The first part of the year flew by and I did a horrible job at updating our blog! Here is a quick recap of our adventures from the first half of the year. One of our favorite parts of traveling is the food, so I will include our faves list for each location plus a slideshow following the trip overview.
Stop #1 Long Island/NYC
One of our favorite parts of Long Island / NYC was the amazing food! Absolute Faves:
- Gluten Free Pasta: Cafe Formaggio in Carl Place, NY. It was out of this world good. You would never guess it was gluten free.
- Tapas, in particular Octopus Salad: Tia Pol in NYC . This place won our hearts for best tapas, but their octopus salad was the best octopus either one of us had eaten. Outstanding.
- Papusas & Maduros (sweet fried plantains): Mi Pequeno El Salvador Restaurant in Jackson Heights, NY. We are now obsessed with Salvadoran food thanks to this little spot. SO good!!
- Pizza (regular and GF): Keste Pizza & Vino in NYC. I literally had to ask if my pizza was actually gluten free because it was so dang good. Benjamin got the regular pizza and this was the first time EVER that my gf pizza crust was just as good. Well done Keste, well done.
- Speakeasy: Please Don’t Tell (PDT) in NYC. This place was SO cool! You enter through a phone booth in hot dog joint (which btw has delicious bacon wrapped hot dogs). Reservations are recommended because they only let a select number of individuals in per night, which is awesome because it is not overcrowded. The mixologists (in this case I will refer to the bartenders as such because they were beyond bartenders), were fantastic and we had some of the best drinks ever. My new fave drink is Corpse Reviver #3 thanks to this great place 🙂 .
Beausarge loved his first trip to Central Park while Coco had been before and was not as thrilled due to the rain, so she stayed in-purse. We had a great time walking and driving around the city checking out the sites. Our cousin Kelli happened to be in the area for a conference and came over for an evening so she and I could meet for the first time and she could catch up with Benjamin. It was a great visit and we immediately hit it off with our love of travel and similar world views. ❤ We love that family time!
The most impactful part of our visit to NYC was to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. It is remarkably well done and is extremely moving. We barely spoke through out the visit and both had tears in our eyes by the end. In particular the room with the photos and audio from the families and the timeline with audio makes you truly realize the terror and loss from that day. The fountains outside of it capture the bottomless grief and leave you with a feeling of emptiness, which we felt was just what the designers were going for. I highly encourage anyone who can to visit, and take a few hours to go through the museum. Beyond just that day it reminds us how small we are and how brief our time is here on our earthly home… how everything can change in one moment. Our many thanks to all those who sacrificed their lives that day trying to save others, and our condolences to all who lost loved ones. They will never be forgotten.
Stop #2 Connecticut
The food in Connecticut was good… but the ice cream was amazing! Faves:
- Ice Cream: I didn’t know New England ice cream was any better than the rest of the States, but HOLY COW IT IS AMAZING!!! The texture is prefect, more dense than your traditional scoop but less dense than gelato. Local is the key here – the smaller batch creameries are all outstanding, you can’t go wrong with any of them that are not mass produced. Ginger is the best flavor ever. period.
- Cuban Food: Soul de Cuba, New Haven was a wonderful surprise so far from the south. Their food was delicious and the family history was very cool. I could eat their Maduros ALL DAY LONG.
- I am sure there were other places we ate that were awesome, but all I remember is the ice cream and the cuban food.
The scenery was beautiful in Connecticut. It was my first New England winter experience, but with the right layers it was still very enjoyable. New Haven was our favorite city in Connecticut. The entire state is beautiful and had incredible architecture, but New Haven took 1st place. Between the cool shops downtown, the history, nice people and the Yale campus, there was something neat to see no matter where you looked.
Stop #3 Massachusetts
The amazing ice cream tour continued in Massachusetts. I made it my goal to look up the best ice cream places everywhere we went, and was not disappointed! The ginger ice cream goes strong in Mass, just as good as Connecticut. Our food faves:
- Ice Cream: Ice Cream Smuggler in Dennis, MA & Bart’s Ice cream in Amherst, MA (Bart’s is also available in Whole Foods stores in CT & MA). The ginger flavor is what it is all about up here!
- Lobster Roll: Luke’s Lobster Back Bay, Boston MA. Holy Lobster Roll!! Once again a spot that had me asking twice if mine was really gluten free. Best GF roll available! Benjamin had the regular and mine was every but as good as his. SCORE!
Massachusetts was lovely. The history and architecture left us in awe as we explored the grounds of the early US. We were based out of Worcester but took a trip to Cape Cod and Boston, stopping to see Plymouth Rock along the way. Since we are from the south which is so much newer than New England we really enjoyed spotting buildings from the late 1700s and refreshing our early US history.
Don’t forget to comment and feel free to ask questions! ❤
~ Clare
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