NYC - Spring 2015

Well hello!  How is everyone doing out there?  I'm popping back in to talk about a trip we took to New York a few weeks ago.  I'd like to joke that this is turning into a travel blog, since I only update it when we go out of town - but I don't think that really works if I only post every six months or so.   Anyhoo....we ate some great food and did a lot of fun stuff and I really want to tell you about it - so here goes!  The main reason for the trip was to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch with John Cameron Mitchell on Broadway.  We booked the tickets for Thursday night, and planned the rest of our Wednesday - Sunday long weekend around that.  James had never been to NYC, and though I had been a few times, on some of those trips I didn't have a lot of free time, so there were plenty of touristy things I'd never done before.  
We stayed at the Ace, where I also stayed on my last trip a few years ago.  It's in a great location just a few blocks from Eataly and walking distance to Times Square - pretty much right in the middle of town.  It was fairly new when I stayed before and the service seemed a little spiffier - but the main improvement was the John Dory Oyster bar, which hadn't opened yet then.  We spent a lot of time there, and I strongly recommend it over the Breslin - where we had an extremely mediocre meal on our first night in town, complete with terrible service.  It didn't seem like an off night either - it seemed like the place was overwhelmed by bar business and the food was becoming an afterthought.  The lobby bar was also constantly overcrowded. They roped off about half of the space on our first night for a bottle service event, and in the five days we could never find two seats when we wanted them.  Instead, we just went to the John Dory and sat at their bar. The John Dory is somewhat famous for their homemade dinner rolls which are perfect with their burrata and salsa verde. An order of those with some rose and oysters was perfection.

Since we were going to be there for a few days, we decided to get City Passes, which give you a nice ready made to-do list at a 40% discount if you use them all.  It includes the Empire State Building, the 9/11 museum or the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, either the Statue of Liberty or a Circle Line Cruise around the island, the National History Museum, the Top of the Rock, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We kicked off our sightseeing by walking over to the Empire State Building at dusk (after downing the above mentioned oysters and rose) to see the sun set and redeem our CityPass vouchers.  It seemed to be a pretty good time of day for this - the line was non-existent but it was still pretty crowded on the viewing deck. The next morning we set out for the Statue of Liberty.  I didn't realize that you need to make reservations three months in advance for "crown and pedestal" tickets so if you want those take heed and plan ahead. Without them, you're limited to the circular path around the statue - still lovely on a beautiful day. The boat also stops at Ellis Island, but we decided to save that for another trip since we wanted to head over to the 9/11 museum and Ground Zero.  We walked there from Battery Park in about 10 minutes. The memorial is elegant and powerful and the museum is very well done, both in tone and style.  The rest of the World Trade Center complex is still in the process of opening.  Conde Nast had just moved in a week earlier, and they are opening several restaurant and shopping venues in the complex over the next few months, including a branch of Eataly and a viewing deck at the top of One World Trade Center.  The famous Calatrava PATH station was still under construction as well - we could see it taking shape.
From the World Trade Center, we took a cab to Katz's for a late lunch. On my first trip to NYC, I told the cab driver it was my first trip to the City, and he took me on a little impromptu tour - pointing out sights along the way into town from the airport.  One of the places he drove me past was Katz's - pointing out that it was the "When Harry Met Sally deli." That is one of the things it is famous for - the other is the pastrami, and rightly so.  They still cut it by hand. You walk in, get a ticket and give it to the slicer - telling him which sandwiches you want.  We got a reuben (with pastrami) and a pastrami sandwich both of which were amazing - though I'm always partial to a reuben.  You then move on down the line, giving them your ticket to mark what you order.  Then you sit down to eat.  When you leave, you line up to pay according to what's on your ticket.  Don't lose your ticket, they will want it even if you didn't order anything - so they know you paid for what you ordered.   (If you don't want to deal with any of this, you can sit in the service section, and they'll serve your table - I think a lot of regulars do that.) The pastrami is quite simply, everything.  They say hunger is the best sauce and it definitely didn't hurt that we hadn't eaten much that day and it was close to 2 PM - but this is really something special. I recommend going when you have an appetite.  You'll need the room.

After the pastrami, we walked up Second Avenue to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop on the LES.  It was about 40 degrees, but I wanted to try a Salty Pimp - a vanilla soft serve cone striped with caramel and dipped in chocolate, with flaky salt.  I was pretty full, but it was pretty good.

We walked all the way back to our hotel from there, and headed out to the play later that night.  The show was great - if you're not familiar with Hedwig I highly recommend the movie as an introduction.  The Belasco theater is a beautiful place to see it too. Afterwards we walked a block to the famous Algonquin hotel for a post theater cocktail. The hotel has been heavily remodeled ad didn't quite reflect the bookish charm you might expect, but was a great quiet place for a drink and a nice respite from the craziness of Times Square.

We started the next day with breakfast at the Lafayette, an experience I do not recommend.  This was another popular spot where we experienced bad service.  James ordered a croissant breakfast sandwich and they told us they were out.  Huh?   The case was full of croissants.  We should have just gone to Balthazar.

From there we trekked over to the High Line and walked the entire thing - its all open now - the first time I went it was only about 1/3 completed.  The only drawback of course was that at the end of winter the gardens are not in their lushest state - in fact they were verily destroyed.  The same was true of Central Park.  Another good reason to plan a visit in the late spring or fall if you can, but we were hemmed in by JCM's dates in Hedwig.

Ticking off more of our CityPass coupons, we cabbed up to Rockefeller Center to do the Top of the Rock.  We had heard from a few people that it was worthwhile, but honestly if we didn't have tickets we probably wouldn't have bothered, having already been up the Empire State Building.  I was really glad we did though.  It's a lovely open and spacious multi-level viewing deck in contrast to the Empire State Building's single level crowded narrow space.  You can see quite a bit (including the Empire State Building) and an especially good view of Central Park.  If you have to choose one or the other, I'd recommend this. A quick word here about security at all of these sites.  It is very, very tight.  We had to go through airport style security at every single attraction, with X-rays and metal detectors. If you are carrying any kind of pocket knife or personal protection device chances are they will take it away from you.

That night we had dinner at Momofuku Ko, David Chang's 18 seat fine dining bar in its new location on the LES (we wound up spending a quite a bit of time in that area on this trip.)  We love bar seating and enjoyed watching the cooks prepare the food - ala L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon and Trois Mec.  We had some memorable courses, including a small cylindrical "lobster roll" amuse bouche, rare venison with epoisses mashed potatoes and a chilled razor clam soup with pineapple and basil oil - but we walked away feeling it was tad overpriced, particularly when it came to the beverage pairings.

We ordered them not knowing what they cost, and were a bit surprised when we were served tiny two-or-three-sip sized pours with each course. There were a number of sparkling wines, one was a cocktail made of Abita rootbeer and Amaro, several others were ciders, beers, etc.  They were interesting and good, but just not quite worth the price, and that element of the meal left a bit of a sour taste (forgive me) in our mouths.

Brunch the next morning at Estela with my friend Rorie was another memorable meal.  The food was wonderful - the menu full of everything I like to eat, but for whatever reason, our server was strangely snobbish and unpleasant.  The burrata with salsa verde, endive salad with a bright orange dressing, pecorino and walnuts and the spicy lamb ribs made up for most of that though.  Dessert was a chocolate cake with black sesame ganache and clouds of whipped cream. Assuming the service was a one off (and I really think it was) this is a place I would return to again and again.

Later that afternoon Rorie and I stopped into City Bakery for the famous hot chocolate and pretzel croissant.  I was prepared to be disappointed, as can happen with an over-hyped experience, but this was amazing.  The key is to get both the rich sweet chocolate and the salty, slightly chewy crisp croissant. They play perfectly off one another. Seriously. Do. Not. Miss. This.  Between this and Katz's we did pretty damn well at the supposed tourist traps, I gotta admit.

That night we had a terrible dinner at a new hot spot in town, Seamstress on the UES.  We picked it because it was close to the Carlyle and we had tickets to see Herb Alpert there. The food was dreadful, but the cocktails were good and the crowd was young and pretty.  It was pretty funny to go from being the oldest people in the room there to the youngest by far at the Carlyle.  The show there was wonderful and the room - covered with Bemelman's murals - was worth the trip in itself.  After the show we went over to the Bemelman's bar for a nightcap with a live band. Such an only in NYC treat.

We closed our our eating in New York with pizza at Eataly the next day. I was a smidge (ok, a LOT) hungover from too many Manhattans the night before.  (I just couldn't stop ordering Manhattans in Manhattan. Ugh, I know.)  In any event I didn't appreciate it as much as I should have, but it was pretty amazing. We also had some bucatini and split a meat and cheese plate out in the atrium.  Eataly is as mobbed as ever, going at an off time is the best option.  They also just opened a rooftop beer garden that is no doubt going to go off this summer.

So that is it for NYC!   If you have any questions feel free to comment, and hopefully I'll be back soon!  xoxox