Living After Midnite: Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives

If you didn't know before, you know now...my favorite channel on TV in the whole entire world is The Food Network. My favorite show in the whole entire world is Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. I swear I could watch The Food Network all day long and when the TV is on in my room 9 out of 10 times its on channel 66 (The Food Network...duh). Guy Fieri, the host of Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, seriously has the best job EVER! Maybe they'll hire me as his side kick after reading this post (a girl can dream!). Basically all he does is travel around America eating at the best Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.

This weekend my stepdad & I stopped by 2 NYC foodie landmarks. I seriously felt like I was on my own episode of Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. I only wish I remembered to bring my camera, I hope my iPhone pics will do this food justice! ((If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram (@jackiegiardina) you already saw some of these!))

First we stopped by The Doughnut Plant...the home of the most amazing doughnuts that you will EVER taste! They are made with the highest quality, all natural ingredients. No trans fat, no preservatives, no artificial flavors & no eggs, plus all the glazes are made with fresh seasonal fruits & fresh roasted nuts. If there was such thing as a "healthy doughnut" this would be it. Reading all those things makes me feel better about the million doughnuts I devoured this weekend. Let me tell you when you taste these you realize what a doughnut is suppose to taste like.

The Doughnut Plant makes 2 kinds of doughnuts, Yeast (below) & Cake (above). They are both AMAZINGGGGGGG...there were 9 different flavors of each available (of course we brought home one of each...not kidding) & they are constantly changing them.

Let me introduce you to the Black Forest Cake doughnut. It was amazing...& just 1 of the 24 doughnuts that came home with us. Some of my other favorites were Banana Pecan, Peanut Butter with Jelly Filling, Coconut Glazed with Coconut Cream, the list goes on and on...

If you are ever in the Lower East Side of NYC this place is a MUST. They are opened from 6:30 AM to when the doughnuts sell out...my advice - get there early!!

Check out the website HERE

THEN...we headed 3 blocks North and walked into The Meatball Shop. We got there at 11:50 AM (it opened at Noon) & there were already about 20 people waiting outside to get in. All this place serves is MEATBALLS (it is called THE Meatball Shop after all). You know a place has to be good when they only serve ONE thing! You can get Meatball sandwiches, Meatballs on salad or just Meatballs (which they call Naked Balls!). The way you order is first you pick what kind of meatballs you want (beef, pork, chicken, veggie...), then you pick your sauce (classic, meat, parmesan cream, pesto...), then you pick your cheese (provolone or mozzarella) and your bread! Geez...AMAZING-NESS.

This place not only serves amazing food, but it has an amazingly cool bar & they are opened until 4 am on the weekends & 2 am during the week. Can't get better than that!! Plus when you open the website the first thing you see is...We Make Balls. If that doesn't make you check out the site alone I don't know what will!

So I pretty much had the best weekend EVER. I ate & ate & ate some more. I only live about 20 minutes north of NYC but when I tell people that we drove all the way to downtown NYC just to get doughnuts & meatballs they look at me like we're nuts. It was SO worth it. Already deciding when we're going back down to get more!!