Cloisters, Bouchon Bakery, Grand Sichuan (Thursday, Oct. 25)

We began our first full day in New York with a trip up to the Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art up in Fort Tryon Park. It's in Upper Manhattan and it's a rather long subway ride there. It's a collection of medieval art housed in a gorgeous building that looks a bit like a castle. The gardens are lovely and the walk up to the museum is rather scenic, especially on this rainy Thursday.

From the walk up to the musuem:



That would be the George Washington Bridge crossing the Hudson River. All in all, it was a lovely walk through a wooded area. At the top of the hill was the museum.



The museum has a few cloistered gardens, which are very lovely. They're recreated to look somewhat like medieval gardens, so they have a slightly overgrown, wild look to them.



The art was very interesting. It's organized in chronological order, so the earlier stuff was almost pagan in its style. Then it progresses to pre-renaissance stuff (I'm not sure if that's correct... I'll have to check with T. for dates).

After the museum, we headed to Columbus Circle for a quick lunch at Bouchon Bakery, which J. recommended. I also wanted to head to a mall-like place so I can pick up a restaurant guide for NY. Thank goodness Columbus Circle had both Borders and lunch. Bouchon Bakery is by Thomas Keller of French Laundry and Per Se (among others). Cool tidbit: Pixar animators studied the kitchen of French Laundry and had Keller's input for the really adorable Ratatouille. Shocking tidbit: Dinner at the French Laundry is a $240 pre fixe meal. Holy cow.

D. had a croissant sandwich, while I chose a slice of focaccia. It was topped with pesto, eggplant, roasted red peppers, and red onion. There was cheese, but I wasn't sure what it was. Something like parmesan that isn't too runny and had a nice sharp flavor.



For dessert, a chocolate chip cookie and a peanut butter cookie (the picture show half of each, which is how we divided them). Very good cookies. The peanut butter cookie had peanut butter filling sandwiched between two thin and crispy cookies. Yum.



Afterwards, we wandered around Manhattan some more, then headed back to our hotel with a copy of the Zagat guide. We found Grand Sichuan in the East 50's (2nd Ave. and 56th St.). It was pretty good. Not outrageously fabulous, but decent Chinese food.

We ordered the scallion pancakes, which were deep-fried instead of pan-fried. That was weird, but it still tasted good. D. ordered his usual kung pao chicken. Since they had an "American-Chinese" side of the menu and "Sichuan Cooking," I felt the need to order from the Sichuan side. I picked the dried and sauteed shredded beef from the chef's specialties. It's salt-and-pepper crusted and no sauce. That's kind of annoying, as the coating does well with rice, but the flavors were strong and spicy overall.

DiNic's Roast Pork, Brandywine Prime, Liberty Bell, National Constitution Center (Monday, Oct. 22)

We started the day with the Liberty Bell:



We spent most of our trip exploring Center City, so we had lunch every day at Reading Terminal Market. We met up with J. for lunch on Monday, with the market being a stone's throw from his office. Ironically, the one thing I really wanted to eat while we were there, the Philly cheesesteak, was not something we indulged in. However, I did have a roast pork sandwich from DiNic's in the market.



It was amazing, with buttery-soft shavings of pork piled on a toasted bun with sharp provolone cheese. The only thing needed to make this absolutely perfect was onions, which weren't an option. It's not a cheesesteak, but it was pretty good.



We explored the market for a bit. Here's a lobster clowning around:



A variety of cheeses at the Italian deli:



There were lots of produce stands:





And a pretty flower stand near one of the entrances. It's right by an ice cream stand called Bassett's Ice Cream, which was fabulous (we tried that on Tuesday).



After lunch, we stopped at Bread Top House, an Asian bakery, for some dessert.





On Monday, we spent the afternoon at the National Constitution Center, which is this amazing museum dedicated to explaining the Constitution. Through small shows and interactive displays, it explained the intricacies and intentions of the Constitution without being condescending or overly difficult to grasp.



For dinner, we met up with D.'s cousins and their spouses for dinner in Chadds Ford, PA. At the Chadds Ford Inn, there's Brandywine Prime. There was some initial panic because there were unfavorable reviews online, but they were from a few months ago. Apparently, the restaurant had a rough start. However, whatever issues they had were not evident during our visit.

I had the pan-seared sea scallops, which were divine. Per the menu:

Pan Seared Sea Scallops- shrimp & artichoke risotto, haricot verts, crispy fried onions, caramelized sherry vinegar

The risotto was perfect, with a creamy texture that still maintained the integrity of the arborio rice. The haricot verts (thin French green beans) were done exactly the way I like them, lightly blanched so they're still very crunchy. I couldn't get enough of the fried onions, which contained the bulk of the sweet caramelized sherry vinegar. The scallops themselves were seared to perfection, with the smoothest texture I've tasted on scallops. Like the sandwich from lunch, the bite into the scallop was buttery-soft... slightly springy to the bite, but smooth all the way through.

I had their homemade ice cream for dessert and it was very well-done. Nothing extraordinary, just very good, creamy ice cream.

Again, no pictures because of the dork factor.