Doughnuts, Carousel, DUMBO

Today was a more relaxed day than most. After a light breakfast, we took a walk through the Pratt Institute's campus, home to its Sculpture Park. But it wasn't art we were after: it was DOUGHNUTS! Over at Lafayette and Franklin, there is a place called Dough that I first heard about from this video from Food Curated, and recently, the New Yorker had a short writeup with a video as well. I will say that it was definitely worth a visit. The shop is really small, with no seating, and two huge steps at the door. We narrowed our selections to three glazed ones (chocolate with cocoa nib, cafe au lait, passion fruit), and a filled one with blood orange curd. We devoured them eagerly at a bench at a nearby playground. Highly recommended, and I plan to go once more before we leave New York.

After nap, we were able to get out the door and over to Brooklyn Bridge Park by 16:00. We met up with our friends and their toddler to ride the horses at Jane's Carousel, which was open, even though it was a holiday and a Monday. This carousel is almost 100 years old, and was lovingly and painstakingly restored and updated. I was most impressed by the sound of the music; it sounded so lifelike and rich that I thought there was a live band. But on closer investigation, I saw electronic mallets hitting a drum and asked one of the attendants about it. Turns out that there is a laptop controlling a real calliope, cymbal and drums! Very, very cool and classy.

For the rest of the afternoon, we played in one of the playgrounds, this one with a nautical theme, while the subway and vehicles roared overhead in the Manhattan Bridge. We stopped at a pretty mediocre (but premium-priced) cookie shop, browsed children's books, and decided what to do for dinner.

A quick search on Serious Eats for DUMBO led us to Gran Eléctrica. (It is very, very convenient to have a data plan when travelling.) Gabe chowed down on rice and beef brisket, while Flick and I shared a peekytoe crab tostada to start, and lengua tacos and fish tacos for our mains. The accompanying salsas were interesting: toasted sesame, tomatillo, chile de arbol and habanero. Absolutely delicious, and would recommend if you're in DUMBO.