Murray Hill is best known for its post-college crowd – but when it comes to decent restaurants, it’s seriously lacking.  It’s finally seen salvation with the new restaurant by chef April Bloomfield, top chef of Spotted Pig and The Breslin fame.  Bloomfield’s newest hotspot Salvation Taco has come in to save the day, and Murray Hill’s reputation.  Located in the Pod 39 hotel on East 39th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues, Salvation Taco is a casual place decked out with colorful lights and a full tequila bar.

We Magpies immediately ordered two of the specialty drinks — the American Firing Squad (Applejack, rye whiskey, mulled wine grenadine, chamomile, amargo-vallet, fresh orange & lemon juices) and the 5 Island Horchata (5 Island Rum, coconut horchata, cold-brewed coffee, fernet-vallet, cinnamon and vanilla) and were intrigued by the unique mix of ingredients. These drinks were sooo hot – ay caramba! – that we were transported to a Cabo getaway…well, just for a few minutes…until we ordered some more!

Next came the food. Though the menu is quite small, it has a wide range of choices with interesting fillings – which means there’s something for everyone. And as we Magpies usually do, we ended up on trying several of the signature tacos. Our top three were the korean barbecue taco (our fave, and the most recent addition to the menu); the moroccan lamb on naan (loved the naan!), and the fried striped bass with mayan mayo (who knew the Mayans had a mayo?!).

Of course, there would be no salvation without dessert – so we got the churros!  Light, crispy, cinnamon-y and, when dipped in chocolate – muy delicioso!

All in all – Salvation Taco pretty much just became the salvation of Murray Hill in our eyes. Finally – a cool place in Murray Hill to grab a light bite and drinks with a grown up edge! But be warned – the place does not take reservations…so check it out before Murray Hill’s entire post-college crowd discovers it. (145 East 39th Street, between Third and Lexington Avenues; 212.865.5800; www.salvationtaco.com)

Adele…that voice, those eyes…those eyelashes!!! Well “RUMOR HAS IT” that the London-based mascara, Eyeko mascara, which Adele uses to make her eyes pop! was debuting in New York, and we Magpies wanted to be first in line (well…maybe not the first…) at Sephora to pick up a tube.  We went to two different Sephora locations before finding the one that had just gotten them in – they weren’t even on display yet!  From the back room boxes, we were lucky to grab several tubes for ourselves. We Magpies have tried the mascara and are happy to report that our lashes are faboosh!  Two things make this mascara so unique – 1) It’s applied a bit differently because it comes with a safety guard (in the shape of a guitar pick) to place behind the top line of your lashes so you get to pile on the mascara to great lengths without getting your lid all messy, and 2) it’s shaped like a tube of toothpaste, so not one bit of mascara is wasted!  Squeeze it out to the last drop! So if you want to try and get those long, luscious lashes like Adele – you’d better get over to Sephora to buy this fab mascara before they run out. we give this Eyeko masara an A+; an A for the long wispy lashes which we loved, and PLUS we got those dramatic Adele eyes…

FYI -Magpie update – the Eyeko mascara that Adele(our good friend!) and we are obsessed with is called Skinny Brush Mascara - we had the wrong pic originally in the post when we first told you all about this faboosh new mascara – our bad!

As most of you readers know, we Magpies are always attracted to sparkly things. Lucky for us, DWNY, one of the sparkliest boutiques we’ve visited in New York (located on East 21st Street between Park and Broadway), has a twinkly neon sign that caught our eyes as we were heading home one afternoon.

Lucky for us, and now, lucky for our readers, we always have our eyes out for glitter! This charming boutique, owned and operated by Diana Warner, an extremely talented and super happy designer, and her talented and very happy cousin, Gibson, is filled with all sorts of their personally designed jewelry that is trendy, glamorous and affordable! How trendy? Well, her cool, drop dead jewelry can be seen on the set of all the TV shows you’re loving right now ( her fab creations have accessorized basically the entire cast of Gossip Girl!)

…and she is the go-to designer for celebrities who want to ooze glamour (like…) and has been featured in top fashion mags. Though it’s not that big in square footage, her store is packed with an enormous selection of earrings, necklaces, and bracelets to check out and a great selection of unique tee shirts and clothing to gush over. We were there for over two hours!!!  And we didn’t want to leave – that’s how happy this store is! DWNY even has cool fashion for men (we didn’t really look, but it’s great to know when you’re out shopping with a guy… there are plenty of ties to keep him busy!)

Here are some of our tres affordable (most averaging under a hundred bucks!) purchases that we made on this recent visit – crystal drop earrings that look like Ippolita earrings with more sparkle; a pair of studs called the Sara studs after – on Gossip Girl and double - drop earrings also seen on Sara; two pairs of handcrafted and designed earrings made from vintage! Chanel buttons, that are, by far, the coolest addition to our jewelry collection; a stunning statement necklace made of stones and crystal that is reminiscent of David Yurman’s confetti collection, but with a much cooler (lucky!) vibe to it; a vintage tee shirt from these really creative guys from Brooklyn; and an iridescent leather Lodis clutch that is not only great looking, but functionally designed as well. And one of the best things about DWNY, Diana Warner sincerely loves her store and her creations and lets customers try on anything they want without getting annoyed! (hence our two hours in her compact store!) We Magpies would have moved in if we could…but since that really wasn’t feasible, we plan on visiting our new favorite boutique all the time! New items come in daily, so Magpies, go check it out and let us know what you get!

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And now, to get you in the mood, Diana Warner has graciously offered to donate a pair of her faboosh Gossip Girl earrings to moi to raffle off to vous! To enter the DWNY raffle, just send us an note and we will add your name to the list where we will randomly select a winner at the end of the week! Only one entry per Magpie please…we’re sure if you are selected you will become a DWNY fan as well!  We know, we know – you love us to the moon and back! (another of Dianna’s fab creations!)

Oh, and by the way, an interesting fact about Diana- she is the proud owner of the original Broadway dog Toto, from the Wizard of Oz! How funny is that???

And that’s just another reason to visit the happiest little store in New York!                                                   Hey!!  Where you going?? You have to send us your email address (through our contact page) to be part of the free glamorous earrings giveaway!!…and keep your fingers crossed!

The turkey club sandwich, made on homemade bread, not only made a lovely presentation – we loved the avocado garnish which gave the sandwich a real kick…

…our smoked salmon on a pretzel roll with dill, frisee and a hard boiled egg was a clever and tasty twist on the LEO with a bagel on the side we usually love for brunch!

And there’s always room for something sweet – especially when it ‘s a freshly baked cookie, loaded with chocolate chunks – so soft and chewy! Epicerie Boulud is sure to delight your tastebuds as it did ours! It was a perfect lunch from beginning to end…congrats Chef Boulud, you’ve done it again! Oh and FYI – Epicerie Boulud becomes an oyster bar which offers wine by the glass - how trés bien?

Diablo Royale, a tiny but very popular Mexican restaurant on West 10th Street in the West Village, was a dining roller coaster! It had a really great, young crowd, but our dining experience was extremely uneven. One Magpie ordered the chicken quesadilla - which was good…really, really good! As were the fab steak tacos!

Another Magpie went with the fish tacos.. which was a huge mistake! Don’t dare get the fish tacos…they were really so baddd…bordering on grosseroonie (and we Magpies will usually eat anything!).

So then we ordered a large guac to accompany our main dishes (and to drown out that bad fishy taste…yucko!). And boy, were we shocked at the size…this was our “large” portion (you can see it dwarfed by the chip basket)!!

It was such a small serving (and way overpriced)…that it was downright ugly. So there you have it, a Mexican restaurant that was extremely good (good crowd, great steak and chicken tacos), really, really bad (fish tacos…dont get us started…), and just plain ugly (way overpriced, teeny guacamole). Will we go back? Definitely – we’ll just avoid those fishy tacos and overpriced appetizers. We Magpies love great crowds in small spaces!! (P.S. – and one of our fave bars, The Windsor, is located right next door!).

We then looked over the menu quickly, checking out the calorie count that was listed next to each item. With a calorie count of 410,  the egg salad topped with anchovies and tiny pickles on open faced whole wheat bread was just perfect for lunch.

Another Magpie went with the turkey and avocado sandwich, also served open faced with lettuce and tomato garnish – calories – 420.

But don’t be fooled by all  our calorie counting, we simply wanted to have room for the freshly baked giant chocolate chip cookies that we planned on ordering. They were just delish.

Perfectly baked with huge chocolate chips throughout the crispy cookie, it was ideal for sharing ’cause it takes up an entire plate! (calorie count…who cares?!!)  This was the second Le Pain Quotidien that we’ve been to and we must say they were exactly the same in quality of service and food. Comment do they do it? Well at Le Pain Quotidien – they do it tres bien!

It’s only been around for a year, but Rubirosa, a little Italian gem located on Mulberry Street in Nolita (right at the start of Little Italy) has made a big impression on its New York fans. It’s a quiet, unassuming place, that happens to have some of the best Italian specialties we’ve ever tried. Our favorite dish that we’ve had there before were the homemade meatballs (delish!).  On previous visits, we’ve also tried the homemade spaghetti and fresh tomato sauce,

and their classic, cracker-thin marinara pie (with extra gooey cheese!).

But recently, we were able to sample their signature antipasto platter and specialty pies that we’ve never had before because we scored an invite to their one year celebration! Yay!!

At the party, they had specialty pies sliced up and served in a steady stream, mozzerella sticks and rice balls being passed around, as well as fine wines being poured for the guests as soon as our glasses emptied!  We loved trying all of the pies and would recommend any – although we were really partial to the pies that had a sausage or meatball topping!

To say that the thin crust pizza topped with vodka sauce and meatballs was fabulous would be an understatement. The crispy crust melts in your mouth and their vodka sauce could make anyone (well, us!) crave the entire pie.

But since they also served lasagna and our favorite meatballs, we controlled ourselves – we had to have room to taste everything!

It was simply a scrumptious celebration! The food was fresh and delicious, and the entire staff was gracious and attentive to all the guests. We were thrilled to be able to take part in this delicious anniversary celebration, and we hope to be invited next year to toast their continued success. The combination of fresh,wholesome ingredients, prepared in a simple, yet unique way has made Rubirosa a foodie favorite. However, the food and service is so good that everyone will fall in love with Rubirosa – it’s just a gem of a place.

If we combined every Magpies’ makeup bags together, we could easily start our own Sephora franchise. And since we always review the newest and coolest makeup we come across, this is really good for those of you who don’t like wasting money on mediocre products like the crew of makeup addicts here does. On a recent rainy afternoon, we noticed that our newest purchases were all gold-cased mascaras. Obvs, being true Magpies, the shiny containers were the definite hook to get us to buy another, new and improved formula of the same mascaras we’ve been using for years! Since we had some time to kill, we decided to have a face-off (or in this case, a face-on!) of three of our very shiny gold-tubed mascaras, and see which one really did the best job as a mascara. We collected DiorShow Extase Mascara, L’Oreal Voluminous False Lashes, and YSL Effet Faux Cils Shocking, and we each applied a double coat of the mascara quickly, without pumping the wand or trying to avoid clumps (kind of like when you’re really late for work or you need to put on makeup fast ’cause your friend’s going to be really mad that you’re still not ready). With that being our criteria, DiorShow Extase was surprisingly the most clumpy when applied quickly.

The L’oreal Voluminous False Lashes is a thinner formula so it did not clump in a rush; however, if you don’t really have good lashes, it definitely requires more applications to look good. The Magpie favorite of these gold mascaras turned out to be the YSL’s Volume Effet Faux Cils Shocking. It’s a really intense black, and  gave definition and length to our lashes in the shortest amount of time (with the least amount of clumpiness). So there you have it, a quickie mascara competition among our favorite gold-tubed mascaras. Don’t get us started on what the outcome would be among the thousands of black-tubed mascaras we have. We’ll have to save that competition for a snowstorm…

After just 72 days of marriage (and what seemed like a 72 hour wedding special on E!), Kim Kardashian is filing for divorce from Kris Humphries. Ryan Seacrest, the producer of her reality show, tweeted this morning, “Yes @kimkardashian is filing for divorce this morning. I touched base with her.” According to TMZ, Kardashian has reportedly hired celebrity divorce lawyer Laura Wasser (who has represented dozens of Hollywood divorcees) and will cite “irreconcilable differences.”

Kardashian recently told PEOPLE magazine that living in NYC with her sister Kourtney, her boyfriend Scott Disick and their baby during filming for “Kourtney and Kim Take New York” was not an “ideal” situation for them as newlyweds. Still – we Magpies are kinda shocked! And we’re also wondering what will happen to her not one…not two…but three wedding dresses!?

What do you Magpies think? What went wrong with Kim and Kris – too public too fast?

[Check out CO-OP Preview Party, shot by Alan Phillips]

We Magpies take our birthday celebrations quite seriously. And since we dine out quite a lot, we are always in search of a new special place to kick off our birthday festivities. We were very fortunate that a fellow Magpie had drinks at Co-op in the Hotel on Rivington in the Lower East Side – and suggested we have our birthday dinner there. Well, it turns out, Co-op happens to be a really fun and tasty place to celebrate. When we arrived for our dinner reservation, our table was not yet ready, so of course we went straight to the bar – a big and inviting place to have drinks.  There are several specialty drinks on the menu that sounded faboosh, so we tried a truffle martini – a dirty martini garnished with olives stuffed with truffled feta cheese (mmm…delish) and a pink bazooka martini served with a pomegranate ice cube, which was another winner.

Sam, our now favorite bartender, was really nice and friendly, and immediately filled up a tin container with truffle popcorn to munch on as we sipped (well more like chugged…they were that good) our drinks!

Before we could say, “I’ll have a second,” our table was ready and we were led into the main dining room which was really cool. With its high-glass ceiling and huge portraits of people surrounding the walls of the entire room – it makes you feel like you’re dining in an exclusive photographer’s loft.

They almost stuck us at a communal table (sorry to those of you Magpies who like communal tables…), but luckily we came armed with a very persuasive Magpie who would not tolerate the group table on her birthday  – we got a lovely banquette to dine at instead. And now onto the food!  Everything can be shared at Co-op, which makes it so much fun when you go out with a group – plus, you don’t have to be stuck with an entree you don’t like!  But at Co-op, that would not have been the case anyway – everything we ordered, we loved! We started with the lobster shots – tiny cups filled with a creamy lobster broth and bits of lobster – so cute and soo good.

They also accommodate for the number of people in your party who want a taste – if the small plate is served with three pieces, they will add a fourth or fifth in and charge you per serving instead of needing to get two orders. They are known for their sushi – so we tried a spicy tuna on crispy rice, which was very good.  We weren’t crazy about the spicy part (that sneaky jalepeno pepper…even after we removed it, it’s taste lingered).

We then ordered the peking duck steamed buns with hoisin sauce. We loved the duck filling – the buns themselves, not so much.  They were just a little too sticky and chewy.  But, with all the pork buns we’ve tried across NYC, it was a delicious twist to try them done with duck!

The sliders came next – a perfect and juicy patty on top of a perfect and juicy tomato, topped with a pickle and held together with a toothpick!  Plus, more truffle – the fries this time.  DE-LISH!.

We finished with the butter lettuce wraps, filled with melt-in-your-mouth miso black cod and topped with shredded filo – mmm…the textures! Smooth and crunchy at the same time – loved ‘em.

And lastly, our absolute favorite, AJ’s chicken meatballs – with cabbage slaw. So tender – with great flavor!

After all that, you might think we would’ve skipped dessert. Well – you would’ve thought wrong! We chose two delectable sounding desserts and they did not disappoint. The molten chocolate brownie with a petite(to keep our girlish figures) scoop of caramel ice cream was a chocolate delight…

…and the sticky toffee cupcake with a bourbon-buttercream icing – and sprinkled with chocolate chips -   was a gourmet cupcake eater’s dream!

The two desserts were perfectly sized for a taste and a perfect ending to a really fun meal! Will we go back soon? Definitely! There are many more dishes to try and desserts to splurge on. Do we think Co-op is worth your investment calorie-wise and dollar-wise? Well, if you’re like us Magpies, you’re guaranteed many happy returns!