Manhattan-Lite

Well hello there. It's been a while since I've touched the old blog. With Instagram and Facebook and the other forms of social media, it became a lot easier to post short-form running commentaries of life. But as I get older and chat with people about our travels, it's getting harder and harder for me to remember the great things we've seen, done, eaten, drank...so I thought I'd look up my old Blogspot account thinking there was no way it still existed. But I forget: Google remembers all. Google never forgets. So I set my fingers to the keyboard again and here we are. Let me tell you about our last adventure...

New York City! The Big Apple! The City That Never Sleeps! Where hordes of people from all over the world flock...these same hordes that we would generally try to mostly avoid during this trip. We had come town to take in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. One of my bucket list items was to see David Tennant perform Shakespeare live. With RSC bringing the King & Country series to NYC, I finally got the opportunity. Since we were not first-timers, we decided to focus on more off the beaten path sights in Brooklyn with occasional forays into Manhattan to see places we had not seen before or to eat at restaurants on our rather long (and getting longer) lists. 

Day 1

We arrived at the crack of dawn on the Jet Blue red-eye from PDX to JFK. After a bit of confusion between the Air Train Metrocard and the regular Metrocard, we set off from the Howard Beach station on our way to Brooklyn. Since we normally fly into LGA and carry on with public transport from there, I never knew Air Train and the normal subway fares were different. Lesson learned now, especially since the machines wouldn’t let us refill two of the three Air Train cards on the return trip back to JFK. Oh well. 

Once we got to Park Slope, we were starving so the first order of business was to pop into Bagel Hole for bagels, schmears, and coffee. Since the promised incoming rain hadn’t started yet, we took our food to Prospect Park and enjoyed our first taste of the city. 

Rain (and cold) was in the forecast for two out of the four days we’d be in town, so I’d been adjusting our loose itinerary in my head. It was still dry by the time we dropped our bags off at our VRBO that we decided to carry on back to Manhattan and pop on over to Staten Island and take in the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Manhattan/East River views.

      

Once back in Manhattan, N wanted to see the Wall Street Bull so we walked towards Wall Street and were stunned that there were no hordes of tourists there. Quite a change from the last time Chad and I were there in high summer. 

We got some good photos and decided to head uptown to Rockefeller Center since N really wanted to go to the Nintendo store. We got out of the subway at Times Square and were again surprised by the relative lack of people (by Times Square standards). I imagine the rain forecast drove many people indoors to museums but it still hadn't started to rain by that point. Well maybe a little spit but we're Oregonians!

     

After some time browsing at the Nintendo store playing games, looking at the cool displays of old consoles and game designs, and picking up some souvenirs, it was around lunch so we decided to head up to Harlem and finally eat at Red Rooster. Many of you know that I've turned mostly pescatarian starting this year. I'm pretty much saving land animals for special meals and this was a special meal. Two words. Yard Bird. And it was to-die-for! 

Chad’s Swedish Meatballs and N’s Mac & Greens were tasty but this chicken. This chicken is the stuff of dreams. The skies finally opened during our long, leisurely lunch so we debated hitting a few museums for the rest of the afternoon. It was at this point that N nearly fell face first into his lunch leftovers that we ran up the white flag and decided to head back to our apartment for a nap. Once everyone had woken up, it was late enough that the attractions near us were starting to close so we finished unpacking and Chad & N ran over to the corner bodega to get drinks (including the elusive Bell's Two Hearted IPA) and snacks. 

Since N requested pizza for dinner, I had made a late reservation at Franny’s near Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn and ended the evening with great pizza (one spicy 'nduja and one spicy clam) and wine.

Day 2

We (well N and I did since Chad went out for an 8-mile pace run towards Bay Ridge) slept in a bit as we were still getting used to the time change and didn’t really get going until after 9 AM. We caught a train to Metropolitan Ave in Williamsburg to have a late breakfast/early lunch at Saltie. After consuming some monster sandwiches, we walked around Williamsburg a bit, chuckling at how very like Portland it was. Chad likes to say that Portland copies Williamsburg and Williamsburg copies Portland creating this vicious hipster cycle. And really, there are some parts of Williamsburg that look like the Pearl and Hawthorne hooked up and had a love child.

   

After a bit of wandering, we got back on the subway and headed over to the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. In all my trips to NYC, I had never actually walked the Brooklyn Bridge so it was time to rectify that. After a quick stop at a corner Starbucks to use the restroom, we joined the promenade, dodging selfie sticks and meandering walkers along the way. 

      

One random observation on our walk regarding the “Locks of Love”; we noticed that some couples used combination locks instead of lock & key. Philosophically speaking, what does that say about your relationship…but I digress. 

Once back in Brooklyn, we wandered over to DUMBO and popped in and out of the many interesting shops and got some good shots of the bridges and the Manhattan skyline. 

I got a kick out of the OY/YO statue. From one side, it was saying “Oy Manhattan”, from the other, “Yo Brooklyn”. 

  

After a stop in Jacques Torres Chocolatier for some souvenirs and gifts, we made our way to the Brooklyn Museum to see the Ancient Egypt exhibit and the Period Rooms. The museum was the perfect size for an enjoyable few hours and the Egyptian artifacts are first-rate, rivaling the Met and the British Museum in quality. I also loved the Period Rooms, mainly because I like seeing museum pieces in context. After finishing up at the museum, we stopped by BKLYN Larder to get more snacks before heading back to our rooms to get ready for the first of our two shows at BAM, Richard II. The play was in BAM’s Harvey Theater which itself was a fascinating building with fewer than 800 seats. There was not a bad seat in the house. For this performance, we were in the center upper orchestra. 

We really enjoyed the play and the cast was amazing. By some stroke of luck, the exit we chose dumped us right at the stage door so we decided to hang out (like the fan nerds we are) to see if we can get David Tennant to sign our Playbills, which he did as he left the theater. He was very gracious and cool about it and I’m still squeeing inside. 

At this point, it was after 11 so instead of searching out Bar Chuko, we headed back to the apartment and enjoyed the munchies we got from BKLYN Larder.

Day 3

The main things on our agenda today were a matinee performance of Henry IV, Part 1 and reservations at Dirt Candy in the evening. Our stomachs were protesting the lack of a proper meal the evening before so our first order of business was to find a place for brunch, which we found at Dizzy’s Diner. After we were fed and caffeinated, we walked up to Prospect Park to the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket to check out the spring flowers and produce. 

 

We then walked to Brooklyn FLEA at Fort Greene. As it was still early in the season, there were not very many vendors there but it was still fun to browse. We made one last stop at Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co and I have to say, that is one cool shop and for a great cause. Canned superpowers! Capes! Secret identities! We bought some t-shirts and a secret identity kit for Denise before heading back to our room to get ready for the next show. 

We had seats in the gallery for Henry IV Part 1, mainly because Richard II was the main draw but as mentioned before, there is not a bad seat in the house from a view standpoint. The gallery seats were…interesting. They were like cushioned bar stools with a foot rest and there was not a lot of space. Thank goodness we are all vertically challenged. I can’t imagine a tall person being very comfortable up there and as I banged my knees a few times getting up from my seat. As much as Richard II was our draw, I actually enjoyed Henry IV more. More humor, more action, and less taxing on my brain since it was more classically Shakespeare and not in verse like Richard II was. All in all an enjoyable show and a few interesting things happened in the theater. Harvey Lichtenstein, of BAM Harvey Theater fame, was in the audience and at the end of the show, the cast announced it was his birthday. So we all, audience and cast, sang a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday”. Secondly, and this goes under the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” category, I (or rather my raincoat) got puked on midway through the second act. I had heard a spill behind me and thought someone just spilled their drink. Chad nudged me and told me to grab my coat and put it in front by my feet. A poor woman behind me succumbed to vertigo high up in the gallery and had gotten sick. It could have been a lot worse. The initial escape just hit the outside of my coat and she managed to contain the rest who knows where. I got most of it out after the show, with the help of a number of ladies and ushers in the washroom and half the gallery recognized me as the woman who got puked on so I'm (in)famous or something. Good thing it was a Portland raincoat as the mess just washed right off. 

After the show, we had a couple of hours to kill before our Dirt Candy reservations but didn’t want to go back to our room so we Googled a kid-friendly pub and ended up at Die Stammkneipe with what seemed to be every family with kids in Fort Greene. Fun stuff! After some beers and a giant pretzel with obadza cheese, we headed to the lower East side and Dirt Candy. Dirt Candy was our destination restaurant for this trip and we had booked our table a few months ago. I had seen the brussels sprout tacos on David Lebovitz's Instagram a while back and I had to have them. I asked Chad to make the reservations. There were raised eyebrows (from Chad), hand wringing, and teeth gnashing (the latter two mostly from N) but by the end of the evening, both boys were on board. We started with a Greek white wine (or soda in N's case) and the cutest pot of monkey bread with garlic butter. 

Sadly, I got no photos of the Korean fried broccoli (crack), jalapeño hush puppies w/ maple butter, curry poutine, or Jerusalem artichoke pickles as they ended up in our bellies instantly. The rutabaga cake was meh, a bit overpowered by the smoked cream cheese but really pretty to look at and the brussels sprout tacos were all that and more!

   

And the dessert....some of the most inventive vegetable based desserts I've ever seen. If you look at the menu, they sound completely weird and off the wall, especially Chad's vegetable ice cream salad, but they were definitely dessert and definitely delicious.

   

Day 4

Our last full day in the city and we intended to eat and walk our way through it. First stop was to meet Jason at Russ & Daughters Café for brunch. Madness! During the 1 ½ hour wait, Chad and N walked over to Katz’s Deli to buy some pastrami sandwiches for the plane. 

   

The wait was worth it. We all had fish boards (salmon and sturgeon), shared the potato latkes, and saw Rick Bayless and Fred Savage among the other diners.

We bid Jason goodbye and made it to the north end of the High Line, another attraction that we had never done. We walked to the south entrance and had talked about going to Big Gay Ice Cream after the High Line but we were still so full from brunch so we popped into Chelsea Market to pick up plane food for me. 

 

The lobster shack was tempting but I opted for vegan sushi since it would keep a lot better. Our final stop for the day was back in Williamsburg. Chad had always wanted to visit the Brooklyn Brewery so we got there in time to take the tour, relax, and enjoy some lovely beers (sodas for N). It was the perfect capper to the weekend.