Day 8 - Central Park tour, Katz Deli and....Coffee!!

Another glorious day in New York City!  We headed straight into Manhattan to Grand Central Station, to see the place and have breakfast there.  Like every other place we’ve seen so far in NYC, being here in person puts things in perspective in a big way.  Grand Central Station is massive.  The main concourse is so much bigger than we expected it to be.

Outside entrance into Grand Central

One of the many hallways

One of the stairs leading into the main concourse

Famous main concourse

It’s like the heart of the subway system, connecting all the different lines, it’s not hard to get lost as a first time tourist.  There’s also the main dining concourse at Grand Central station where we had breakfast, with quite a few food stores to choose from.  We settled for Juniors and had a cheap and easy breakfast.

KN ordered a bagel with cream cheese and a fruit cup, I had 2 eggs, corned beef and home fries.  Was pretty good for cheap food again.  Yes I tasted the coffee, was just the standard filtered coffee, no need for further comment.

Talking about what to do over breakfast, we thought we’d try Central Park again and ‘attempt’ to find some of the key spots we’ve seen in movies.  The thing with Central Park is it is so freaking huge!  As tourists you know it is going to be, you see it on a map, yeah it’s big.  But when you’re actually here and walk around the park trying to find certain areas, it quickly dawns on you how much walking there is to do.  Especially when you don’t know where you’re going!

I think our brains started compensating for the lack of real knowledge of the park and where the movie spots were.  Because we were certain we saw locations from a number of movies, till we were schooled by a proper tour guide :).

**Caffeinated Interlude**

Prior to Central Park, I had to ‘try’ and find another coffee shop/cafe that does a good espresso.  Not filled with much hope, we stumbled past a place that didn’t really stand out at first, but some uncontrollable force demanded me to stop and look twice.  “Cafe K” (8 E. 48^th St near 5^th Ave.).  I ordered a regular latte and watched the barrista make my coffee.  He knew what he was doing.  I tasted it.  I felt the chemical imbalance of caffeine in my veins return to normal.  Take notes fellow travellers looking for coffee in NYC!

Cafe K.  GO THERE!

Back to Central Park....

So we decided to go on a bike tour of Central Park, hosted by a friendly chap with an accent I couldn’t quite figure out.  He seemed to know everything there is to know about movie/celebrity trivia in relation to the park and NYC in general, so it was pretty cool.  They do the tours in the park on bicycles with a cart on the back.  It definitely beats walking around aimlessly, with no sense of direction and your mind making you believe “yes, this is where they shot this scene for this movie”, when really it’s just another patch of grass with a similar looking tree.

Unfortunately one of the main areas used a lot for a number of films was closed, mainly for clean up in preparation for the NY Marathon being held this Sunday.  But we got to see a lot of other areas for a lot of movies, too many to list here.  We also saw the area with the fountain that they shot “MasterChef” (for those of you back home that were fans and remember the NYC segment).

The fountain from the show "Friends"

Building in the background with two towers from Ghostbusters

Big Daddy scene where Adam Sandler trips over a rollerblader with a stick

John Lennon's apartment where Yoko still lives.  Also where he was shot out front.

Memorial at Strawberry fields

After about an hour the tour came to an end, we hopped off at the lower west side of the park, to venture back into town and get inspired for lunch.  It didn’t take much to get inspired, one of the places we had on the list to try was a pastrami sandwich from “Katz’s Delicatessen”.  Seen this on so many movies and TV shows, it was a must.  

Didn’t take long to find the place, walk through the doors, and WOW.  Place is as busy and packed as we’ve seen it on TV.  They have a system which works, you enter, take a ticket, then go to the counters you want to order food from.  One counter for the sandwiches, one counter for food from the grill, and another for fries and soda/drinks.  You hand them the ticket after ordering for them to mark, and you pay on your way out when done.

We ordered one pastrami sandwich with mustard and American cheese, with a side of pickles and fries.  Sandwich was more than I was expecting, it was incredibly awesome.  The pastrami was so tasty and juicy, goes well with the mustard and cheese.  The fries were really nice too, I could have eaten more.  I don’t know why I didn’t.  Maybe we should go back before we leave :).

  Afterwards, met up with another one of my cousin’s who lives nearby for dinner.

She took us to a place, directly across the road from our hotel, to a very nice Cuban restaurant called “Azucar Cuban Cuisine & Cigars”.  Yes, ‘and cigars’!  We ordered from the tapas menu, so we could have a wide variety of food.  Neither of us had tried Cuban food before, so it was a great idea.  Our waiter was very flamboyant, funny, enthusiastic, and constantly had a smile on his face.  He was also very persuasive, convincing us to buy certain dishes!   

 

Guacamole with banana chips..it works!

Bacardi coconut flan

Hard to see, but there's a number of dishes there. Croquettes, shrimp, chorizo sausage dishes...

I couldn’t really compare Cuban food to anything else, it’s definitely delicious and something I’d go back for!  After a flan dessert and finishing our Mojito’s, we headed back home to crash and burn. 

Another BIG THANK YOU to my cousin for taking us out to dinner!!  Tomorrow, more midtown, my hair gets a treatment (yes, what little hair I have), and making it into the Letterman show!!  Even after failing the trivia questions!!!