Culinary Tour - New York City - SoHo

Over the Fourth of July weekend, my husband and I ventured into New York City. Recently, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened an annex in SoHo. (For those of you not familiar with NYC, SoHo is the neighborhood south of Houston street, on the southwest end of the island). Thanks to Yoko Ono's generosity, they have also opened a limited engagement exhibit called John Lennon, The New York Years.



If you live in the NY area and have any interest at all in music, this is a really fun museum. It costs $30, but you get your own headset that is your musical guide through the museum. As you pass exhibits, songs relevant to those artists play. For example, when we looking at the lyrics Madonna penned in a notebook, the lyrics were playing on our headphones. Anyway, my point is - it's worth the money if you're into rock n roll history. My favorite exhibit were the letter Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel wrote to each other while they were teenagers.

So now back to the food!

While we were there, we ate lunch, a snack, and dinner in the city. For lunch, we went to a pizza place called L'asso. It is located at 192 Mott Street off of Kenmare. We split a small Pizza Giardino, which was perfect for lunch. The pizza was really delicious, and worth the small argument my husband and I had while we were looking for a place to eat.

The Annex operates on a time entry system, so we still had some time to waste before we entered. It was a no brainer to stop by our favorite frozen yogurt place, Pinkberry (WARNING: link contains music so turn down your speakers if you're at work!). They were serving bing cherries as a topping because they were in season. Score! I got a small original yogurt with cherries and pineapple. Jim got a small original with kiwi and raspberries. What a great refreshing snack - and very low in calories compared to ice cream or other desserts.

After the annex (it took us a good 3 hours to go through it), we went to quite possibly the best mexican food restaurant I've ever been to. It's called La Esquina and it is located at 114 Kenmare Street. If you are in the area, GO HERE!! It's just that good. We had the Carnitas Michoacan (pork tacos) and the Tinga de Pollo, which is pulled chicken stew with tomato, chipotle and cinammon, served with avocado, cabbage and tortillas. We also got a side of yucca. For our drinks, Jim had a Michelada. This is any mexican beer, served over ice, lime and chipotle puree. I had something a little less adventurous, whit sangria. Both were very good, but the Michelada was a little too exotic for me. I liked the way it tasted, but don't think I could have a whole drink of it.

Overall Ratings:



L'asso: 3 1/2 stars, the pizza was good, but the service was sort of slow. Bobby Flay can't be wrong, right? Watch the clip above for a scene at L'asso from Bobby Flay's Throwdown.


Photo courtesy pinkberry.com
Pinkberry: 4 stars, there was a very long line, but on a hot summer day that always happens. The toppings are always fresh, and the order was perfect.


photo courtesy La Esquina
La Esquina: 4 stars, the decor in the restaurant was a little odd (naked mexican ladies who were far from models), but the food and service was excellent. For the amount of money our bill was, the food was well worth it.