A Day Trip to Manhattan and Delicious Caribbean Roasted Chicken

During the memorial weekend, my husband and I went to explore NY for a day. There are many things which we haven't seen in and around NY.

First, we went to this place called "Fort Tryon Park". It is north of Washington Heights. In this park, there is a museum called "The Cloisters".

The park has lots of flowers and trees but not too many people. It is a perfect place to have a picnic or just walk around. It is right next to the Hudson river so the view is also great.

The Cloister is devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. Not just the art pieces but the building also looks like medieval so you feel like you are in medieval Europe.

It is a beautiful building in a beautiful location.

They also have garden inside. It is wonderful.

We walked around the cloister and the park. Since we started to get hungry right about then, we went to check out the nice restaurant in the park. However, the restaurant was closed for the private event.

So, we decided to head to the next destination and try to find something on the way there.

Our next destination was Columbia University and we were driving by Washington Heights and realized that there was a concert hall which we came once.(I came to see Maxwell in this concert hall)  I remember that there are many Caribbean or latin american restaurant around here. There is this one restaurant called "Malecon" which is right across from the hall and it seemed like they have really good roasted chicken. We decided to go in.

My instinct was right! Their roasted chicken was absolutely delicious!

We also had some yellow rice and avocado salad. There avocado was so good. They might be the best avocado I ever had.

I really liked this restaurant. I wish we have this close to our place. Another great thing is that it was very affordable. The food was very fresh and we ate a lot but the bill was $16.00 plus tip! What a deal!

The restaurant was pretty busy and there are many families there. It was quite lively atmosphere and I liked it. Maybe many families went to church and came to the restaurant for lunch after that. If you are in Washington Heights sometimes, I highly recommend this restaurant!

After fulfilling our stomach, we head to Columbia University but on the way there we found this big church and the door was open so we went in to see.

This church is called Riverside church and it was beautiful church. The security people were so friendly. They told us that we can take pictures and stay as long as we want.

This is how it looks inside.

Stained glass is also beautiful.

It was hot outside but inside of the church was cool and very quite. I had no idea such a huge church exit in Manhattan. I bet there are so many people coming here on Sunday morning. If you have a chance, try to peek in this church, it is a beautiful building.

Then, Columbia University. It was very green and peaceful. We sat down and relaxed watching birds and students. It is so much fun to do people watching.

It was a wonderful and perfect day. My husband also really enjoyed this day. We decided to do something like this more often. There are so many places or things which we haven't visited in NY and it is a perfect time of the year to visit all these places because in winter it is too cold to enjoy those sights.

Summer is here and we are excited to explore hidden places of NY. (at least hidden to us :-)

Cheese Roll & Banana Pudding

For the BBQ on the weekend, I made cheese roll for appetizer and banana pudding for dessert. I believe this cheese rolls are Turkish dish. I used frozen phyllo sheet. I never used phyllo sheet before but it is so thin!

The filling is Feta cheese with some herbs with egg.

Just mix them together.

Roll the filling with phyllo sheet.

I had to be very careful to handle phyllo sheet so I won't break it.

Then, bake in the oven for about 30mins.

I forgot to take picture of baked ones but since it was gone right away, I think it was pretty good! I was very happy that everyone liked it. This is a great appetizer for a party.

For the dessert, I made banana pudding. My husband and I love this banana pudding. This was my second time making this banana pudding. When our friends from South Africa came to visit us, I made this and they loved it. My husband brought some leftover to his office and shared it with his co-workers and they loved it also so I decided to make this for the party.

Layer nilla wafers, banana and special cream and repeat.

This cream has Jell-O vanilla flavor, condensed milk and whipped cream so it is very rich and super tasty!

Everybody loved this one also. I love making this banana pudding because I always get lots of compliments.

This is the recipe I used. Click here for the recipe.

It is easy to make (no baking) and I am sure that everybody will love it! In my opinion, banana pudding taste better on next day. Enjoy!

Memorial Day Weekend BBQ Party

Memorial day weekend is the beginning of summer. Summer means BBQ. Everybody in the U.S. celebrate this beginning of summer three day weekend with BBQ. I also celebrated summer with BBQ on Saturday inviting some friends.

About 20 adults and 5 kids came to visit and it was a great and fun BBQ.

Some of our friends brought beautiful flowers. I love having flowers in my house. It brighten the house up.

Since it is BBQ, we asked everybody to bring whatever they want to BBQ. We didn't have to prepare much but I made two different kinds of appetizer and one dessert.

One of the appetizer was mini smokes salmon wrap. I made this salmon wrap before but I thought it will be a great appetizer if I made this into bite size pieces.

It came out great! It looks pretty and everybody liked it. I think this is a perfect appetizer for a summer party. (Click here to go to previous post for the recipe)

I also made cheese roll using phyllo sheet and feta cheese. For dessert, I made banana pudding which was a great success. I made this banana pudding once before and everybody loved it then so I decided to make it again. I will write about them tomorrow.

For the BBQ, we grilled different kinds of stuff. You don't see them in the photo but we also had shrimp and salmon etc.

The huge sausage in the middle is a special sausage from Poland. Our friend from Brooklyn went to a Polish store and bought it. It was really good.

I also made caramelized onion for hamburger. This is five onions. Can you believe it? It is crazy how small they get when you caramelize them but it tasted great with hamburger.

This is my hamburger.

I had a great time. It was so much fun! I think we should make this as a tradition. I love having BBQ. It is nice to have a cold drink and eat something delicious under the sun. All of our neighbors are also having BBQ and everybody was having fun. I love Memorial day weekend. Summer is finally here!!!