Sweets on and around Halloween

Ever since I moved to New York, I've always attended the Village Halloween Parade and watched from various intersections. Whether my group watches the actually parade or not, we always managed to catch some creative costumes around the area. For some reason, my fear of people and crowds goes away around Halloween. Apparently weird clothed people put me more at ease. Zombies, storm troopers and furry animals are totally harmless!

This year I went to the parade with Wes and Ryan, two friends I met through origami. I made a newbie mistake of getting off the train on the west side of the parade when we agreed to meet on the east side.

Tip number one, figure out how to get on the same side of the parade because crossing 6th Ave is nearly impossible. I think this was never a problem in the past because I usually met my group near the end of the parade (above union sq). It took a while to figure out but we ended up watching the parade on the east side of 6th Ave, near Prince/Spring st. It's good to watch the parade start since that's where all the floats/puppets are. Wes suggested that we sign up for volunteering with the puppets next year. 

After watching for about an hour and a half, Wes and I took to the streets to find dinner. For people curious about the food situation on Halloween, I never had any trouble finding food despite the sheer number of people out and about that night. Lobster Smack caught our eye and we split a large lobster roll with fries (they offer old bay seasoning). Definitely will skip the cole slaw next time. I didn't take a picture of the decor but the walls had sea creatures roaming about with projectors that casted colorful green/blue lights with an ocean pattern.  

Around the block from Lobster Smack is a really cute bakery. I still can't figure out how to say the name properly but let's just say we took more than 5 minutes to finishing gawking at the wide range of colorful sweets through the clear display cases. Try Pasticceria Bruno http://www.pasticceriabruno.com/ next time you happen to be roaming around the village. I'm sure most people know about it, but I guess I was too spoiled by Ferrara's to ever look elsewhere. That's ok though, never too late to find new places (even though Bruno's has been around for a long time too). Wes was diligent enough to take a pic but not before I took a giant bite of the Italian cheese cake. I also tried Baba rum for the first time (delicious spongy pastry surrounding a sweet custard and soaked in rum).

top to bottom: Italian cheesecake with shaved white chocolate.
espresso. baba rum. pine nut tart, chocolate/peanut butter tart. tea.

If people watching is not your thing around Halloween, there is also a puppy Halloween parade in Tompkins Square Park. I dragged Jason to the actual event this year (after years of gawking at the online photos). Since I don't have a dog, I think attending in person didn't add to the experience. I'm sure if you have a dog and a costume, it's more exciting to meet other people with cute dogs and costumes. Thanks Gothamist for always having highlights pics!

After the dog parade, Jason and I grabbed food at Sharaku (Nabeyaki Udon: shrimp tempura and chicken noodles) and ice cream from Big Gay Ice Cream  (Salty Pimp for me, Apple Gobbler for him). I have to thank Linda for introducing me to the shop (for the longest time I thought it was still just an ice cream truck), although I made the mistake of picking something that's not Salty Pimp on my first visit. For those of you who like coconut and curry, Cococone is for you, but really it can't compare to the delicious chocolate dip, salted caramel goodness vanilla that is Salty Pimp. I also don't understand why everyone wants to take a "open mouth" pic next to the pretty unicorn. Spare us the weirdness, just eat your cone.

Some other favorite sweets around Halloween are peeps (pumpkin or ghosts), chocolate/marshmallow pumpkins, spooky kit-kats (bars have spooky designs!). While I like the candy corn designs and color scheme, I don't particularly like the taste or texture of candy corns.

Next fun holiday to look forward to: Thanksgiving+Hannukah! Can't wait to see what kind of yummy food we will cook up.