Welcome to the New York City section of my blog, also known as my “Amateur Learns Aperture” series, where I go outside my apartment to find things to photograph in order to learn how to use my camera.

When searching for things to do in NYC, I found THIS fun day hot chocolate experience.  You get to use a magic wand, you get to add all delicious things to your hot chocolate, and you get festive toppings from a locked treasure chest?  Say no more!

You cannot book for just one person so I booked for two.  This also means I paid for two.  I don’t know why, but when asked where my guest was, I lied and said she missed her flight.  No idea who “she” is or why I felt the need to lie, but such is the life of a solo traveler.

The venue is actually a bar in front and the magic happens in the back.  The bar looks like so much fun.

The bartenders were dressed like warlocks.

At my time, I was taken into the back with a few other people. I shared a table with a couple who probably grew annoyed with me quickly as I kept playing with my camera.

The back room is absolutely gorgeous.

Note the witch hat below

We sat down and had purple and black robes to put on.  Our server came over and handed up magic wands and instructed us to wave the wand while making a very specific, weird sound when we needed to summon her.  All the servers had their own sound.  The couple and I both agreed we would never make that sound.

From here, we were taken over to the cauldron display and we got something to drink.  On the left was juice, on the right was alcohol.  You needed to use your wand to push the button to get the juice out of the dragon’s mouth.  The button for the unicorn was broken so you got the alcohol out of a cauldron rather than the unicorn’s mouth.

Back to table where we were given a box, presumably the locked treasure box, although it was not locked.  You were given a choice of hot water or hot milk to make your hot chocolate with.   We also had flavorings to choose from.

And this is where my camera and I got into a huge brawl.  I accidentally hit something and could no longer get it to take photos.  I have a new rule that I am not allowed to use my phone when I have my camera on me.  I would find myself defaulting to “fuck it, phone photos” and I don’t want to do that anymore.  The purpose of all of this going outside is to learn how to use the damn camera.

Our witch / server came by and dropped off the toppings for us to use but I was so busy fighting with my camera that I didn’t get any photos of it.  Which I suppose is fine since I can’t really drink an entire cauldron’s worth of hot chocolate – especially since I had enough for two.  But I bet this post would be better if I had the photos!

There were people there for the Wizard Afternoon Tea.  I did not get close enough to see what was going on, but the tea platters were adorable.

They also had magic wands and a calling sound to get their server’s attention.

Once we were done, we were given the opportunity to tip.  Since it is based on price for two people, the suggested tip was as well.  I don’t care, I tend to overtip to compensate for all the assholes service workers deal with on a regular basis.  Just noting that.

Once we were done, I went outside and consulted Doctor Google to FUCKING HELP ME with this stupid fucking camera.  He did.  And off we went to brunch at Oscar Wilde.

This place is gorgeous inside but also really busy.  Both with decorations and people.

I was offered a seat at the bar and said I would prefer a table.  I got the standard solo dining dick table.  Why are the solo dining dick tables always wobbly?  Back when you could smoke in restaurants, it would be fixed with a matchbook.

The Valentine’s Day teddy bears were adorable.

I ordered a Croque Madame.  It tasted very sweet, too sweet actually.  The shoestring potatoes were fantastic though.

Look at me all fancy with the reflection in my phone

I don’t ever plan on being a restaurant reviewer.  I would not at all mind any traffic it brought to my blog.  But it is difficult to justify calling something a “review” when I go solo and only have one dish and that one dish is eaten by a person who does not like ingredients.

Although I probably could have gotten away with it, just talking about the decor.

My reservation was at 2:45, which is the last brunch time reservation of the day.  As I was leaving, there were SO. MANY. PEOPLE. waiting to be seated.  Good to note for my future as I will be back, and I want to not do so when there are eleventy billion people there.

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