After hearing great reviews about the Little Owl, a small restaurant in the West Village that sits below the apartment used in Friends, Chris and I decided to check it out. Does this place look familiar?:

I read that you can have the perfect meal at The Little Owl; the host is attentive and gracious, the chefs pay attention to detail, and the menu options are creative and delicious (what’s not to love?). I also read that getting a table at the restaurant is hard to do - the restaurant only seats 28 people and online reservation systems like opentable.com don’t always have availability. Chris and I decided to try The Little Owl for brunch one Sunday afternoon and were surprised that the restaurant was practically empty - around 12PM - PRIME Sunday brunch time! We were seated right away (there were only 3 or 4 couples in the restaurant) and were able to get a look at the menu right away.

After glancing at the menu, we realized that there weren’t that many options for brunch. Maybe everything on the menu was so great that they only needed a couple things anyway, right? I decided to order the corn pancakes with berries and clear syrup and Chris opted for the hamburger. After the waitress painstakingly asked how Chris wanted the burger to be prepared, she went off to the kitchen and put in our orders. Five minutes later, she came back and declared that she forgot the kitchen had run out of beef. Seriously?! Did the restaurant really run out of one of the FIVE options for brunch? We were taken by surprise but looked at the menu again and decided to go for the eggs Benedict with greens.

My corn pancakes:

The corn pancakes tasted nothing more than corn bread with some syrup. It wasn’t even MOIST cornbread - it was dry and the corn bits in the pancake were too sweet. I read online comments on how great the clear syrup was, but there was a dead fly in my syrup, so…I don’t see what’s so special about clear syrup. The consistency of the pancakes was too grainy because there wasn’t enough milk or egg whites in the pancake mix, leaving much to be desired.

Chris ordered the eggs Benedict with greens:

After one initial bite of the greens, we knew that we shouldn’t have ordered the dish. When greens are cooked, it’s understandable that they should change color….but these greens were brown! We ended up sending the dish back because the greens tasted like they were a week old!

To top off our disastrous meal at The Little Owl, the air conditioners were loud (there were THREE of them) and it was still uncomfortably warm in the restaurant. When leaving the restaurant to grab burgers at the Corner Bistro, we overheard a girl ordering iced tea, only to be turned down because the restaurant ran out of iced tea.

How to get to The Little Owl:

The Little Owl
90 Bedford St between Barrow and Grove
New York, NY 10014
212-741-4695

Josh wanted to see Manhattan’s skyline from Brooklyn, so I took him over to Brooklyn (gasp!) to get a view of the city. While we were over there, we stopped by the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory for some touristy ice cream. We saw Rachel Ray feature The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory on her $40/day show because of their all natural ingredients (and it’s supposed to be cheap):

The line was really long, but we figured if Rachel Ray recommended it, it had to be YUM-OH, right? We ended up waiting in line for 30 minutes - just to freaking get inside! The place is really old fashioned and has only five or six flavors, but apparently the vanilla content is really high, so we decided to go with vanilla and chocolate chocolate chip. Our guy scooping up our ice cream:

And a shot of our ice cream:

The ice cream was good, but it tasted JUST LIKE BREYERs! Was it worth waiting for? Probably not. Was it worth $6? No, I don’t think so. It was rich and creamy, but I didn’t taste any difference between the vanilla they produced and the vanilla that comes out of the supermarket. Rachel Ray, what were you thinking?

How to get to Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory:

Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory
1 Water Street
Brooklyn, NY 11230
718-246-3963

One of the great things about New York City is that there’s always so FREE stuff to do. One free activity Chris and I have been meaning to do for the past couple of weeks is kayaking! Free kayaking is sponsored by the New York City Downtown Boathouse and is every Saturday and Sunday from 10-5 (but they usually CLOSE at 5, meaning the last kayaks go out around 4:30). You take them out for 20 minutes (although there’s no way to really monitor how long you’re out) and enjoy the water. Chris and I got into a double kayak and floated around, enjoying the views of New York and New Jersey:

People were getting swept away because they didn’t know that you have to row together (it’s all about teamwork!) Actually, these two girls got into a kayak and floated in the wrong direction right away. One of the volunteers had to go out in a kayak and rescue them!

The area that you can row around isn’t that large, but it’s a fun afternoon activity, especially if you have friends visiting. You can also volunteer by just showing up (it’s nothing formal) and helping out for the afternoon - another fun activity!

Side note - even though I promised updates from Berlin/Copenhagen, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. I need to organize all of my pictures (over 1,000 already!) and think about what I’m going to blog about before rolling out the Berlin posts. For now, enjoy an Economy Candy post that I’ve been storing for a rainy day!

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One thing I love is Candy. Candy candy candy. When I was a kid, I used to hide my Halloween candy under my bed and eat it after my mom tucked me in. I had six cavities when I was only five years old. Impressive, I know. So when I heard about Economy Candy, I knew that I HAD to go!

Economy Candy has all kinds of hard to find candies (nostalgia candies, if you will), without the frills of Dylan’s. When I walked in, it was definitely a sensory overload…see below:

OMFG! AHHHHHHHH!!! It was AWESOME!! Seriously, there is candy up and down the walls and all over the place. I couldn’t believe my eyes!! Seriously, I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen so much candy…not even in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! They have all types of awesome candy there, including hard to find brands and stuff from overseas. Look at how happy I am:

Office reference:

Michael: I am really proud of you.
Pam: Thank you.
Michael: What?
Pam: Do you have something in your pocket?
Michael: A Chunky. Do you want half?

HA!

Economy Candy even has their own cat:

If he could talk, he would say: I’m in your candy store, eating your halvah! Check out icanhascheezburger for more funny cat pics!

We made out like bandits with candy that I used to eat all the time when I lived in Pittsburgh and some candy I found in Europe, including KINDER EGGS:

I absolutely LOVE kinder eggs because it’s just the right amount of chocolate and creamy insides AND there’s always a toy inside! I thought they were banned in the US because the toys were too small and kids kept swallowing them, but apparently they’re still available at Economy Candy! I’m seriously going to Economy Candy every single day to pick up a little treat - their prices are a LOT better than Dylan’s and their choices are a ton better, too!

How to get to Economy Candy:

Economy Candy
108 Rivington Street between Essex and Ludlow
New York, NY 10002
212-254-1531

To promote the new Simpsons movie coming out on July 27th, 7-11 teamed up with The Simpsons and turned twelve 7-11’s around the United States into Kwik-E-Marts:

For the entire month of July, the twelve Kwik-E-Mart’s around the US will be transformed:

Donut sign:

Squishee machine (I got a berry-cola-cherry mixture):

Ralph, my favorite character:

The store was packed and they already ran out of Buzz Cola when I arrived (around 2PM). It’s right outside Times Square (on 42nd between 8th and 9th) and you’ll definitely run into Simpsons fans there!