Robert's Updates: New York City 2010

Sorry for the extreme lack of updates, I have been pretty busy the last month. During that month Laura and I took a long weekend trip to New York City. You might remember (and I wont hold it against you if you don't) that we went last October to NYC and had a blast. This time, Laura wanted to see the big city all lit up with Christmas (her favorite holiday) decorations.

We got to our hotel (Crown Plaza Time Square) on Thursday night and we on the fence as to whether or not we should go out and see stuff. It was around 10 by the time we got to the room. And, as you might not have expected, we went and walked around time square. It was very cold, but there were still thousands of people loitering around. We didn't stay out too long because we were tired and wanted to get some rest for our journey on Friday.

Friday we strolled around 5th avenue looking at the different window decorations each of the department stores had. For the most part they were pretty interesting, but they did not live up to my expectations. Keep in mind I live in a little fantasy world where things are always incredible, experiences are unforgettable, food is indescribable, and logic and reason are nonexistent. But the walk was nice. For lunch we went to La Bonne Soupe, a little french place in between 5th and 6th avenues. There was a 15 minute wait, but when we got to our seats and received our food, it was all worth it. The soup and atmosphere at this place were really great, and the smoked salmon crepe was top notch. I would go there again, and next time load up on wine (just for fun). After lunch we made it over to Radio City Music Hall for a holiday performance by the Rockettes. We saw these ladies last year in Atlanta and had a great time. But they didn't make it to Georgia this year, so we decided to meet them on their home turf. The show was a lot of fun (and a great opportunity to rest me legs). I think the show was Laura's favorite part of the trip....since Christmas is her favorite holiday. For dinner, we walked over to Hells Kitchen (not a TV show as I found out, but an area in NYC) and ate at 5 Napkin Burger. Laura found this place a few months ago and suggested we go there. I'm glad we did! We split a huge burger that was so tasty and juice, and three lobster roll sliders that were also delicious. In addition to the burger and lobster roll, I got a side of tater tots which to my surprise were actually little fried balls of mashed potatoes! They tasted so f**king good!! No joke, I ate an entire bowl of fired mashed potatoes, and would do it again in a heartbeat if I could.

Saturday morning we woke up a little sore and tired from all the walking, so what did we decide to do that day? Yep, we chose to walk south about 40 blocks down Broadway. We did this walk last year and found it enjoyable, so we knew what we were getting into. Along the way we stopped to get coffee, and breakfast, and also look in some shops. For lunch we went to Otto which is owned by Mario Bittali (the croc wearing iron chef). Again it was nice to sit and rest my legs while eating delicious food. After lunch we walked down by the arch at NYU and noticed something odd. There were thousands of Santas walking around! It was crazy, everywhere we looked there were people (20 somethings) walking around in Santa/Elf/Snowman attire, and they were all pretty drunk. Evidently there was a massively organized Santa pub crawl throughout the city, and we were in the middle of it. It was a lot of fun seeing all these drunk Santas pounding beers and yelling curse words at other Santas who were also pounding beers and yelling curse words at other Santas who......well you get the picture.

One of the things I wanted to see on this trip was the Brooklyn Bridge. So around 3 that day we took a cab (good idea) to the entry point of the bridge. Now I just wanted to take a few pictures of it then get on, but once we got there we convinced ourselves to walk across it. About halfway over the bridge Laura decided that, hey, maybe this idea wasn't the greatest. But I thought, we made it this far, FINISH THE DRILL!!! So we finished the walk and ended up in, you guessed in Brooklyn! My idea of Brooklyn (in my fantasy land mind you) was a bunch of kids skipping rope talking to large yellow birds while cheering up a goblin in a trash can, and counting with a creepy midget vampire. But, you know, I didn't see any of that shit. It was just a bunch of cars, and not many people walking around. immediately I thought, "ok, now how the hell do we get back?" We didn't really want to walk the additional mile and change back across the bridge so we tried to find a cab. All the cabs we found told us to rot in hell (at least that's what I heard) because they weren't going back over the bridge. It was getting dark now, and we had no way back to Manhattan, so we took a couple pictures of the city from across the harbor, tucked our tail between our legs and walked the lonely path of loneliness back over the Brooklyn Bridge.

For dinner that night we met up with Laura's friends from HBS at a mexican restaurant near Union Square. At first I thought mexican food in NYC would suck, but it was actually very good. We had a great time talking and catching up since our last visit in 2009. After dinner we walked over to a place called Milk Bar which was supposed to have some really fantastic cookies. This place was pretty crowded, that was a good sign. We ordered two chocolate chocolate cookies and one peanut butter cookie. Now in my mind (fantasy land) the perfect cookie is something warm, dough-like, and can tell hilarious stories about life on a baking dish. We did not receive that cookie. What we did get was a chewy cookie, not warm, but insanely rich and delicious. This might have changed my idea of what my favorite cookie is. Bottom line - solid cookie.

On Sunday we went to breakfast at the Eatery which came recommended by Christiane's new york residing sisters. This place was very good because I ordered the best damn thing on the menu. I ordered banana and chocolate stuffed french toast, and it was the balls (Anchorman ref). Laura ordered a smoked salmon omelet that was meh, but the stuffed french toast was super.

After breakfast we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or as the fancy people call it, The Met. We spent a couple hours walking through the Egyptian, American, Renaissance, and Impressionist exhibits. We got the headsets that told us about much of the displays which was a great investment ($7). I really enjoyed learning about all of the different artistic and historical shit and would go back again because we didn't see half of what was on display.

For lunch we went to the basement of the Plaza Hotel to some fancy cafeteria owned by Todd English (some dude on Food Network). The was a wide variety of things to ordered from sushi, to meat plates, to pasta. We ordered a trio of lamb gyro sliders, and some delicious mini ravioli of which I don't remember what was in it. Both were great! Laura like the gyros, and I like the ravioli the best.

With that our trip to New York City was complete. Scratch that, we got a lovely tour of the airport as our flight was delayed a couple hours along with the rest of the masses trying to escape the city. But even with the flight delay, we had an amazing trip! I recommend everything we did except for rewalking the Brooklyn Bridge and eating the airport food. Here are some pictures from the weekend. Please check out the album for a few more images.