24 Hours of Eating in NYC

Day 1: tacos and cookies and (gummy) bears, oh my!

Paul and I arrived at JFK Airport to the usual snaking queues at immigration. Hot and bothered after our flight, and wearing too many layers, we sweated our way back and forth for an hour, fiddling with our phones to download e-sims (which, by the way, can be a great saving option when you travel outside of the EU. I got an e-sim for about 30 quid from Holafly for unlimited data for 10 days - an absolute bargain compared to the measly 500mb EE were offering for something like £6 a day!).

After we both managed to convince the immigration officer that we weren’t here to smuggle tubes of cocaine up our bums, we grabbed our too-heavy suitcases off the carousels, and heaved them into a yellow cab (which, these days, are all much more modern and cubist than the sleek saloons of 1980s movies). We were a single fish in a yellow shoal at twilight, moving slowly in the rush-hour traffic from Queens to Manhattan. Whenever he got the chance, the driver would hit the gas and jerk us backwards - a peddle-pumper, I call them. Mixed with the pangs hunger, it was a nauseating ride.

After we checked in (I’ll share details of where when we have departed. Not to be secretive, but because recently I’ve had to be more mindful sharing my whereabouts on social media because of a couple of very sweet but very intense followers…), we headed to Maddison Square Gardens to find out for how much they were flogging last-minute Madonna tickets. We aren’t die-hard fans, but a Madonna concert in New York would be quite the tick on the bucket-list. But at $400-a-piece we clutched our pearls in horror and audibly gasped like true Lancastrians and left. Outside, the bright lights and blaring of another musical diva - Whitney - lured us, by chance, into Los Tacos No. 1. I’d seen Tim Lusher, editor of The Guardian Feast, post about it on his Instagram a couple of weeks before, and fuelled by what was now intense hanger we didn’t question it.

The menu is pretty small: just tacos and quesadillas. A jolly New Yorker behind us told us to order one each of the top three on the menu - carne (beef), pollo (chicken) and adobada (pork) - on corn tacos - so we complied, along with a ‘starter’ of chips and salsa (which were the crunchiest corn chips I’ve had in a long time, and the salsa packed a jet lag-jolting punch!). The server shouted us to the counter when our order was ready and we inhaled our three tacos. There’s no way to eat a taco delicately, you have to look like a cross between an 90s porn star and Nigella Lawson on one of her silk-clad, midnight jaunts to the kitchen, as you deepthroat as much as you can with meat juice dribbling down your chin. The tacos were everything we needed them to be - and more! - the corn shells were so soft and chewy, and the meats, loaded ‘con todo’ (with everything), were so flavourful and simply delicious. Wiping the dribbles away with a coy giggle and a two-ply napkin, we felt renewed and ready to head out into the chilly night.

In the LGBTQ+ bar, Vers, we sank a few rounds of ‘Phony Negronis’ and watched the locals take part in the musical theatre quiz; budding actors and performers huddle around drink-strewn tables and answer multiple rounds of questions as they sing along, shameless and (and most brilliantly) indiscreet, to the classics. We watched, entertained, from the darkest corner of the bar, the time difference making us stare and sway a little on our barstools like the living dead. We decided it was time to pop our melatonin, shower off the 18-hour day, and bid heaving Manhattan, ‘hasta mañana’.

The next morning we woke early (7am), as we had an important downtown meeting to get to (more on this secret mission much later in the week). We decided to take a punt on a hotel breakfast. I had a sort of dismantled frittata with some morels of cheese and a few roasted tomatoes thrown in (oh, and a side of smoked salmon - a couple of forkfuls for $16). Paul had a focaccia with cacio e pepe scrambled eggs on top. Both were a lovely start to the day, but set us back $100 total, including the tip (always tip everywhere you go in Manhattan. And not the British kind of tip where you squint at the loose change in your pocket and say ‘that’ll do’; they pretty much expect upwards of 20% these days.

After our Batman-cum-ninja secret appointment, we took a wander up to Levain Bakery on Lafayette Street (there are a handful of locations scattered across the city). Over the past couple of years, their cookies have become the benchmark standard for most food writers and bloggers; they’re notoriously chunky - humped like the love child of a rock cake and a scone - and crumbly. We took a chocolate chip and walnut, and a dark chocolate peanut butter chip. The walnut was surprisingly cakey inside (a little underbaked, actually) so didn’t crumble. It was instead a little more claggy, but still, as Paul said with a mouthful, “fucking good!’ The peanut butter chip one was so much better though: crumby, chewy and tender all in one bite. We’ll be popping back for a few more before the trip is out.

We decided, as I chased my cookies with a ‘cookies ‘n’ cream’ protein shake, that we fancied a good workout, so we ran to Crunch Fitness on West 38th Street, where for $75 each we bought week-long guest passes. It’s a great gym for cardio, weightlifting, classes, and so is worth the price. On the jog back I ate my usual 30 Haribo gummy bears (they contain dextrose which is fast-acting for an insulin spike to flood your muscles with glycogen and creatine) and two tubs of fat-free Greek yoghurt (which I licked clean like a contented kitten).

Earlier in the day, on the way back from the bakery, we’d popped into Heyday to book facials for the afternoon, so at 3pm we shuffled the few blocks and reclined in the salon’s low light and downtempo beats. I’d already pressed the button on the booking form that made it clear I didn’t want to make idle chit chat with the therapist - ‘shut up and suck the shit out my pores’, or words to that effect.

When LeShay, my silent and tender-fingered therapist, defibrillated me back to life (it was just the high-frequency wand vibrating on a stubborn pimple) I was ravenous. I remembered clocking a Sweetgreen as we passed it on Broadway, so I paced in that direction with a glossy-faced Paul in tow. I’d existed off the food there when I came to Manhattan a few years before to do some television. Not wanting to ‘put any weight on’ I’d stuck to mixed leaves and protein (in New York, who the hell does that?). Sweetgreen is to the salad what Subway is to the sandwich - a before-your-very-eyes production line. I picked a harvest bowl, doubling up on the chicken, and found it, in the state I was in, wolfdownable. I don’t know what additives (if any) they use in their dressings. I don’t know how long the component parts are sat there for. When you are hungry and want to eat some of the city’s elusive fibre, it is bloody good stuff.