Eat This: Lunch at The High Line

Have you ever eaten at The High Line Park in New York City? It's an amazing elevated rail line that has been reclaimed into a public park with gorgeous greenery, an incredible view (as seen above!), walking paths, a fountain...and a world-class food selection that makes it the perfect outdoor spot for a lunch meeting or just a quick bite.

On a recent lunch trip, we visited three FOOD52 pals -- Fany Gerson of La Newyorkina, Northern Spy, and Blue Bottle Coffee -- with food stands there! (Along with many other New York restaurants like Terroir, which has a full beer garden, Bark, and the People's Pops.)

1. Northern Spy

Northern Spy's pork sticky bun -- an apparent contradiction in title -- was like nothing we'd ever seen: bread dough rolled up with bits of pulled pork and dijon mustard, cut into rounds just like cinnamon rolls and topped with a savory parsnip puree that had the consistency of icing but the taste of root vegetables. You'd have to try it to believe it!

And we really knocked ourselves out with Northern Spy's Genius kale salad. They replaced the roasted squash with carrots -- a perfect substitution for summer. We also got their gazpacho, which paired wonderfully with a grilled cheese sandwich on hefty, crusty, olive oil-brushed bread. And our assistant editor Kenzi compared their mushroom sandwich to "a really good mushroom stroganoff" -- the goat cheese inside the grilled bread really made it special.

2. Blue Bottle Coffee

We picked up three Blue Bottle cookies -- chocolate-chocolate chip, parmesan-fennel shortbread, and saffron snickerdoodle -- from Blue Bottle coffee to take back to the office to share. I picked up a cup of their Three Africans brew for myself -- Kenzi said that when she goes with a friend, she likes to get two different coffees and split them with friends to taste the difference in roasts!

3. La Newyorkina

There's nothing to end a meal like a mango-chile paleta from La Newyorkina -- frozen and portable, we kept cool all the way back to work.