A Sunday in the Village

Johnny and I had an amazing Sunday. We wandered down to the East Village and ended up walking around for three hours! Think "Perfect Day" by Lou Reed and you'll get the gist. :-)

We started with breakfast/lunch at Quantum Leap, one of our very favorite casual restaurants. It's a vegetarian diner (though they do have fish, too) and they have tons of vegan options. They serve breakfast almost all day on the weekend, but this time I was in the mood for something savory, so I got the Vegan Flame Grilled Burger with fries and a yummy little side salad. So fresh and delicious! Johnny got French toast and scrambled eggs with "soysage" links and really loved it.

I want more now please.

We then walked over to 10th Street and paid a visit to Obscura, the antiques store featured on the TV show "Oddities" on the Discovery Channel. What a cool little shop! As the name suggests, they feature many out-of-the-ordinary and macabre antiques such as old medical equipment, taxidermied animals, and pretty much anything related to death and dying. Mike and Evan from the TV show were not working that day, but the lady attending the shop couldn't have been nicer. They encourage people to look around even if they don't plan on buying anything. Johnny was very close to buying some foot bones from a human skeleton they just got in, but decided against it (much to my delight!).

Walking down 6th Street, we stumbled upon the most incredible place, The Creative Little Garden. It's nestled between two tall buildings on a non-descript block, but upon entering you truly feel transported to another place! It is so quiet and serene with trickling fountains and birds enjoying the feeders. There are hundreds of plant varieties all meticulously kept and lots of benches and tables so people can hang out and have lunch there. 

It's just like being in someone's awesome backyard!

The Creative Little Garden is open to the public and is even available to book for private events. It would be the perfect place for a small wedding or party, but is equally as awesome for reading a book or sipping some tea. I highly recommend stopping by if you're ever in the area.

Johnny signing the guestbook.

We also stopped in this awesome little shop called Sustainable on Avenue A. What a cool place! They sell all recycled and eco-friendly items and lots of organic beauty products, too. Their prices are surprisingly good and I got a sweet little messenger bag made from a recycled rice sack! They also have a cute little cafe in the back with fair trade coffee and lots of vegan treats.

Next, we took a walk over to the famed Tompkins Square Park. This place always reminds me of the movie "Kids". It's so quintessentially New York, a mixture of druggies passed out on the lawn and parents with their kids on the playground a few steps away! The fact that it's located smack dab in the middle of the East Village means that you can take people watching to a whole new level here. We focused our sites on the dog park instead and laughed our butts off at how cute and funny the mutts were. Can't wait till the day when we can adopt a pup of our own, but in the meantime, it's fun to watch them where we can.

Finally, we made our way over to Lula's Sweet Apothecary on 6th Street and sampled some delicious vegan ice cream treats. This place is so, so amazing. I got my favorite flavor, Drumstick, which is vanilla cashew-milk ice cream with pieces of cone, chocolate chips, and peanuts mixed in. Yummers! I also bought a Rescue Chocolate, a vegan chocolate bar made by a charity in Brooklyn. 100% of the net proceeds go to animal rescue efforts and they're not cheap, but they are for such a good cause! I got a Peanut Butter Pitbull bar and Johnny and I inhaled it later that day. One of the best candy bars I've ever tasted!

Stay away from my Drumstick if you know what's good for you!

All weekends should be so good! Did you guys do anything fun this weekend?