A colleague of mine, who has always lived in small towns across Texas and North Carolina, recently asked me what I like the most about living in New York City. The answer was pretty easy for me: the diversity of the people and cultures, which then translates into a great diversity of food spots and restaurants that are here. It doesn’t seem to matter where you are in New York or what borough you are in, but you’re pretty much guaranteed to see a massive variety of foods from across the globe, right here all the time. Today, I went downtown to get my hair cut, and to make the trip worthwhile, I also decided to eat lunch down there and stop by a couple bakeries that have been on my radar. I ate Taiwanese spicy beef noodle soup for lunch; I popped into a Middle Eastern-inspired bakery and purchased a multigrain seeded sourdough loaf, a pistachio-rose croissant, mini babka, and a za’atar labne bun; then, I walked a few blocks northeast and salivated over the display of Malaysian desserts at a Malaysian bakery and bought a piece of ube kuih, pandan nian gao, ube nian gao, and a mango mousse curd dessert. And on my way to the train, I stopped into a Juice Press to get my nanny a bottle of her favorite beet, apple, lemon, and ginger cold pressed juice. That’s a lot of variety in just about 1.5 hours of walking around the same neighborhood.

Did I spend a ton of money today too easily? Yep. But do I have any regrets about it? Not really. That pistachio rose croissant is likely the best thing I’ve eaten so far in 2023, and the end piece of that seeded sourdough loaf was incredibly fragrant with the most satisfying crunch. This is why I am here.