This bowl of gazpacho was from Le Pain Quotidien, the Belgian chain restaurant/bistro. I had my first gazpacho soup probably about 5 years ago at a french bistro and since then, it has been a love affair that knows no bounds. . . . except when it comes to me having to make it myself. :-) It is especially delicious during the hot summer months when the last thing I want to eat is a warm soup.
This photo was taken at the corner of Madison Avenue and 58th Street in midtown Manhattan. Madison Avenue, especially north of 60th Street is the prime shopping district for high end fashion goods like Ralph Lauren, Hermes and Versace. South of 60th Street, the avenue is comprised of mainly offices for big corporations and financial institutions.
This is the Fanelli Cafe on Prince street and Mercer Street in SoHo. The restaurant bar has been around since the 1800's and it is still a popular hang out place among the locals and tourists alike. I have had some decent sandwiches here after an afternoon of wandering the streets for photo-op.
These tricycle taxis are a fairly new phenomenon in New York City. I started seeing a few of them on the streets about two years ago but now, they are everywhere. These young fellas will "drive" you anywhere in Manhattan if you pay the right fare. I don't know how much it would cost since I've never ridden on one. And it is not an efficient way to travel around the city but for a tourist, it is definitely a fun way to explore the city.
This is a macro shot of a simple flower arrangement at a Thai restaurant on Court Street between 3rd and 4th Place in Brooklyn where I had dinner with a friend last week. The small pink bloom with yellow center is probably about 3/4 of an inch across. 
This is a regular summer scene on Greeley Square, a small triangular plot of space bordered by 32th Street, 6th Avenue and Broadway in midtown Manhattan. Around the square is one of the busiest intersections for automobile and pedestrian traffics in the city. If you have been to the gigantic Macy's store on 34th Street and Broadway, you will understand that this is an oasis tugged inside a concrete jungle. 
Last week, I lost my camera but I found it the next day. On Saturday, I saw this sign posted on a lamp post in SoHo -- apparently someone found a lost bird. My question is how does one find a lost bird? Did it fly into someone window and said, "I'm lost?" 
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you would have figured out that I rarely eat/cook at home. But I do . . . sometimes. This photo above is an example of my cooking reportoire: nutella (hazelnut chocolate spread) sandwich. My other specialty is a scrambled eggs over peanut butter and toasts. When I tell my friends that, they all said, "EWWWWWWWWW!"
The yellow building in the reflection is the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on 5th Avenue and 59th Street. The glass building doing the reflecting is the GM Building, one block south between 59th and 58th Street. You can also see the Apple Cube on the bottom right corner of the photo. 
I had lunch this afternoon with fellow NYC bloggers, Lisa of Gramercy Cafe and Todd of Postcards from Hell's Kitchen at Le Pain Quotidien, an amazing Belgian cafe/restaurant in Union Square. Unfortunately, I "lost" my camera this morning so was not able to take any photos except this one with my cell phone. 
This is the front entrance to a tiny (and I mean TINY) Japanese take-out restaurant called Otafuku in the East Village. There are only three items on the menu: okonomiyaki (Japanese style savory pancake), takoyaki (octopus balls) and yakisoba (stir-fried noodles). Customers can mix and match any combination of two of the above items for less than $5. Now, that's cheap eats.
Everything I photographed lately has turned out . . . blah!! I have been lacking inspiration or been visiting the familiar haunts too frequently. I need to find a new place to visit instead of tSoHo, Little Italy, Union Square and East Village.
The real estate market may be battered in some parts of the country but it is doing very well in NYC (Manhattan) , thanks to the foreign buyers in the market. Some realtors, like this one in SoHo, are targeting European buyers with their strong Euros. The apartment listed on the chalkboard is a condominium loft in the NoHo (north of Houston Street) district and it can be yours for a reasonable €888,000 or an affordable £766,000 or an unbelievably absurb price of US$1,532,000. Ouch!!
This is the skyline of East Village on Lafayette Street, just south of 8th Street. The blue glass building on the left is a new $5 - $12 million condo/coop building that sits on leased land. This is an interesting concept in residential real estate because the building does not own the land it sits on. At some point (way in the future), the lease on the land will expire and a new contract will have to be drawn up. How will that affect the prices of the apartments? Only the future can tell.
I saw this elderly gentleman waiting outside the Christian Dior store on 57th Street near Madison Avenue yesterday evening. He was probably waiting for the car service to pick him up after an afternoon of shopping.
This is the Parachute Jump, a relic of an old amusement park attraction in Coney Island, Brooklyn. I found out on Wikipedia that it was built in 1939 for the New York's World's Fair in Flushing-Meadows, Queens but was moved to the Coney Island Steeplechase Amusement Park in Brooklyn later. Incidentally, I have also photographed the famous structure from the 1964 World's Fair -- the Unisphere which I posted earlier this month. 
Today is August 15, which means it is another subway theme day. The photo above is an enlarged view of a subway sign for the N and W trains at Union Square. I was waiting for the train when I noticed an interesting smudge on the N circle. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a stenciled graffiti. I couldn't help but like the "artwork" because I think it is quite hilarious and very original. But I don't know what it represents.
Mulberry Street, the main restaurant and tourist alley in Little Italy, is usually closed to automobile traffic on weekends so the locals and tourists can enjoy browsing and hanging out in the neighborhood. One of the regular vendors on the street is Vinny's Nut House, which sells nougat candy (egg white, sugar and almonds), candied apples, marzipan (almond paste) fruits, lemon iced cookies and different types of biscottis.
I saw this wasp carrying a cicada up the tree outside my apartment building last weekend. Upon further research, I found out that it was a cicada killer wasp that preys primarily on cicadas. Incidentally, I heard the cicadas singing outside my office last recently. I guess it's cicada season.
The decline in US dollars has made NYC an affordable vacation spot for many Europeans. This week alone, I saw a couple of stores advertising, "We Accept Euros" on their windows including this restaurant in Little Italy.
