Red & the Brooklyn Bridge

I've spent plenty of time in New York, but one thing I never did was walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. I've read on travel websites that the walk over the bridge is one of the top ten tourist destinations in the city, and yet I had never gone. On my last night in the area, I decided to walk over the bridge and eat dinner somewhere within walking distance of the bridge.

We parked in Brooklyn and my initial thought was to eat at the famous Grimaldi's Pizzeria before the walk, but the line halfway up the block changed my mind. Instead, we proceeded over the bridge towards Manhattan.

Walking on the wooden boardwalk above the cars was a great experience. There were great views and the bridge was packed with mostly international tourists. Even on the way back, close to midnight, there were still plenty of people on the bridge. It was also really interesting to inspect the bridge up close rather than speeding by in a car. Old suspension bridges like this are so substantial and nice looking compared to the cable strung bridges that have replaced them.

Once in Manhattan, we headed towards the South Street Seaport. Since it was pretty late by now, we didn't want to risk restaurants closing for the night, so we ate at one of the first restaurants we came to. It was a Mexican Restaurant called Red.

Tortilla chips and really good salsa were served first.

I ordered a chicken and avocado tostada for my meal. It was basically a salad in a bowl made from a fried tortilla. The chicken had a really nice lime flavor, but the avocado wasn't ripe and was really hard. Overall, the meal wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. Pretty much an average salad.

After eating, we returned to Brooklyn and said goodbye to the city until the next visit...

Il Porto

I ate at a restaurant called Il Porto in Manhattan's South Street Seaport. Since it was a very hot summer day, we were lucky to sit near an open door to the nearby Dead People exhibit, which blasted us with nice air conditioning. Soon enough, the meal started out with a loaf of bread.

I ordered the Pizza alla Pesto which consisted of mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, pesto, and basil leaves, all on a crispy pizza crust. It was very tasty. It wasn't what I would think of as the typical New York Style pizza, but it was still delicious...

After eating, the next stop was to walk over to the Playing the Building exhibit up the road. On the way there, I explored the South Street Seaport for a bit:

And then I finally reached my destination and enjoyed Playing the Building: