin Potatoes, Mezzaluna Pasta (moon-shaped pasta) and the Braised Beef Short Rib.
It was too hard to pass up dessert since everything else we tasted was so fabulous we knew that dessert would not disappoint. My brother had a single scoop of vanilla ice cream while my mom and I shared the Warm Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting, candied walnuts and Rhubarb sorbet.

The service was amazing, our waiter was very friendly and made wonderful suggestions. Just like at Bouley the hospitality continued until we left the door, as we left we were each presented with individually wrapped homemade chocolate chip muffins.
Craft is a restaurant where you are encouraged to sit as long as you'd like, enjoy your company, the food and the wine. You may want to make your reservations via Open Table a few days in advance.

Babycakes NYC

If it's vegan it's healthy, right?!? That's what I told myself as I bit into a carrot cake cupcake at Babycakes bakery in NYC a couple weeks ago. Skeptics would be surprised that desserts made from coconut oil, agave nectar, garbanzo flour, and spelt are actually very good and much more filling than those made from white flour and sugar at places like Magnolia Bakery and Sprinkles.

Owner and founder Erin McKenna, opened Babycakes in 2005 tapping into the cravings of those who need to eat wheat, gluten, dairy and sugar free or even stick to a Kosher diet. McKenna's sweet factory was named the Best Cupcakes in NYC by NY Magazine in 2006.

Babycakes' menu offers cupcakes, loaves, cookies, cookie sandwiches, crumb cakes, muffins, spelt tea cake, brownies, macaroons, scones, pies and more. Among my favorite menu options are the tiny sweets like the cupcake tops and frosting shots.

Babycakes is currently located at 248 Broome Street (between Orchard & Ludlow) in Manhattan but are planning to open a Los Angeles location soon. The LA location will be cool, near The Grove and will share a space with the denim design shop Earnest Sewn.

Aroma Cafe

During lunch at Aroma Cafe I was overwhelmed by the extremely large menu while, at the same time, underwhelmed by the service we received. As much as I love having plenty of options, I had a really hard time understanding what this restaurant's specialty was- there were salads, pizzas, sandwiches, pastas, vegetarian dishes, meat dishes, Mediterranean and BBQ- really there was just too much variety. But the good thing is that Aroma Cafe has something for everyone.
I loved sitting outside at this newly renovated, street-side cafe and at night it would be nice to sit in front of the small fireplaces for a drink or during dinner.

Mexicali Cocina Cantina

Great Mexican restaurants are not hard to find in LA but Mexicali Cocina Cantina was a great find, located in Studio City on Ventura Blvd & Laurel Canyon Blvd. We had a very strange waiter but the food was great. My friend and I shared their homemade Guacamole, she ordered the Grilled Chicken Quesadilla and I had the Mexicali Fajita Salad. But their menu also includes a long list of Tacos, Tamales, Burritos, and Enchiladas as well as fabulous margaritas and sangria.

Sprinkles Cupcakes

Not only can you smell the goodness of Sprinkles Cupcakes a mile away but you can see a line of people waiting in a line a mile long just to experience the famous treats. And yes, I too stood in that line outside of the Beverly Hills store excited for my first Sprinkles cupcake! The flavors change daily but we were able to pick up a great sampling of the Black & White (Belgian dark chocolate cake with creamy vanilla frosting), Cinnamon Sugar (lightly spiced buttermilk cake dusted with cinnamon sugar), Peanut Butter Chip (chocolate chip-studded peanut butter cake with peanut butter frosting), Red Velvet, Strawberry (strawberry cake with sweet strawberry frosting), and Vanilla (Madagascar bourbon vanilla cake with creamy vanilla frosting). Overall I'd have to say my favorite was the Strawberry cupcake but I also really liked the Cinnamon Sugar- it tasted more like a sweet breakfast coffee cake. Today, via Twitter, I asked my followers what their favorite cupcake flavors were and/or bakery. The response, keeping in mind I only heard back from New Yorkers, was Red Velvet from Buttercup Bake Shop. Obviously, my favorite cupcakes are from Emily Knapp (my little sister)- I mean just look at these cupcakes- she's amazing!

Chin Chin

Chin Chin is another Asian restaurant located on Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood with great outdoor space that is also perfectly situated for people watching and cocktail sipping. Everyone at my table ordered their famous Chinese Chicken Salad which is made up of shredded lettuce, scallions, carrots, toasted almonds, and crispy noodles tart red ginger dressing.

Toast Bakery Cafe

On the corner of 3rd & Harper Streets is Toast Bakery Cafe that serves delicious food from 7:30am until 10pm every day of the week, except for Thursdays. During all open hours patrons can order breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert. Three other friends and I went to dinner here, from what we ordered I recommend the grown-up version of a grilled cheese called "Not Your Mom's Grilled Cheese" which consists of a blend of mozzarella and feta cheese with sun-dried tomatoes and basil; the Carrot-Ginger vegan soup, and the Tucson Salad (I asked for no grilled chicken and no buttermilk dressing) beans, corn, tomatoes, cilantro, basil, sharp cheddar, and crispy corn tortilla strips. Although I did not order dessert, I heard that the Red Velvet cupcakes are comparable to Sprinkles Cupcakes.
Additional notes: within the bakery cafe there is a clothing store, it was closed when I visited but I've heard it a good spot. Also, right across the street from Toast is Electric Karma, which is rumored to be the best Indian restaurant in LA.
Just saw this on UsWeekly.com... Shenae Grimes from 90210 frequents here!

Tutto Tutti

Rated by LAist.com as the best Frozen Yogurt in LA I just new I had to try it. A friend and I visited the creamery this past Friday and to our surprised we both loved the Double Wonder- sea salt and caramel, sounds gross/weird but it's actually really good, tastes more like vanilla than salt or caramel. The Super Bee flavor that LAist mentioned, with ginseng and honey, was too gingery for our taste.
As LAist mentions, the yogurt is organic and all the toppings are homemade. My swirl of Double Wonder was topped with the raspberry-basalmic sauce which complimented the salted sweet taste of the yogurt perfectly.

The servers at Tutto Tutti are super nice and don't mind letting you try any flavor you'd like. So out of curiosity I tried almost all of them! Their 6 flavors include: Virgin (plain), White Velvet (vanilla), Seven (with seven grains blended into the yogurt), Freckle Snow White (plain layered with black sesame seeds), Double Wonder and Super Bee.

Tutto Tutti is located at 6803 Melrose Avenue at the corner of Mansfield.