OMG Dessert Goals

I didn't originally mean to attend OMG Dessert Goals til last minute, due to winning a pair of tickets literally 2 days before the event. Lately a lot of my adventures have been last minute, with invites dropping in my inbox with not enough heads up for me to plan them out, but my ambitiously forever gramming self ends up racing to do it all because some of these are such limited time events. Unfortunately I'm not a local NYC girl so it's not easy for me to get out there, which is why I limit my trips to the weekends I'm off work.

A lot of people wonder how I learn about a lot.of the pop-ups and events I attend. There's no secret. I simply switched gears and started following Instagrams that feature new pop-ups and new things to do in the city. Which is how I learned about OMG Dessert Goals. I knew about it from food bloggers but not the full extent of what it entailed. I never bought a ticket to it because I didn't know what I would be getting myself into and if it would be worth it. I entered a contest run by Fomofeed and got an email Friday morning that I won tickets into their Sunday morning slot. Looking at the lineup of vendors, I saw a few that were actually on my to-do list to try around the city, so I was excited to go and finally get to try these new desserts.

The one con I found about the event was how to get there. It wasn't exactly easy as it was in Long Island City and a lot of trains were either down or not operating on time that weekend. It was still a walk from the nearest station as well and it was a particularly cold day out. I noticed a lot of other attendees getting dropped off by Ubers. The location was in a big warehouse alongside the river, which was sketchy at first upon entering the area. My sisters and I all thought, is this where we come to die because we greedily wanted desserts?! Is this how we go?! Hansel and Gretel style? If it was a warmer day/season, the entrance may have been decorated a little nicer and further out to invite guests in but it was cold and windy by the water so the entrance was further in and hidden from the path in which you had to walk to get there.  BUT! Once inside, I am happy to report everything was fine and went well! There was a bit of a line to get in but in the waiting area there were a few cute walls and props to take photos while you waited. There was a cute photobooth with free Sparkling Ice water giveaways as well.

With your admission, you get a few free things. You get free water from Boxed Water, free candy from Sugarfina (They give you a small bag that you get to fill up at the candy bar, but honestly the bag they give you could’ve been bigger but maybe I’m just greedy. It was probably that size to keep the lines moving and keep people from staying there too long but there were only 3 candies to choose from so this could’ve been done better.), and free mochi from My/Mo Mochi ice cream. The free mochi was nice but there was only one flavor available - cookies and cream which is a generally well liked favor by the masses, but it would’ve been nice to have options to try something different.

In the vendor room, it was mayhem! But beautiful. There were so many people and so many beautiful desserts. There were lines everywhere. I scouted the room first to plan my attack.

I ended up trying quite a bit.

  1. ICE NY - They had a special rose lychee rolled ice cream special just for this event and it was delicious. I love anything rose and lychee flavored and it was totally grammable.

  2. Rebecca’s Cake Pops - These were the most adorable, cutest Instagrammable treat of the whole place! This booth easily had the longest line and you could tell it was a mom and pop run shop, with the parents taking orders as their children helped put together cute boxes for the treats to be packaged in. Regardless of the long line, they took their time and made sure every order was perfect and to your liking.

  3. Silk Cakes - I’ve seen these for a while now but the bakery is out of the way for me in Queens and I really hate going anywhere in Queens, honestly so I haven’t had a chance to try them so I was really excited they were a vendor here. Their cakes looked so perfect in real life and tasted so soft and mousse/cream-like. I hope they come to the next event!

  4. The Stackery - This was a new dessert I’ve never seen or heard of. At first I thought the cone was made of a sweet pastry-like dough but it was actually bread! It was a nice touch to the ice cream because it complemented the sweetness instead adding to it and making it too overly sweet. The vendors working the booth were absolutely sweet to us while putting together our order.

  5. Treat House - These were cute rice krispie treats decorated in the Halloween spirit. They were just too adorable and my sister bought a box of 6 of these to take home.

  6. Sugar & Water - I’ve seen their pretty glittery croissant donuts all over the gram. Another vendor I wanted to try but again, in Queens so it hindered me from visiting. Their pink dossant was as delicious as it was pretty.

  7. Kochin Desserts - Another brand new dessert I saw and was intrigued by so we obviously had to try. Flan, coffee ice cream, banana brulee, and coffee jelly, served with a Vietnamese espresso shot. It was quite a mix! I love desserts where there’s a little bit of everything. This was served in the cutest coconut shell too.

  8. Keki Modern Cakes - I’ve seen these all over but honestly I’d have to say this was a disappointment. They were selling by the slices so they didn’t jiggle as much as a full cake. Hype was gone.

Besides the booths, the event also had a few cute stations for your gramming needs. There was a bed, a cute pink room set up, and a balloon backdrop on the inside of the warehouse. Outside the event, towards the exit, were a few Instagrammable walls to serve as small backdrops for your dessert as well. I didn’t get to take photos of these as our time slot was coming to a close. Being my first time, I didn’t know to use my time more wisely to be able to gram it all. BUT, now I know for next time. Next to these walls, they also had a salt bar to help cleanse your palate in between desserts, with free snacks like pretzels, popcorn, and cheese balls. There was also a Zico bar with free samples of different flavors of coconut water.

All in all, I actually enjoyed this event a lot! I look forward to returning for the spring edition if they continue. When I go to comic conventions I’m always complaining about the lack of food vendors, the lack of variety and lack of cuteness. In reality, I just want to go to a food con. Like a big Costco where I go from booth to booth sampling food. This was pretty much that for desserts. I had a great time trying many different types of desserts and trying new things. The event was well put together, well organized and well executed. You can tell they put a lot of work into it with the decorations, backdrops and even thought of the Instagrammers. I would definitely recommend this if you’re a foodie as well as a #forthegram foodie. It’s worth the price of admission and worth your time.

Ipsy GenBeauty 2018

My sister invited me to last year’s GenBeauty last minute and I had a lot of fun in just a few short hours so of course I was interested in checking it out again this year.

We brunched at Bluebird London at Columbus Circle that morning with a gorgeous view before heading over to the convention. I’m usually only passing by this area quickly so it’s a new location for me to adventure in. There are a lot of nice shops that I would love to take more time to browse one day next time I’m around the area. The service at brunch was good, the waiter was super cute and the food was delicious. The girls even wear Ted Baker dresses as their uniforms, how snazzy! Unfortunately we didn’t make it to their tea service since it’s only served certain days and certain times so I guess we’ll be returning for the gram for that pastry tower. If you’re lucky enough to get a window seat, it’s really something. It actually reminds me a little bit of my time in Paris. Oh, how I miss Paris! I still have yet to find time to blog about that for you guys too.

I basically lived at the Javits for the past 3 weekends it seems. It’s where all the conventions are held due to its abundance of space for vendors and set up of booths and content. The perks of this con is all the free products you swipe at each booth by simply scanning your badge. You learn about new indie brands and their products and get to test them out. You’re not obligated or pressured to buy anything since they bring limited product with them anyway. And the booths that do sell their products, sell at some pretty nice discounts compared to their retail prices. Meanwhile a lot of the free products you get are decently sized, if not full sized! For example, I stopped by the Wen booth because I just wanted to snap a pic on their floral swings but they ended up filling my bag with full sized hair products. I didn’t expect this so that was a pretty nice bonus. It’s really nice to get free products because it's a nice way to test out new products and new brands without having to feel like you wasted your money if it doesn’t turn out a winner. You also get to discover new brands this way that you might end up falling in love with, that you would’ve never heard of otherwise. This con is basically like a Costco buffet, but for makeup. You go from booth to booth just getting samples of new products. Not a bad deal if you ask me. If you like trying new products and learning about new indie brands as they hit the market, this is definitely a con for you. Or even if you don’t, if you love taking cute photos with Instagrammable backgrounds, this con is also the con for you. There were a lot of cute photo opportunities but unfortunately I didn’t get to do them all due to the time constraints and long waits towards the end of the day so I don’t have all the photo ops you could do pictured, but hopefully next year I can attend on a Saturday for full coverage of the event for once.

My sister also eyed the MAC booth and saw they had these shirtless muscle guys chilling in the middle to promote their brand and obviously try to get girls to flock over cause duh, eye candy. Except that’s not what she saw, hahaha. She dared me to go over and flex with them to make them feel small. I can’t resist a challenge so I walked over after we finished with the Wen booth and shut those boys down. They thought I was going to hit them with the hand on hip pose but I had my guns ready to go. They were like “SHEEEET. THIS GIRL DON’T PLAY.” #dead.

Towards the end of the convention at closing time, some booths started giving away a lot of their goods. They started throwing them into the crowds causing hordes of girls to run over and trample each other just to score some freebies. It was crazy. Mayhem ensued. I got hit in the head with makeup, hahaha!

We ended the day with Ichiran ramen and Sweet Gloria honey ice cream even though I’m not at goal yet for my weight loss but I’m still meeting all my targets so far so a little cheat was okay. I had a sample of Ichiran at Japan Fest over the summer and it was delicious so I was looking for an opportunity to try the full bowl of ramen with all its fixings. And it didn’t disappoint. Ichiran was so good I drank all the soup! I stumbled upon Sweet Gloria last week and man I’ve been craving honey ice cream all week so I had to go back. It’s so delicious. It’s a small and simple ice cream shop but so good! All in all, it was a nice weekend and a beautiful day with my girls.

NYCC 2018

NYCC has come and gone, like every year since 2013 when I first started attending. I attended again for a total of 4 days, but it feels like it happened in the blink of an eye.

I ended up deciding to redo old cosplays and it turned out refreshingly well. I really do enjoy cosplaying, but I don’t enjoy spending money on it anymore and putting together anything new. And I found there’s nothing wrong with rewearing my favorites since there are always new attendees, new crowds and well, I breathed some new life back into my old cosplays with my improved physique so the photos turned out pretty well. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting back on more photos from all the photographers I’ve worked with during that weekend so for right now, enjoy the quick preview edits by the ever lightning fast Jason Laboy and Boris Quezada. I’ll probably do another post of finished photos as soon as I get them all back and organized.

I still do enjoy cosplaying a lot. I love dressing up (duh) and being my favorite characters. I also found that in contrast to previous years where I stuck with a group, I did find it more freeing to enjoy the con on my own this year. It was easier to get through crowds and easier to dart through. I enjoyed both being on my own to shoot and look around and then meeting up with friends and family later on in the day to check out booths. It was a nice change of pace and I felt better not having anyone wait on me while I did my own thing photoshooting, which is what I spent a majority of the con doing since I still really do enjoy shooting, as well as cosplay.

The funny thing is I could tell you that you don’t need to be there all 4 days. That one day is all you need, but I could be both right and wrong about that. Yes, you can do the entire con in a day. But that all depends on what you’re there to do. If you’re just there to browse the booths and buy merchandise, you can probably do a lot if not all in a day. But some days feature some things more than others on certain days, and there are also different types of panels on different days. And if you’re there to check out cosplay, you’ll see a lot on any day you pick, but you won’t see everything. You might just miss a particular gem if you go a different day. But the other thing about NYCC is that it’s so big, you might still not see everything somehow. For example, I was there all 4 days, but some people still missed me somehow. And some people saw me there all 4 days. So there’s really no right or wrong answer if you were to ask me how many days or which days you should choose to attend. If you’re on a budget, I would say go on Thursday. Thursdays to me, are actually my favorite days. It’s the least crowded, the first day so you have first dibs on all the merchandise, albeit not the best sales since they leave that till the last day but you’re guaranteed to get the t shirt you want in your size. It’s also the cheapest day of the cons in terms of badge prices. And usually easiest to purchase badges. There’s always Thursday tickets still left while Fri-Sun sell out quickly. Don’t let that fool you though. It doesn’t mean Thursdays suck. The same booths are still there all 4 days. The quality of content you’ll experience is not relative to the price of the badge, nor the number of attendees.

I took some photos of the convention center and some cool stuff I saw at booths but honestly it’s not the same. You just have to attend and see for yourself. The figures, the big displays, the artwork, the beautifu wares you can buy that the vendors bring in, the experiences you can take away, the photos, the different content in all the booths. It’s a lot. In short though, I found I still love NYCC and can see myself coming back again next year. I had a lot of fun this year despite not seeing a lot of the con due to shoots. I want to say maybe I’ll choose 4 different old cosplays, but at the same time, I really did love the 4 I chose this year and would have no problem bringing them back again next year. I’m not concerned if I become a one trick pony - I’m totally okay with those being my signature cosplays.

I also attended the Bruno Mars concert on Thursday night after the convention and I’ll keep this segue short but Bruno is just amazing in concert. He gives it his all as a performer and puts on a great show. I would say he’s this generations’ Michael Jackson with how talented he is at song, dance, performing, everything. My only disappointment is that he didn’t sing Gorilla, which is my favorite song from him. But everything else was absolutely over the top. He had glitter, he had pyrotechnics, he had rainbow lights, he had lasers, he had it all. He’s definitely worth his concert price.

Friday night was a busy day and night for me as well. In the morning I stopped by the New York Magic Lab pop-up and in the evening I visited the New York Historical Society’s Harry Potter exhibit (that blog post is also soon to follow) before heading to my early birthday dinner celebration (aka birthday dinner #1 because I’m extra and need 5 outfits, 3 cakes and a holiday to celebrate).  This was one of my favorite parts of the weekend, simply spending time with my favorite people. It was just really nice. I’m walking into my 30s with all smiles. Life is good when you’re surrounded with the best things in life and the best people. And you’re looking and feeling your best finally.

Saturday was a nice slow day, in terms of no crazy plans having me run all over the city. I simply enjoyed the con and then went to dinner with my best friend and tried out a new restaurant and new ice cream shop. I was watching what I ate for the most part that weekend so I allowed myself little cheats here and there and it ended up being fine because when I returned home Sunday night and weighed myself, no progress was lost so score!

Sunday was the last day and another easy slow day. I went to dinner with my family afterwards and tried more new dessert shops with them before finally heading home. I still have yet to go through the pile of business cards in my bag from everyone who snapped a pic of me. Fingers crossed I can get some decent photos back. If you were one of the few who snapped a nice pic, please email them to me!