Cheesecake and New York days

This weekend a few friends of mine from Boston came down to NYC to hang out. They know the city well, so it wasn't your typical try-to-see-as-much-of-the-city-as-possible-in-12-hours kind of trip. We thought we'd just walk around and enjoy New York and see what there was to see.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't agree with us. There was drizzling to downpour most of the day, and at points there were windtunnels that blew dresses, hair and umbrellas frantically in the air. Not exactly the kind of weather to promenade in.

But we did our best. We had brunch at the Waverly, a diner in the West Village. We then found this underground vintage baazar in Chelsea, and went wild there for a while. Dan bought a sports jacket, Kara bought a ring, and Chris bought a military backpack. Next we decided to head down to Soho.

This is when the wind tunnels and the rain were at their worst. And somehow our entourage had managed to grow to about 6 people. Everyone was tired, slightly cranky and not really in the mood for rainy New York.

Only two of us were really hungry, the rest just wanted to sit somewhere. We spent about an hour looking for a place to go, but it seems every other New Yorker had the same idea as we did at this point: get out of the rain and get something in your belly. After much trial and error, we found this taco place called La Esquina, or the Corner. It was just what some of us wanted, but there was really no place for all of six of us to sit. I was exhausted.

This is when I turned around and saw my destiny. There, right across the street (17 Cleveland Place, 212-966-5585), in big letters, was a big sign displaying the words "Eileen's Special Cheesecake". I was stupified. It was like those moments in the movie when the hero turns around and sees the girl of his dreams right there after looking for her his whole life and all he has to do is walk 3 steps over and say, "Hey".

Some people were more interested in the tacos, but Dan, Chris and I ran across the street and took in the sheer amount of choices of cheesecake to choose from. For $3.50 a pop for mini cheesecakes, there was pineapple, blueberry, carmel pecan, rocky road, dulce de leche, chocolate, cookies and creme, peanut butter, pumpkin.... the list goes on. It was all too exciting.

I decided on a chocolate esspresso cheesecake, Dan on a raspberry, and Chris on pumpkin. We sat down to enjoy. It's a small place, but it looks bigger because of the floor to ceiling mirror on one side, and adds to the feel of it being a small, specialized operation.

The cheesecake was AWESOME. It blew my mind. Light and fluffy, and the different tastes that were incorporated into each kind worked so well. I tried to savor it so it wouldn't end, but alas, eventually it did.

It's amazing how cheesecake can rejuvenate you. Back on the street, my mood was lighter, (and my hair was fluffier too, due to the rain), so cheesecake really had an effect. It turned out to be a great day in New York after all, between the cheesecake, the gallery we went to and the happy hour later that night.