Family time was feasting time. Our first night in the city we had a beautiful dinner at a little place near Drew and Suzanne’s apartment called the Paris Commune. Wonderful ambiance and a fantastic deal! They had a $25 prix fixe 3 course menu option. My favorite course was the stuffed walnut crusted brie with caramelized onions. MMMMMMMM!
Subsequent gastronomic blowouts lead us to a pub lunch at The Spotted Pig. I had a lovely prosciutto & ricotta tart, but G’s burger with its heaping mound of shoestring fries was superb. We slurped spicy Thai noodle soups at The Nooch in Chelsea. And we capped off this trip’s eating tour with BBQ at Hill Country and some of the best damned mac and cheese you could want.
In between face stuffing sessions, we covered the town catching-up with friends. First off, we stopped in to see old co-workers of G’s in midtown. (We never lived in the city but he worked closely with the NY office at his old company). He was paraded proudly around the office by one of his old bosses. I was a very proud little wife.
There were many, many drinks had throughout the city. There were beers with Mike and Dan in a great dive bar with a great back patio in Brooklyn. We tried to get pizza afterward, but we were a little too late, having come up with the idea 15 minutes after the closing of nearest pizza joint. I still have an unmet hankering for NY Pizza.
On Sat, I ended up roaming around the city for a bit. I woke up with a bad sore throat and was sequestered from the baby. It ended up being allergies, but better safe than sorry. I didn’t want to be responsible for getting a 3 week-old baby sick. I love walking around the city though, and it gave me the chance to meet up with Lu. She gave me a tour of her apartment and her neighborhood and we got coffee drinks at Cafe Lalo. Apparently, this was the coffee shop featured in a scene from You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan waits to meet the man she's been falling in love with via email, who is actually Tom Hanks, unbeknownst to her. Ok movie, enchanting coffee shop. This was a bitter sweet afternoon in a way, because while we had a lovely time, it also made me wish we lived closer together.
We caught up with lots of old friends from all stages of our lives over many glasses of wine at The Otherroom. Pierre and Dan represented G’s high school years, Lu represented mine. Mike D spanned the high school and college years, along with his girlfriend Celeste, who I also knew in college. For me this one of the best parts of visiting NYC -- we get the chance to see so many people we love and don’t get to see enough of. Very often we also get to reconnect with friends we haven’t seen in years. G’s college roommate Glenn also came out with his lovely girlfriend Annie. We hadn’t seen him since college, although we’d get news of him through the grapevine. They had a chance to catch up and it seemed like not a day had gone by. We ended up bar hopping with these kids across the city late into the night– from the West Village to the Upper West Side. I felt like we had some great new, old friends.
Like that unscratched itch for NY pizza, I’m also left with a general hankering to explore the city as a whole. I haven’t had a chance to just roam NYC aimlessly in years. My mom and I stopped off in the city before heading out on pre-college exploration tour, and we walked up and down the city for days traversing hundreds of blocks. I loved it. As much as I love LA, there is nowhere like New York to just get lost and explore. There is a good chance we’ll be back early next year, and I have my fingers crossed in hopes that’s I’ll get the chance to do just that.
No comments:
Post a Comment