MY FAVORITE PRICE IS FREE! NYC is a pricey town but not always....

Today Ciara and I celebrated my departure by enjoying a free dinner and dessert, courtesy of Tenka.com. This new marketing gimmick is great for thrifty New Yorkers who love to eat but also love a deal. You put up to four deals you like in your "pocket"--your mobile phone--and then head to a restaurant offering something for nothing or deeply discounted. In the store or restaurant, you show the phone to the manager and click, "Redeem", and a free item is yours!

We started our free-for-all at a new healthy pizza place called Rev'd Up Pi on 3rd Avenue and 31st Street in Manhattan. We showed our phones to the guys behind the counter, and in moments we were enjoying big slices of delicious pizza--a classic margherita for Ciara, and a mushroom miracle for me--with shitake and portabello mushrooms covering the slice. We liked it so much, we forgot to take a photo. (I also had a Groupon, which paid for our drinks and desserts, but the pizza was FREE...and very filling due to the whole grain crust.)

We had planned to visit 16 Handles in the East Village for free frozen yogurt,but the deal was sold out. Undaunted, we jumped on the train and headed to Park Slope in Brooklyn to get a free fro-yo at the Wicked Spoon. It felt so good to show our phones to the yogurt man and hear, "What flavor would you like? And what toppings?" We both chose Red Velvet Cake yogurt, but our toppings were varied: I had peanut butter sauce with mini m&ms, and Ciara chose a Bananas Foster sauce with chocolate crunchies. Truly delicious--and once again, FREE! (They also had really cute spoons!)

I think this place deserves some applause for originality, too. They were sampling a new topping called Big Apple Cracker--matzoh covered with chocolate and crushed peppermint stick!

 Thank you, Tenka, for coming up with this great way to eat well without spending a penny!