New York City Family Vacation

I’m lucky to have a husband who plan our family’s vacation every year 🙂 I love planning what to cook or bake everyday, but that’s about where it ends. I do not like planning for vacations lol. I love going on a vacation, but I do not like planning for it. The itinerary, where to visit, where to eat, etc. I know..that’s probably the fun part for most people! My husband is very good at that and so I leave it to the expert 🙂

This summer, hubby decided we would give NYC a visit. The kids had been there before, but they were so young then, my girl was only 5 and my boy was barely 2 years old at that time. Honestly, that trip was a bit of a drag for me! It was a road trip from MN too with my brother-in-law’s family! They wanted to visit as many places as possible and so the whole trip was really a blur for us. I didn’t enjoy the trip at all and hubby was too tired to even get off the car that he ended up sleeping in the car while we went to quickly took few snaps of photos so they can “check off” places to visit.

This summer 2022 hubby decided it’s time to bring us back to NYC. This was probably one of the best trips we had. Mainly because we had quite a fair share of great seafood in NYC. It’s more of like culinary tour to me, which I perfectly loved! Hubby used to go to NYC for business trip every month few years ago, so, he’s very familiar with NYC and our best tour guide 😉

ARRIVAL DAY
We didn’t drive. We flew to Newark instead and took a train to NYC. It was late at night when we arrived, we were a bit tired, not from the flying, but the fact that it was 2:00 am when we reached the hotel.

DAY 2
We stayed in Residence Inn in Newark. We had our complimentary continental breafkast there and we took the train from Newark to Manhattan after that. The kids get to experience NY subway. We were lugging our carry-on around before we got to check in to our hotel in Brooklyn.
Both hubby and I had planned for LOTS of sashimi and seafood in this trip. NYC is a perfect place for it IMHO.
We had our lunch at this Japanese restaurant, Sushi Yasaka. They have lunch special that my hubby often took advantage of when he was there. The place is decent size and it’s clean. The bathroom is also very clean (one of the things that I pay attention to when visiting a restaurant!)
Both hubby and I had their lunch special’s sashimi lunch $19 (dinner’s price $30). The kids had their sushi lunch for $16 (dinner’s price $27). This place is usually fully booked for dinner. I have to admit that their dinner’s price are very reasonable too compared to what we have in MN. Besides, this is NYC and they are priced a bit lower than MN!!! Their sashimi is SUPER fresh! and $19.00 for a sashimi lunch, 11 pieces of sashimi, that comes with a good-size side salad (spring greens with carrot ginger dressing)? you really can’t beat that deal!


The kid’s sushi lunch comes with a miso soup. The sushi rolls are delish. The kids devour every bite of them. The set comes with a bowl of plain sushi rice too. That really filled the kids up. We left the place with happy tummies!

We headed to Holiday Inn Express, Brooklyn, where we stayed for the next 4 nights. We dropped off our carry-ons and refreshed a bit before we headed out again for our dinner.

We then went to Chelsea Market. I love that place! They have TONS of place to eat at that place! Whether you are a picky eater or not, you will for sure find something there! From European, Asian, Western, Middle Eastern, Mexican, food, bakeries, pastries, desserts, I mean…everything! They also offer outdoor seating for you to enjoy your food! This has been set up since the pandemic started.

For pre-dinner, we took advantage of the happy hour at Cull and Pistol, Chelsea Market.

Their happy hour is half-priced fresh oyster from 4 pm-6pm. The oyster is priced at 3.50 each for happy hour (it used to be $1.00 pre-2022 inflation). It’s a small place but very lively! The staffs are knowledgeable and fun. We ordered 12 of the raw oysters. They have 12 different kind of oysters come from different places such as New Brunswick, Maryland, Maine, Massachussets, and New York. The oysters are also arranged carefully to balance between medium and high salinity.

It started with oysters from Merasheen Bay, Boss Gibson, Chebboktook, Honeymoon, Blackstone Point, Eider Cove, Mere Point, Duxbury, Katama, Sweetneck, Peeko, and Widows hole. The platter also comes with a concoction of vinegar and some chili sauce. I didn’t use any of them because I like to eat raw seafood as is. I like to be able to taste the savory and sweetness of the seafood on their own.
The oysters are naturally salty on their own. Each one of the oyster has its own taste and different salinity. Texture is about the same. My favorites are oysters with plump meat and medium salinity such as Widows Hole, Eider Cove, and sweet neck. Peeko is my most favorite because it has that miso-like creaminess and it has medium salinity. High salinity oysters are a bit too salty for my taste. They are still good though! I would eat them in a heart beat!

Next to the Cull & Pistol is a seafood market that owns Cull & Pistol. They also sell food there. We just browsed the fresh seafood there and literally droll over them!

We then headed to Los Tacos No.1, also in Chelsea Market. This place has quite a long queue. They don’t offer any place to sit and eat, but you can eat at the outdoor seatings provided by Chelsea Market.
It was delish despite meatless. It’s quite filling because there we also beans and cheese!

Hubby recommended their Nopal plate, which is a platter of grilled cactus, beans, guac, and cheese. You can top with red and/or green salsa, and radish as much as you want for $10.00. If you want to add a meat, you add $2.00.

DAY 3
Breakfast is the complementary continental breakfast at Holiday Inn Express. Hubby kept his promise of giving me loads of sashimi in this trip 😉 So, we had another sashimi lunch! This time it’s at Momoya, Manhattan. The place is a bit more upscale compared to Sushi Yasaka. We ordered, as you would have guessed, sashimi platter for us and sushi lunch for the kids. They also have a sashimi and sushi lunch specials. Their sashimi lunch is $ 26.00 and it comes with 7 different kind of sashimi, 2 slices each, so a total of 14 slices and also comes with a good portion of spring mix with carrot ginger dressing. It’s more expensive than Sushi Yasaka, BUT, it definitely worth it because it has more slices and scallops are included (which was my favorite among all the sashimi). It was absolutely delicious to the max! oh…I was hoping the lunch lasted forever!

The sushi lunch came with 6 sushi pieces, 1 roll and miso soup. The kids were also very happy with their lunch. It didn’t come with a bowl of plain sushi rice like Sushi Yasaka had though, but it wasn’t a deal breaker. It was a very good price for what we had, especially in Manhattan.

We then went to the High Line, which is an elevated public park built on a historic, elevated rail line in 2009. You can walk through the garden, about 1.45 mile, and also look at some sculptures and arts at the same time. The park also offered lots of shaded seating places. We took a short nap there LOL! It was hard to keep my eyes open after a satisfying sashimi lunch okay!

Our walk ended at the Hudson Yards, which is a luxury shopping mall. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time there as we weren’t really interested in shopping. I pretty much shop online these days. We were just there to use the restrooms 🙂
Nearby, you will see the Vessel, which is known for its unique architectural design. It has a spiral staircase that you can go up. Unfortunately, only the ground-level is open to the public. The stairs was closed. Nonetheless, we could admire the unique design.

From Hudson Yards, we walked to Chelsea Market, yes…again. It was a 15-minute walk (Thanks to the unreliable NYT bus that never showed up despite showing arriving on the app!). The kids were tired and hungry at that point. It’s been lots of walking. We had a super good cumin lamb biang biang noodles from Very Fresh Noodles at Chelsea Market. You can have your noodles dry or with a soup. We ordered both. It is $15.00/bowl. It comes in a generous portion of cumin lamb, like REALLY generous! I’m impressed with the portion and the food price! Either my hubby just know where to find good food with good price or it’s just a competitive price of NYC, or both! The noodles are so..so..good! the lamb are flavorful and the noodles are chewy in a good way! you have to try it if you go to Chelsea Market!

After dinner, we just headed back to the hotel. It’s been a day of lots of walking but we were happy!

DAY 4
After having out breakfast at the hotel, we went back to Sushi Yasaka again for their sushi and sashimi lunch special. The price is seriously hard to beat and their sashimi is very fresh. Nobody complained about having to eat at the same place again. In fact, we were happy that we did. We planned to come back again 😉

We then headed to the World Trade Center to visit their 911 memorial.


There were food bazaar going on too at that time. Food from all around the world. We even saw an Indonesian food stall there. We didn’t get any food from there though as they are mainly overpriced food IMHO (Yup, we are budget travelers 🙂 )

We then headed to the Staten Island with the Staten Island Ferry. There were tons of tourists (including us). You get to take photo of the Statue of Liberty on the way there. We grabbed Subway sandwich on our way back to NYC for our late-afternoon snack.


We had a quick stop at the Union Square too.

For dinner we settled with Poke Works. In case I haven’t mentioned already, Poke is another one of my favorite grub after sashimi! When hubby used to come here for business trip, he always got me some Poke from Poke Works. We do have a Poke place here in MN and we used to eat there almost on a weekly basis until they keep increasing the price and we stopped going. I still think the food price in MN actually is higher compared to NYC. They are the same price despite higher operating cost and living expenses here in NYC.

DAY 5
We went to the same place to have our sushi and sashimi lunch, Sushi Yasaka. Yes, the waiter/waitresses knew us by now. Our original plan of having dim sum at Tim Ho Wan was postponed because the queue was too long. We should have known better because it was Saturday. Saturday and Sunday aren’t good times to have dim sum at popular dim sum places. Since Tim Ho Wan also open during weekdays, we decided to postpone to weekday instead.

Long queue at Tim Ho Wan on Saturday/Sunday

We headed to the Times Square. Times square is needless to say, super hectic. Packed with tourists. We did a bit of people-watching

Then we decided it’s enough of that and took a tram to Roosevelt Island. Roosevelt island is a lovely place. It’s a calm and relaxing place.

We stopped by this very lovely hotel, Graduate Hotel. Look at the interior! It’s like a very modern library. I love the vibrant contemporary design.

For dinner we had a dim sum at Tim Ho Wan. This is one of my favorite dim sum place. I knew about this place from my sister. It is very popular in Singapore. The place often has long queue. We had it twice when we were in Las Vegas 2 years ago and it was so good that we made it a point that we must have it again when we come to NYC and so here we are. It was as good as I could remember it. The standard is definitely there. Consistently very good and of high quality. We ordered their signature BBQ pork buns. They were out of cheung fun that day, so we were super disappointed, but we plan to go back again during this trip. We ordered supreme soy sauce noodles, steamed spare ribs, har gow, rice with chicken feet and spare ribs, ham sui gok, pork siu mai, chives dumplings, beef balls. All of them were super good. They may not offer a lot of variety, but every single thing they offer is done right!!

Ham Sui Gok at Tim Ho Wan

Tim Ho Wan famous Chinese BBQ Pork Bun with sweet crust topping on top

Tim Ho Wan shrimp and chives dumplings

Tim Ho Wan har gow

Tim Ho Wan steamed spare ribs

Tim Ho Wan shrimp shu mai

Tim Ho Wan supreme soy sauce noodles

Tim Ho Wan Beef Balls

DAY 6
We headed to oldest dim sum restaurant in New York, Nom Wah Tea Parlor. This place has been around since 1920 and still going strong. You will see queue outside the tiny restaurant pretty much around the clock this place is opened. If you can, don’t go on the weekend as the queue is unbelievable. We went there on Monday 1:30 pm and there was still queue.

My husband decided to order the take-out (bypassing the line) and enjoyed them at the outdoor seating provided by them. I thought that was a brilliant idea. The dim sum are still very fresh. They were just not being served on the plates. The weather was super nice and we enjoyed eating them outside. The price was slightly cheaper than Tim Ho Wan. Nom Wah offers more variety though. The food was good too, but is it better than Tim Ho Wan? We all agreed that Tim Ho Wan is slightly better. The taste is cleaner. The quality is definitely there. Nom Wah only accept cash or Amex credit card.

We toured the China town after that. I really envy the New Yorkers who have access to all the good authentic Asian food here. How I wish we have all this in Minnesota 🙂

We decided to stop by this restaurant Yin Ji Chang Fen, which specializes in steamed rice rolls/cheung fun/chang fen. They offer mainly rice noodle rolls with variety of unique filling like pork liver, pork kidney, fish, etc, which was why I was intrigued to try. They also have congee with beef, seafood, fish, etc and few Hong Kong Cha Chaan Teng food. We ordered the pork liver chang fen, pork kidney chang fen and the seafood congee. The chang fen was good. The congee was good too. The price wasn’t good though. We thought it’s very overpriced for what we got, especially the seafood congee. The place only accept cash too. Will we go back? Definitely not. You can get good chang fen anywhere for less.

DAY 7
It’s our last day in NYC and we decided to load our bellies with more Sushi Yasaka’s sushi and sashimi lunch special. I missed this place already as soon as we landed back in MN! Then we visited Korean town. There were so many Korean street food and bakeries that literally made me want to bake everything they sold there. I did a bit of grocery shopping and we managed to get some fresh sashimi-grade uni (sea urchin). My two kids loved uni too.

I’m so blessed to have two kids who pretty much eat anything we eat. It’s really hard to find kids who are not picky eaters like them!!! AT ALL!

We had dinner at Tim Ho Wan again (Can’t you tell how much we loved this place). Here were few items that we ordered that we haven’t ordered the first time we ate there: Egg plant stuffed with shrimp, steamed beancurd rolls, plain cheung fun, beef cheung fun.

We then headed to Brooklyn Bridge before heading back to Newark to catch our 6:10 am flight tomorrow morning!

We took a subway train to the World Trade Center Station to take the PATH to Newark station. The station is all white and has a very cool design. There is shopping center as well.

New York, you have been a very fun place to explore and to find good food! I really envy the New Yorkers who have access to all the authentic good Asian food and pretty much any food from around the world. You can eat the world just in New York City alone! No kidding! We will definitely plan for another trip to NYC in the future! I can’t believe how much I have missed this place and the kids can’t stop talking about the food and the trip too! Riding the subways for 7 days had been fun too. New York City subway surely isn’t the cleanest, compared to Singapore’s LOL! But it’s very convenient and you can travel NYC and other cities easily with it too!  Until next time NYC!