Bright lights, big city

[therese]

My husband and I are just back from a week's holiday in NYC and I'm summarizing our experience here. I posted in detail to threads for particular restaurants, but have some additional info here for anybody who is planning on a similar trip.

We booked our hotel on Priceline. This was my first time using the service, and I got help in figuring out how to do it from two web sites, Bidding for Travel, and Better Bidding, both of which give very good background info and can also give you an idea of the properties you're likely to get in any particular area.

We ended up at Intercontinental the Barclay, a 4 star property, for $160 per night before taxes, etc. The hotel lists this room at $329 per night (also before taxes, etc.). Room very nice, large by NYC standards and recently renovated. Bathroom also recently renovated. Turn down service every night, in room coffee (though the usual not great stuff). Not the most luxurious place I've ever stayed, but then I've stayed in some pretty swank places.

The hotel's convenient to the Lexington Ave trains, which you catch two/three blocks north at 51st St or six blocks south at 42nd St/GCT. Shopping, Central Park, and theater district all reasonable walks. Lots of dining options in the area.

[therese]

So, what did we eat? Well, maybe the better question here is what didn't we eat?

Saturday

We arrived at LaGuardia in the early afternoon on Saturday and spent the chilly afternoon walking around Central Park and listening to music. We'd eaten lunch at the airport in Atlanta (Paschal's, in the adjacent bar, where I had meat loaf and collards---a person can go into withdrawal if she goes too long without collards) so didn't need to eat again until that evening.

We'd made plans for dinner with friends who've both worked in New York (he for a branch of city government, she for the UN) for the last twenty years or so. I'd only just met the wife the week before, and the husband was the brother of a friend from high school, so I asked them to pick them to pick the restaurant. When they suggested 66 I had to laugh, as I still recalled details of the Vanity Fair review from a few years ago and somehow couldn't quite imagine this couple there.

Dinner was fine (details in the link above) and afterwards we walked down to the WTC site and talked about what they'd done and where they'd been that day, etc. Since we hadn't planned on visiting the site this was a nice way to do it.

Home via train from the City Hall/Brooklyn Bridge station. Our friends were impressed that we'd already purchased MetroCards.

Edited April 2, 2006 by therese (log)

[therese]

Sunday

Sunday we'd booked tickets for the matinee of a musical based on Herman Hesse's novel "Siddhartha." We liked it, but apparently the reviewers did not share our opinion, and it closed that day.

Lunch that day was at Maison. I cannot recommend this restaurant, unless perhaps you're pining to listen in on the conversations of visiting and ex-pat French. And then you might just want to stick to alcoholic beverages.

Dinner was at a Japanese restaurant near our hotel (actually in the same building as the Waldorf Astoria) where I'd eaten once before and very much enjoyed it. I'm sorry to say that Inagiku did not live up to its previous record. I do think we'd likely have had a better experience if we'd ordered a la carte, or chosen a higher price point omakase.

Back to our hotel in time to watch the Sopranos.

[therese]

Monday

Plans for our evening already set (the musical Chicago---my husband really likes musicals and I like him well enough to humor him in this respesct), we decided to stroll around Greenwich Village. Still chilly but nice enough to want to eat outside. We picked a place with a nice outdoor patio with an awning and were served predictably pedestrian food.

We stopped by Pasticceria Bruno on Bleeker St. for coffee and baci di dama. Pleasant, and we chose our breakfast for the next day, a croissant (or I suppose I should say a cornetto) for husband and marzipan for me. Marzipan's not most people idea of breakfast food, I know, but it looked lovely and I'd already eaten too many sweets.

Dinner at Aquavit was the first to live up to our expectations. Great meal in every respect, and Chicago was also great, with my husband having gotten particularly nice tickets dead center, about five rows back.

After the show we very improbably ended up at a party for a movie premier. Fortunately the drinks were watered down and so the decision to stay out late did not seem like a really terrible one the next AM.

[therese]

Tuesday

After a hearty breakfast of marzipan cherries (for me) and croissant (for husband) we took a long hard look at our day and got back into bed.

Actually, no, we didn't. I got ready from my lunch date with FabulousFoodBabe and he worked on a lecture he'd been invited to give the next day at Cornell.

Lunch was at Tocqueville. Very "ladies who lunch," unless you count the part at the end where the waiter suggested that we follow our lunch with tequila shooters.

We'd booked dinner at Per Se for Tuesday with FabulousFoodBabe, but her husband couldn't make it so we cancelled. We went to Blaue Gans instead, a very different sort of experience and a nice contrast with Tocqueville.

Drinks afterwards at Pegu Club. Sat at the bar. Husband had a Pegu Club cocktail and I had, um, well, I don't recall. I'll think about this and try to recreate it. I do recall telling my husband that I'd left my credit card behind the last time I'd been at Pegu Club, and he was not surprised, given the rate at which I was consuming cocktails.

[therese]

Wednesday

Husband was spending the day visiting a colleague at Cornell, so I went shopping after an egg salad sandwich at Starbucks. Better than you'd think, and appropriate sustenance for shopping.

Yet another musical booked for the evening, Avenue Q. So once again we needed a reasonable pre-theater option, and on the basis of Sneakeater's endorsement (after all, he'd been right about Blaue Gans) we chose Tintol. Excellent in every respect.

After the show we ended up at Aburiya Kinnosuke for a drink (an "umeboshi sour" for me) with a friend who'd just finished a meal with a group. We walked him to GCT to catch the last train to Westchester, and headed home.

[therese]

Thursday

By Thursday we realized that we'd not visited a single museum, and my husband decided that he wanted to visit the Natural History museum. We walked there through the park, and ate lunch at Barney Greengrass on the strength of a recommendation from our friend at Aburiya Kinnosuke the night before. Loved it.

On the way there I bought some Japanese sweets from a to go counter in front of a restaurant: dorayaki with anko and sliced chestnuts (these were not labeled, just wrapped in plastic, so may have been made there) and daifuku.

Thursday night dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns with FabulousFoodBabe and her husband, Captain America. Train ride there and back offset by great meal and very nice visit to the kitchen afterwards.

We did not, for once, go out after dinner.

Edited April 2, 2006 by therese (log)

[therese]

Friday

A pan-Asian dining day, starting with Japanese sweets purchased the day before.

Lunch was dim sum in Chinatown at Sweet-n-Tart, a pleasant place that makes the food to order rather than using carts for service.

A brief stop at Teariffic for bubble tea with Pan, and then out to dinner at Aburiya Kinnosuke, a very good and not hellishly expensive Japanese restaurant in midtown.

Brazilian jazz afterwards at Iridium. This place serves food, and I was a bit concerned that we'd be pressured to buy some, but it wasn't an issue. There's a $10 minimum per person, so I ordered one of the house cocktails (for $9.50), as it seemed unlikely that I'd be able to get a sidecar. The cocktail I did order was called something like "Long Island Iced Tea on the Beach," which turns out to mean "Hawaiian Punch with Distilled Spirits."

[therese]

Saturday

Our flight home wasn't until 2:00, and I knew that if we could get an early start I'd be able to make a second run at dim sum in Chinatown. My husband wasn't thrilled at the idea of an early start, though, so we just got sandwiches from a place around the corner to eat at the airport. Airport way too warm, but not too bad if you sat really still and thought about England.

Summary

So, all in all a pleasant week. I can be a bit obsessive about planning vacations (and everything else, but that's a story for another day), particularly meals. My husband finds it a bit overwhelming, though, and so this time I didn't do much ahead of time apart from arranging dinners with friends (who picked the restaurants). As the week wore on, though, it became increasingly clear that being obsessive about planning meals is not necessarily a bad thing, and my husband was glad that I was willing to make last minute queries about possible restaurants, and glad that eG participants were so happy to help out.

[rich]

Sounds like a great trip. The restaurants seemed fun and interesting. It's too bad you didn't have time to visit the outer boroughs once. I still think that's where the best NYC ethnic restos are located - especially Italian and Thai.

[Sneakeater]

The cocktail I did order was called something like "Long Island Iced Tea on the Beach," which turns out to mean "Hawaiian Punch with Distilled Spirits."

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Well, this answers one question I've always had:

Who's old enough to get into a place like Iridium that would order a drink like that?

[therese]

The cocktail I did order was called something like "Long Island Iced Tea on the Beach," which turns out to mean "Hawaiian Punch with Distilled Spirits."

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Well, this answers one question I've always had:

Who's old enough to get into a place like Iridium that would order a drink like that?

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I'm young at heart. And a bit perverse: there was something about the ambience that pretty much demanded that I order something low brow, and not even I could bring myself to order a green apple martini (even if it would go great with the color of my eyes).

[therese]

Sounds like a great trip. The restaurants seemed fun and interesting. It's too bad you didn't have time to visit the outer boroughs once. I still think that's where the best NYC ethnic restos are located - especially Italian and Thai.

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Outer boroughs the plan for my next visit. Just too much stuff to fit into one week, frankly.

[Sneakeater]

not even I could bring myself to order a green apple martini

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Well I'm glad to see that even you have limits.