New York City!

Mid-July marks the time when I make my annual trip to Mecca.  Which in this case for me is Chinatown, NYC.  No, I am not Chinese, but I salivate over this trip for 364 days of the year until it is time.  As has been the tradition the past few years, a large group of my friends and I hit up Atlantic City and then moved onto Chinatown, NYC feasting along the way.

Our first stop in AC did not have much in the way of culinary adventure but I must say that free 24 hour room service at the Golden Nugget is AWESOME.  We had a connection that we took advantage of and had the pleasure of staying in one of their biggest two bedroom suites with all the treatements of a Las Vegas whale.  We probably ate about 500 dollars of room service in less than 24 hours :)   Thank you, Golden Nugget Hotel.  I love this place now.

Blue Ribbon Sushi.  Blue Ribbon is our traditional first stop on the Friday before we play.  It's a small place in Soho that does not take reservations.  As such, we typically wait 1-2 hours for our table at a local bar around the corner each year.  The sushi is very pricey but excellent.  I also imagine the super large bottle of sake my friend bought for everyone to share was also super pricey.  I don't want to know :)  We had a celeb sighting, Vera Wang, who apparently custom-made my friend's wife's wedding dress.

simple and delicious

The sushi was fantastic and we ordered a lot of it.  The portions were Japanese-style which means big enough to actually fit in your mouth.  I had some bluefin and yellowtail nigiri which all melted in my mouth.  The rolls were pretty good but rolls aren't really how I judge a Sushi place.  I judge it by the quality of their raw fish and on this night, Blue Ribbon excelled.  The ambience is great.  Also, if one of your friends is crazy enough to eat a big ball of wasabe on a dare, poney up the five bucks or whatever to make it happen.  It's highly entertaining :)

I nice assortment of sushi and sashimi

Tight quarters and lots of lively conversation make it feel very homey and there is a nice ethnic feel to the place. I really don't care for Japanese restaurants that feel too sterile or American. I highly recommend Blue Ribbon if anyone is in Soho.

I love yellowtail nigiri

North Dumpling.  Ahhhh, I love this place.  I've already commented on North Dumpling in other reviews so I'll keep this short.  Let me rant....How dare they raise their prices on me.  Previously, dumplings were 5 for a dollar.  Now they are 10 for 2 dollars!?!?!?!?!  In this economy, how can I afford my 20-dumpling-lunches if they keep raising their rates!  Oh well, I'll suffer through the empty wallet and continue enjoying these greasy, soy-sauce-and-sriracha-drenched bundles of perfection.  I set a new personal best this year of 33 dumplings from this place over a 48 hour period.

The World's best value - North Dumpling

"Public".  We stumbled onto this place after the first suggestion we were given turned out to be a complete bust.  Public specializes in American cuisine and had a nice bar next door for us to pass the time until we could be seated.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't until 11 PM until we took our seats and I was in desperate need of sustenance after playing volleyball all day.  The menu was fairly interesting.  I decided to pair up with a friend next to me who was brave enough to attempt to eat Kangaroo.  I love trying new things and it's pretty rare to find kangaroo on the menu and even more rare to find a woman who will share it with me since they are cute (women try to only eat ugly things for some reason). ***My apologies.... As I'm finishing my review almost a month later, I cannot really remember what else we ordered except that we were all mildly satisfied yet quite a bit poorer. 

I believe this was the kangaroo.  Not bad!

Or perhaps this was the kangaroo?

I already miss NYC.  Hopefully I'll make it back up there before next year's summer trip.