Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, Manhattan, NYC

I love pistachios! I love ice-cream. A marriage made in Heaven.

D

Grimaldi's Pizzeria, Brooklyn, NYC

Brooklyn bridge is a pretty cool bridge to walk across for both New Yorkers and tourists alike.

Not only is the architecture rather interesting but the view of

Manhattan from it is pretty stellar as well. But the best thing really about walking the bridge is the exercise you get from it. Haha... I'm kidding!

The best thing is hitting Grimaldi's Pizzeria at 19 Old Fulton St once you cross over.

The choice of toppings here may not be massive but what they lack in quantity they make up in quality. And boy was this quality pizza. Everything tasted top notched. Even the crust was extremely delicious with a nice smoky and mildly charred taste.

These pizzas are baked to perfection in their 800degF coal-fired brick ovens. Was it worth the trek across the bridge? Hell yeah.

D

Saigon Bakery, Manhattan, NYC

I was quite pleased to find out that there's a place in Manhattan serving pretty decent banh mi.

This is their banh mi xiu mai which is actually filled with minced pork grilled similarly to nem nuong. Their recommended sandwich, this tasted pretty damn good especially with that huge dollop of pate. The sweet pickled vegetables tasted crunchy and fresh as well.

The standard banh mi saigon which has pate and pork in it was pretty good too but I prefered the xiu mai version because I actually liked the chewy nem nuong bits.

Of course, which banh mi meal is complete without some Vietnamese iced coffee?

D

Shake Shack again...

Here's just some more grub from the Shake Shake in Madison Square Park. The bratwurst with wholegrain mustard. Not too shabby a brat, with a nice snappy casing and chewy core.

The cheeseburger was also pretty decent.

The cheesy fries weren't too bad either although the crinkle-cut chips could have been crispier. Then again, having caught them at a good time (10 minutes queue), I've got nothing to gripe about.

D

Popeyes, Manhattan, NYC

One big plus about Manhattan over Singapore is that there's more than one Popeyes outlet.

There's still a steady queue going here to make sure the turn-over is quite decent. Hence the chook still tastes pretty fresh. Oh and they actually have two flavors here; spicy (for babies hah!) and normal.

The biscuits must be made according to a standardised recipe because they're still as fluffy and tasty here. Actually, I think they were fluffier than the ones in Singapore. Nice stuff!

I didn't get to try the coleslaw but since most of it was finished, I guess it was pretty decent too.

D