Author: Jess Singer

Breakfasts, Cooking Class and Poolside Cocktails at Almanity Hoi An Resort and Spa

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At the Almanity Hoi An Resort and Spa, a buffet style breakfast was included in our stay. The spread at breakfast had a wide range of both local vietnamese and western style breakfast choices. For the buffet, there were fresh fruits, breakfast pastries, smoothies, fresh yogurt, cereals, and prepared salads. We both ate our fair share of many of the buffet choices and thoroughly enjoyed all that we ate. In addition to the buffet style selections, there are three stations where food is prepared to order. The first station served two different dishes that are typical of vietnamese breakfasts. The options varied and ours were beef or pork pho and cao lầu. Cao lầu is a noodle dish with pork and green vegetables and can only be found in the town of Hoi An. Its exclusivity to Hoi An is a result of the century old square wells from which water is drawn to make the noodles for cao lầu. There was also a fried rice dish and chicken congee. We had originally planned to share a beef pho on …

Our Stay at The Almanity Resort and Spa

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Our experience at the Almanity Hoi An Resort and Spa was far beyond our expectations. The hotel is located about ten minutes away from the old town if walking, and free bicycle rentals are available to hotel guests.  We opted out of bike rentals as we were a bit nervous with the traffic in Hoi An, but if you are feeling brave go for it! When we arrived at Almanity we were greeted by a warm and welcoming staff.  While checking in, we were offered delicious welcome drinks. When the drinks were initially set in front of us they were blue, but after the staff added another component to the drink they turned pink! We were advised that our room was ready and that we would be staying in a Double My Mind Town View Room.  This room had a king sized bed, shower, air conditioning, TV, and a balcony overlooking the streets of Hoi An.  It was very clean and comfortable. In addition to our room, our package included one spa journey per person per day at …

Searching for Hotels in Hanoi…Lessons Learned!

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We landed in Hanoi, Vietnam around 5:30pm. Luckily for us, and thanks to help from our friends at Musiker Tours, we got our visas for Vietnam in advance and bypassed one of the long lines. We went to the embassy in NYC a few weeks ago, where they do same-day processing for visas. Obviously they charge a bit more for same day, but factoring in the extra train and taxi ride to go back to pick it up, it actually winds up being cheaper to just do it all in one day. Once we went through immigration, we headed to baggage claim. It was the moment of truth…did our bags make it??  It’s the feeling we all get when we are traveling – we waited in suspense. My bag came first and it took quite a while for Steven’s bag to make it out. To be honest, we definitely got a bit nervous at one point! When we passed through customs, there were two places to change money and two places to get SIM cards. …

Hong Kong Airport or Mall? 

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On our way in to Hong Kong we were so exhausted from traveling we did not realize the vastness and craziness of the airport. Little did we know that arriving super early for our flight to Hanoi would be one of the best decisions. When we arrived back at the airport, basically retracing our steps from the airport to our hotel (red line to yellow line to airport express), we were floored. The ceilings were so high you could probably fly a plane through the airport itself. Everything was very clean, keeping in line with most of the city, and there were masses of people everywhere. We had eaten a light breakfast of a butter bun and raisin bun and weren’t particularly looking forward to eating airport or airline food again.  We checked in, got seats together again, said goodbye to our bags and found some Chinese dragons that we desperately wanted to parade around in, but the signs said NO!    We went through security and customs (shout out to our friends from Mexico!) …

Exploring Hong Kong

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We had one full day in Hong Kong and since we were still attempting to adjust to the time difference, we decided we would just explore rather than run around doing too many touristy things.  As described by one of our family friends, Angie, Hong Kong is basically New York City and China Town on a much larger scale.  There are malls after malls after tailor shops after malls after electronic stores after street food after malls after electronic stores throughout the whole city.  The worst part about it is that everything is so much more expensive here, so Jess couldn’t even go shopping…not that we actually have room in our backpacks to acquire anything 10 hours into our trip. Thanks to suggestions from Amy and Co., a member of the Singer family, we decided to walk around and head towards the Star Ferry in the morning-ish (we slept in a bit).  On our way there we decided to walk through the park near the TST MTR station.  To our surprise there was a small …

Late Night Meal, Day 1: Hong Kong @ Kai Kee Restaurant

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When we arrived at The Perkin Hotel, it was around 11:30pm.  We settled into our room and knew we needed something to eat, since we had only had the sub-par airplane food for the last 30 hours.  We walked out of the lobby and realized we were smack in the middle of quite the nightlife, even for a Tuesday night.  The street that the hotel is on was closed down to pedestrian traffic only and lined with bars, clubs and restaurants. After roaming for a bit, we were approached by the owner of one of the restaurants.  He said, “Come on in for a drink and food! We have the BEST american food around.”  We immediately stopped him and said “We just landed from New York, american food is definitely not what we are looking for.”  He laughed and completely understood.  He told us to go back down to the main road and turn left.  There would be two restaurants: Relax for a While, and Kai Kee Restaurant.  To be honest, we couldn’t even find Relax for a While …

30 Hours of Travel

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Our trip started the minute we woke up. We tossed our bags on our backs and headed straight for Roslyn train station to catch the 6:19am train to Penn Station. Being that the train is the only morning train that we didn’t have to transfer in Jamaica, we decided to go with it. We transferred to the NJ Transit train to Newark Airport with 2 minutes to spare and arrived at the Newark Air Train, or monorail, a little before 8am. We decided that taking the train to the airport was so incredibly easy and stress free. We didn’t have to worry about traffic and we knew exactly when we would get there. It also was a lot less expensive than a car service or the torture of making one of our parents drive us. Well, 8am at Newark was apparently WAY too early. The ticketing counter for Air China did’t open until 8:25am, but they didn’t start ticketing until 8:45am. We wandered around and then made sure to be the first people on line to get …

Let the adventures begin!! 

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Originally Chasin’ Cravings started out as a way for me to get my home cooked meals down into real recipes, instead of trying to remember what I had done in the kitchen when friends or family asked about some of the photos I was posting of my food. Then, it turned into a great way for Steven and me to share experiences we were having at restaurants locally when we moved to NYC for my Master’s program at NYU. Now, it has transformed to providing advice for food and hotels during vacations. So, I was thinking about how Chasin’ Cravings could keep growing and fully encompass my life adventures. As most of you know, I will be starting dental school at NYU in August and although the slogan of Chasin’ Cravings is “Follow your tummy…”, I have begun to find ways to incorporate this into many aspects and events in my life. Part of this is because I am always thinking about food, and the other part is that this can also be interpreted as …

The White House Tavern: Aspen, CO

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The White House Tavern was our last meal in Aspen, and boy did we go out with a bang! We sat at the bar with Tyler and a full view of the open kitchen. Although this was only half of the kitchen, as the other half is in the back, we were still able to see a lot of the exciting action. Tyler started us off sharing a local beer on draught, while we decided what to have. Once he told us the special was a version of a reuben, we were sold. We just had to decide if we wanted to have the super popular chicken sandwich or a burger. I do not eat burgers very often because I like to have my burger rare or medium rare and sometimes it is hard to find a place that you can order this way. When I told Tyler this, he said “Go with the burger!”, so we did. We sipped our beer, which was really good, and toasted to a fantastic week in Aspen. We …

Creperie du Village: Aspen, CO

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As we wondered through the streets of Aspen, Co, we were in search of a great place for dinner.  On the corner of E Hopkins Avenue and S Mill Street, down some stairs, is a hidden gem: Creperie du Village.  Initially, we had no idea what we were in for.  It took us quite a while to decide to have dinner here.  We must have walked by the place about four times.  We even walked inside and spoke to the host twice before we made our decision.  They were able to squeeze us in at a two person table for dinner, but they were so booked that the host said he would need the table by 8.  This gave us an hour and a half for dinner, which was more than enough time.  The restaurant seats maybe 40 people including the bar space, which ensured that our food came out fairly quickly.  The small space added to the cozy and intimate ambiance of the dining experience.  It feels as though you have been transported from a …