In the interest of time and the prevention of ADHD symptom manifestation in some, I’ll forgo writing about all of the places we visited but here are some notable tidbits and links…
Saturday’s dinner was at Churrascaria Plataforma: http://www.churrascariaplataforma.com/index.html Think Brasa Grille (all you can eat meat brought to your table on a giant skewer) but with more options for the first course and a slightly better quality of meat. I was upset that they didn’t have any Parmesan fillet, though. Also, they made an amazing Sidecar, which my server asked me to repeat the name of when I ordered because he thought he heard me wrong (“how does a young girl like you know about a Sidecar?”) Charming :)
Afternoon snack was had at the Shake Shack (or steak shack for the confused): http://www.shakeshack.com I got the rocky road concrete. Jen got the Museum of Natural History concrete and Colin got the creamsicle vitamin shake. It was yums and sighs all around…
Lunch was at Momofuku Ssam Bar: http://www.momofuku.com/ssam/default.asp We split 3 orders of the steamed pork buns and an order of the szechuan beef tendon. I think I was the only one who went nuts for the pork buns but my compadres kindly humored me. :)
Saturday p.m. found us at The Met, nowadays referred to as MMA apparently, where we spent most of the afternoon. My favorites this time around were an Aphrodite statue in the Greek art gallery – see Flickr, a Bodhisattva I forgot the name of, and the armor collection (snicker). Also on view was a Francis Bacon retrospective: http://gothamist.com/2009/05/24/francis_bacon.php and the Art of the Korean Rennaissance (http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId=%7B5CCD5232-A073-4DBE-A06D-36D32D933A74%7D) a little side-piece, mostly consisting of silk wall hangings (but which I always love).
Friday (yes we’re going back in time – for some reason my mind’s working that way, today) was spent wandering around central park and the Guggenheim, which was featuring a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright drawings. As you know, I love FLW buildings but the drawings were a bit less inspiring. Regardless, it was especially interesting to see his plans for 1950’s downtown Baghdad (apparently we were trying to have a hand in even then…) View it here: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view-now/frank-lloyd-wright. Time out to say two things: I had never been to the Guggenheim before and while the structure itself about wowed the pants off me in coolness, it also made me a tad squeamish. The floors were slippy-slidey thanks to my no-tread but trendy gladiator sandals to the extent that I’m amazed that whatever the NY equivalent of OSHA is doesn’t come in there and put up some guard rails for us clumsy patrons. :) Second notable: their museum cafe serves Illy espresso (a big deal to Ohioans who are stuck with the choice between Starbucks and Seattle’s best – which apparently aren’t one and the same as their names suggest… coincidence?) so they made me a nice macchiato. I was happy. FLW under my feet and on the walls and Illy in my stomach. For what more can I ask?
Friday night’s play was “Blythe Spirit,” which you can read up on here: http://broadwayworld.com/article/Noel_Cowards_BLITHE_SPIRIT_Goes_On_Sale_122008_20081218 It was absolutely adorable and had some clever special effects. The New Yorker also did a nice write up on it in March.
We spotted the place where we ended up having dinner on Friday from a cab on the way over to Colin’s hotel. Good thing we did because it was a great little place: http://www.nirvanany.com/. Nirvana was Indian food, to be sure, but also a tad more gourmet in it’s presentation and overall restaurant decor. We sat under their bodhi tree wall hanging and wouldn’t you know, I did feel a tad more enlightened! That or it was the chicken tikka masala and lemon rice with bhindi raita… hmm. We may never know…
Gobbling Market 