Chirping birds and Christmas bells in the Greatest City in the World (part 6)

While Hong Kong is first and foremost an Asian city with local culture, many parts of NYC feel like Europe, Latin America, Asia or Africa - a real patchwork of cultures from around the world! A kaleidoscope of ethnic neighborhoods are scattered around the five boroughs - Little India in Jackson Heights, Little Italy and Chinatown in Lower Manhattan, Little Poland at Greenpoint, Little Odessa at Brighton Beach, Koreatown in Midtown Manhattan, Little Guyana at Richmond Hill, Little Manila in Woodside… The city is like a miniature version of our small planet! The world will be your oyster! On a short walk around NYC, you will travel long distances to faraway countries and cross entire continents…

On your journey around the world, you will come across people speaking Spanish, Haitian Creole, Italian, Yiddish, French, German, Polish, Hindi, Mandarin and even some English… While people in Hong Kong speak mainly Cantonese, Mandarin and some English, in NYC there are as many as 800 languages which are allegedly spoken, making the latter the most linguistically diverse city in the world.

The diversity of the population in both cities is reflected in their world-class restaurants, bakeries and cafés.

While Hong Kong opens the world to Chinese cuisines - from Cantonese, including the famous dim sum literally “touching your heart”, to Hakka, Teochew, Hokkien and Shanghainese - with wine pairing and rooftop views, NYC brings all the cuisines of the world to your doorstep at any time of the day or the night!

Are you craving a taco at 3am? Chances are there is one a short walk away.

Do you dream of a French pastry or Yule log cake for Christmas? You will find them in one of the French bakeries in the city run by real French pâtissiers.

In only a couple of weeks in NYC we tried American cuisine at The Dutch restaurant in SoHo (no, we did not eat hamburgers and hot dogs!), Spanish cuisine in Mercado Little Spain in Hudson Yards, as well as some of the best Haitian, Brazilian, Mexican and Vietnamese cuisines in various holes in the walls.

NYC has so much to offer from the most delicious pasta (ever) in an outdoor restaurant that transports you to the south of Italy to authentic Neapolitan pizzas baked in a brick oven with a not-too-thick, not-too-thin chewy, smoky crust at Pizzeria Numero 28.

If you have a sweet tooth, you should definitely try the cakes and pastries at Veniero's, an Italian pasticceria that has existed since 1894!

Do not, at any cost, miss the cannoli and the New York cheesecake!

And then there are the cute New York cafés with the best filtered coffee in the world. For any (normal) person who cannot deal with the coffee sip-like French or Italian espresso, you will be in heaven!

And last - but not least - the bagels are the most perfect breakfast you can have in the US and a NYC institution of its own! There are dozens of bagel variations from the type of dough to the toppings and fillings - pumpernickel bagels, sourdough bagels, blueberry bagels, cheddar bagels, salt bagels, poppy seed bagels, sesame bagels… If you want something simple, there are the plain bagels and, for the indecisive guys, there are the “everything bagels” topped with a mixture of “everything”, including garlic powder, onion powder, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and sea salt.

Popular bagel toppings and fillings are cream cheese, smoked salmon (aka lox), fresh vegetables, avocado and fruits. Our absolute favorites were the pumpernickel lox bagels, made from entire rye grain flour and filled with cream cheese and smoked salmon - a killer!

Another delightful and relaxing experience we had in NYC in both spring and summer was spending time at the rooftop bars! Many hotels in Manhattan feature them, and no matter which one you choose, you cannot go wrong! We loved the rooftops of the Library Hotel at Two Ninety Nine Madison Avenue, the World Center Hotel and the Dominick Hotel in Lower Manhattan. It almost felt like we were far away on holiday and not in one of the busiest, most hectic cities in the world!

If you are a Guinness fan, this is probably the place where you can find the best Guinness outside of Ireland!

Our food experience in NYC was a constant learning process. In addition to being awed by the cuisines from all around the world, brought to us in a tiny area of less than 300 square miles (800 square kilometers), we discovered that there is actually a delicious and healthy American cuisine, and we love it! My absolute favorite food discovery was the salads topped up with fresh grilled fish. In Europe you must choose either a salad or a protein, while in the US you choose both the salad and the protein that goes with it, and the combinations are endless! Any type of salad on the menu can go with any protein you like!

Another discovery we made was learnt the hard (and funny) way. My boss invited me to lunch in the corporate management restaurant where I worked and, at the beginning of the meal, told me that everything was a buffet and we could pick whatever we wanted, except the entrée which we needed to choose from the menu and would be brought to our table by the waiters. I was surprised because “an entrée” in French means “a starter” (in British English) or “an appetizer” (in American English) and the entrées on the menu looked quite consistent! Later on, we went for dinner in the lovely restaurant Little Owl in Greenwich Village and the menu was referring in different sections to “appetizers”, “entrées” and “desserts”... We were stunned to learn that in American English "an entrée" actually meant "a main course" and not “a starter”, go figure! A total confusion… I am glad I did not ask any questions or make any comment at lunch as I can only imagine my american boss’s reaction!

We also learnt that while there are no tips in Hong Kong (like at many other places in Asia), they are mandatory in NYC, whether the service was exceptional or not! I do not know if it is cultural, but I felt weird and uncomfortable when the waiters introduced themselves in the restaurants - the interactions were way beyond what we wanted or needed to know during our meals! Some patrons were clearly abusing the waiters, asking many things beyond being served a meal on a menu and even rejecting dishes for ridiculous reasons! The client is the king in the US, probably because money is the king… Once I remember going to a restaurant in Hong Kong that did not accept credit cards, so we had to go to withdraw money from an ATM in order to settle our bill. The waiter absolutely trusted that we were going to return to the restaurant after that! In order to express our gratitude for his patience and understanding, we wanted to leave a tip, but he frowned at it and politely but firmly rejected it! The service in Hong Kong involves few words and no tips but it is pure perfection… If you are having dim sum and would like more tea, you simply need to rest the lid on the teapot rim and the waiter will immediately refill it with hot water. Even though you have not articulated a single word and without knowing the waiter’s name!

As part of our NYC culinary journey, my friend also taught me how to make the best cheese and charcuterie boards ever! We prepared those for Christmas Eve and, on top of being delicious and healthy, it was so much fun!

(with the kind help of my friend Wanda Rene)