Fat girl in the city

Here's my column for Wednesday's Food page:
NEW YORK — It’s a city with good tastes. In fashionable clothes, shoes and accessories. In arts, music and culture. And yes, even in food. New York City is known for its own unique style of pizza, cheesecake and has more varieties of ethnic cuisine than you can count on both hands (and both feet).I returned Tuesday from my trip to the Big Apple (see, there’s even food in its nickname) and decided to share a few of the things I tasted while I was there.

PRETZELS
My first culinary stop was at a pretzel and hot dog stand a few blocks from the southern edge of Central Park. The smell of the cart and the hot dogs cooking on it was incredible. The pretzel, however, was disappointingly hard and too salty. That wasn’t a good culinary start to my trip, but things quickly got better.

PIZZA
My second culinary experience was with New York-style pizza. Known for its wide, thin and foldable slices, it is usually hand tossed and light on sauce. Slices are often folded in half and eaten. The crust has a puffy, bread-like, outer edge that quickly tapers down to a very thin middle.Our pizza was that exact description. My recommendation is to try the pineapple kind.

DELIS
I chose to eat at a deli for lunch the next day and chose one of literally about 100 varieties of sandwiches. The deli had several homemade breads, rolls and bagels, among a variety of meats and other fillings. My choice of an Italian sub was a tasty one, although I could only finish half.

PROGRESSIVE DINNER
Upon the suggestion of someone who used to live in New York City, my friends and I decided to do a progressive dinner one night, and started with appetizers in Chinatown on the lower part of Manhattan. We chose Nyonya, a Malaysian restaurant that served an amazing chicken satay and peanut sauce and roti canai with a red curry dipping sauce (see descriptions above). This was by far my favorite part of the culinary trip and I could talk for an hour about it (but I’ll spare you the details for brevity’s sake). We followed it with gnocchi in an Italian restaurant in nearby Little Italy and ended our meal with frozen yogurt and fresh fruit from the Red Mango in Greenwich Village.

Although I had a few more food experiences, these are my highlights (and, in case you were wondering, all the calories were offset with all the walking!).

I hope you enjoyed the food tour of New York City.

THE DISH
Roti canai (pronounced “chanai”) is a type of flatbread found in Malaysia. Roti means bread in Hindi, Urdu, most other North Indian languages, and Malay.The dish is composed of dough containing ghee (clarified butter), egg, flour and water. The dough is kneaded, flattened, oiled and folded repeatedly. The dough is finally flattened and coated with oil and cooked on a skillet. The ideal roti is flat, but fluffy on the inside and crispy and flaky on the outside.
Real frozen yogurt should taste like yogurt — sour and tart and totally unlike soft-serve ice cream.

ON THE WEB
Red Mango: http://www.redmangousa.com/
Restaurant review for Nyonya: http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/nyonya03/


I'll have actual thoughts and observations on the trip in an upcoming blog.

Final NYC photos

The first photo is from the top of the Statue of Liberty, the second is at Ellis Island and the third is in Battery Park and is what is left of a statue that once stood at the World Trade Center site. It was damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and was moved to the park as a memorial.

NYC photos 5

The first two are of the outside of the Statue of Liberty. The third is of the original torch and the fourth is looking up Lady Liberty's skirt.

NYC photos 4

The first photo is a cute sign on the side of a building as seen from the top of the Empire State Building. The second photo is of a water taxi passing in front of the Statue of Liberty. The other three photos are the view from our boat as we headed to the Statue of Liberty.

NYC photos 3

The first two photos are at Rockefeller Center, the third is of the Chrysler Building as seen from the top of the Empire State Building and the fourth photo is part of Manhattan from the top of the Empire State Building. Of note, I stayed about three blocks from said building.

NYC photos set 2

Photos are of a bridge from the air (I thought I knew which one, but was quickly corrected by someone who actually lives there), where I landed at LaGuardia airport, My "bed cave" from the first night in the city and Rockefeller Center.

NYC photos!

I'll have words to go with these soon. For now, here are some photos from my trip. All four of these are taken from the plane. The last one has Central Park in the center.