Day 2.1 - Food and drink

Breakfast today was again a study in excellence. In addition to my cereal, yoghurt, tea, and juice, Carlos again delivered. This time, squares of perfectly cooked toast, topped with home-made full-fat ricotta (with a sprinkling of salt, which at first seemed odd, and very quickly seemed perfect), with a side of a soft-set chunky (homemade) marmalade. Yum!

Around 12:30ish, I had got to the front of the Met, and needed some tucker. I first went to the cupcakes foodcart, which had an array of gorgeously iced (sweet) cupcakes in a myriad of flavours. The menu on the side also told me they had savoury cupcakes, and I chose the 'Cini' (which by rights should be pronounced "chee-nee", being short for 'arancini', but I was corrected to "see-nee). It was a risotto ball with diced turkey and peas inside, and coated with a thin cornmeal crispy layer, which had presumably been deep-fried. It was pretty good, if a little bland. They also had a selection of teas ("black, green and mint"), and after confirming the black tea wasn't Earl Grey, I enjoyed a cup of that too.

While I sat on the steps of the Met to drink my cuppa, and devour my arancini, a group of singers assembled and serenaded us. Five black dudes (not blokes, couldn't call them blokes), ranging in age from perhaps thirty-ish to sixty-ish, sang beautiful harmonies accompanied by a non-black dude on the double bass. It was a short set, but long enough to finish my tea, and decide I needed just a little something more.



There was a hotdog stand immediately in front, and while the hotdogs had no appeal, they did offer knish. (Is it "nish" or "kuh-nish"?) Knish, at least from this vendor, is an inch high, 3" by 3" square, being a thickish (5mm) cornmeal batter enveloping velvety mashed potato, warmed on a grill plate. When I initially declined ketchup or mustard, the guy was a little surprised, so I relented and had a little tomato sauce. I ended up tipping off most the sauce - it didn't add anything to it.

The next thing I ate was a cannoli from the Met's Cafeteria. Meh. A cannolo (I presume that should be the singular) is a circle of sweet pastry, rolled into a tube, 1.5" diameter, then fried. It is then filled with stuff, in this case a moderately sweet butter icing. Not exciting. And another cuppa, while I examined the floor plan of the Met to determine which bits were essential viewing (most of it), and which I could reasonably skip this time.

I left the Met around 6pm, exhausted both physically and visually, and walked across to Lexington to catch the subway home. At my stop on 116th Street, I chose to see what the well-patronised "torteria" on the opposite corner offered. I chose a burrito carnitas (as the pastor, with marinated pork, was "all finished").

The burrito was a large soft tortilla, filled with flavored rice, chopped pulled pork, a savoury sauce of some type to moisten the rice and meat, plus lettuce and onion and garnish, all rolled up inside a layer of foil and cut into two. It was very good. I should have tried the self-serve sauces that were available - a red sauce, which looked like it probably had a bit of kick to it, and a green sauce, which probably had even more kick.

Tomorrow promises even more delights, as I have my walking food tour, despite the less than glorious weather forecast.