Cocktails in New York

New York has SO MANY bars. And of those bars, a large number are COCKTAIL bars. And of THOSE bars, many are AMAZING!

I like a cocktail or two, but there was no way we could go to even a fraction of the bars I would’ve liked to have visited. And I’m just talking about pure bars. Not even restaurants which also served wonderful cocktails!

For most of the time we were in New York we were staying in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We did spend one night up near tourist central Times Square, but the Lower East Side had amazing bars and restaurants to choose from, and a great vibe, and I’d definitely opt to stay there, or perhaps Brooklyn, on a return trip.

Although we went to bars elsewhere, the ones listed below are all Lower East Side/East Village.

Bar Goto

This bar-with-food had only opened a month or so previous to our trip. We headed here on our first evening, tired but excited, and luckily secured the last two perches. It was small, crowded and focused on Japanese flavours. We had a few drinks and some snacks, and felt part of the city.

cocktail

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London Cocktail Crawls

As you have probably noticed, the last 8 months have been dedicated to posts about my trip to Thailand and Vietnam over the Christmas/New Year period.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been eating and drinking anything blog-worthy this year – I have! I have just failed miserably to write up anything 🙂

This post isn’t able to remedy that. It’s really just to flag up some wonderful cocktail bars H and I have been to during monthly “cocktail crawls”. These tend to start early afternoon and take in 4 – 6 stops including food before heading home while most peeps are just getting started!

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Hanoi Street Food Tour, Hanoi

As much as I like trying to be brave, sometimes language can be a barrier to exploration.

Local knowledge seemed ideal, so I decided to find a guided food tour we could go on, eventually signing us up for a Hanoi Street Food Tour.

Because one of our number didn’t eat meat, I opted for a private tour. As there were 4 of us, it didn’t turn out that much more expensive ($100 vs $80).

We turned up at the office on time, and were introduced to our lovely guide, who had the nickname Miss Smile. She plunged off into the streets (on foot), and we started the tour.

foodtour 1

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Documenting food finds for fellow food-lovers