New York, New York Day 9 - Chelsea Market, Gansevoort Market and Book of Mormon

On our second Sunday in New York, we decided to go back and visit the markets we had visited on walking tours to explore a bit more than we had time to do on the tours themselves.

We started the day with breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien (Daily Bread), which we had found while walking around in our neighbourhood.  Le Pain specialises in wonderful breads, scrumptious baked goods and healthy but different breakfasts.  It is not cheap, but it sure tastes good.

The décor is Nordic blonde wood:

I started off with a blueberry lemonade iced tea ($4.25):

while Tim went for the cold brewed coffee ($4.75):

I tried both beverages and they were both good.

Tim is a diehard fan of porridge (oatmeal), so he ordered the steel cut oatmeal with bananas, walnuts and maple syrup ($6.25):

He also ordered the avocado toast with citrus cumin salt, chia seeds and olive oil ($10.50):

It was a generous serve, so Tim was more than satisfied with his choices, which were pronounced delicious.

I ordered a soft boiled egg with organic breads ($4.75):

I just love how this was presented - so cute.  Those who know me know that I am not a huge fan of bread, so I was not overly enamoured with these slightly funkier flavoured breads, even when spread with Le Pain's own housemade nutella and jams:

However, when the bread soldiers were dipped into the gooey egg yolk, it made for a wholesome and satisfying breakfast.

I also ordered the organic brown rice pudding with Caravan nut mix ($5.75):

 

This was different in a good way, and I enjoyed it, but the egg won my heart.

Le Pain also serves a variety of breads and baked goods, which I stoically resisted on my way out:

Well and truly fuelled for the day, we went back to Chelsea Market to take a look at the various shops. 

I wanted to go to Liddabit Sweets, because I own their cookbook and they happen to have a small kiosk in Chelsea Market.  I envisioned that this might be a fun stall to visit, but alas, the girl working here was not really interested in serving us:

In any event, I bought my brother one of their candy bars ($9 - on the high side, but there is a lot of complex layers to them), and for me, the beer and pretzel caramels (~$7.50, from memory), which were quite delicious:

I also bought Tim and I each a small treat - Tim chose the peanut butter cup and I chose a chocolate coconut biscuit (both ~$2.50) - they were pretty good too, and better value than the chocolate bars:

We also visited the Doughnuttery, where they serve bite-size donut sprinkled with your choice of flavoured sugar:

Here are some of their sugars, which you can also buy to take home:

The donuts were good, but we couldn't really taste the difference between the two different sugars that we ordered.  I ordered Cheeky Peach (peach, raspberry and rose petals) while Tim ordered Mistletoe (gingerbread, cranberry, sage).

Next, we went to Sarabeth's - again, I own their cookbook, and I understand that the main Sarabeth bakery was used to model the bakery in It's Complicated with Meryl Streep.

In Sarabeth's, you can watch the staff at work making goodies:

which you can then go into the next room to buy:

I bought Tim and I each a rugelach to try:
 

and I bought a canister of 8 oatmeal raisin cookies (~$10) to take home to Australia with me:

I can vouch for the fact that these cookies were good.

Our next stop in Chelsea Market was at Artists & Fleas, a fleamarket which sells all kinds of clothes and jewellery by independent designers:  

I bought a dress there which I will unveil in another post.

Chelsea Market Baskets is a fun shop that sells mainly souvenirs for tourists:

I bought Chelsea Market branded chocolate bars there for my work colleagues:

We didn't go back there, but on our tour group visit, we had coffee from Ninth Street Espresso:

The coffee was certainly good, but the ginger haired, bearded chap who served me (not pictured) had a definite 'tude which was not very friendly or helpful.

Because I had heard of them through blogging, we also dropped into the Fat Witch and checked out their brownies, but given our existing haul of baked goods, we didn't buy any brownies there:

From the Chelsea Market, we went on to the Gansevoort Market, which is a different proposition to Chelsea Market because it is devoted to food, like the Pig Guy NYC:

and Heermance Farm:

and the Bruffin Café (where they sell a cross between a brioche and a muffin):

and a good brew at Champion Coffee, where we did stop to sample the wares:

Here is a street view from the roof of Gansevoort Market:

We had matinee tickets to The Book of Mormon in the nosebleed section, so that was our next stop:

Here is a view of the top of the set and the lovely ceiling of the Eugene O'Neill Theatre:

Tim and I thought The Book of Mormon was very funny, and it solved the mystery for me of why a friend of mine was calling her NYC travelling companion Neutrogena.

For dinner, we went back to Manting, where this time, I had the Kung Po Chicken ($13.95):

The lady who served us the night before remembered us, which was nice.

All in all, it was another great day in New York.

Le Pain Quotidien

7 East 53rd Street
(between Fifth & Madison)
New York, NY 10022

USA

Ph: +1 646 845 0012

Chelsea Market

75 Ninth Ave

New York, NY 10011

 

Gansevoort Market

52 Gansevoort St

New York, NY 10014

 

The Book of Mormon

Eugene O'Neill Theatre

230 W 49th St.
New York, NY 10019

Ph: +1 212 560 2197