| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Everybody
knows
that Yankee stadium is in the Bronx, and that the
Bronx is in New York City. We went to a game there
which was part of our visit to New
York City, but it was such a unique experience, that
I described it separately. Now I can describe
everything else we did in new York City. |
|
| |
We stayed at the Elysee
Hotel located on east 54th Street between Madison
and Park. It was exceptional and we loved every
minute of our stay there. The staff was excellent,
the rooms are the largest I have seen in NYC, and
the ambiance was very “old world charm”. The
breakfast was very good, and every day there was a
“wine and cheese” hour which lasted 3 hours (5-8) and
included lots more than wine and cheese. I am sure
that some of the guests had wine and cheese instead
of dinner. |
SCULPTURE
ON PARK
AVENUE
|
|
SCULPTURE
ON PARK
AVENUE
|
The
location was excellent with 3 subway stations within
walking distance. Lots of restaurants and shopping
nearby and attached to the hotel is “the Monkey
Bar”, a well known New York City bar and
restaurant. This hotel isn’t cheap, but it was worth
every penny. In September in NYC, even the cheap
hotels are expensive. So you can spend $250 for a
bland chain hotel, or $400+ for a first class place
like the Elysee. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
We went to 2
Broadway shows –
Pippin, a new remake of an old show, and Chicago, a
veteran show still pulling in audiences. We enjoyed
both immensely, particularly Pippin with its
chorography full of circus stunts. We tried to get
tickets to Kinky Boots, but there were no decent
seats available for our dates. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
We went to one concert
at Lincoln Center with Yefim Bronfman playing
Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto. We visited
Time-Warner Center at Columbus circle and of course
walked and walked and walked all about the city. At
Time-Warner, we visited the Mandarin Oriental Bar on
the 35th floor of the mandarin Hotel and had a light
lunch there. The view is amazing, the food is what
you would expect at a place on the 35th floor with
a wonderful view of Central Park. |
MANDARIN
ORIENTAL BAR
|
|
|
|
THE NEW WTC
TOWER |
| |
|
|
|
WTC
MEMORIAL
|
|
|
|
|
|
WTC
MEMORIAL
|
|
|
| |
|
|
We visited the
World
Trade Center Memorial and strolled the length of the
beautiful Battery Park. The WTC Memorial is very
impressive. The last time we were here, there
was just a giant hole in the ground. Today, the new
tower has been built, the memorial museum building
will open in a few months, and the 2 central pieces
of the memorial are just incredible. To the right
and left are pictures of the memorial pools and a
picture of the new WTC tower which is nearing
completion. If you want to visit and want to save a
few minutes of waiting time, go to this
site and order passes on line. The passes are
free, but there is a $2 service charge. |
| |
|
NEW JERSEY
SKYLINE FROM
BATTERY PARK
|
We also managed to schedule
a visit to the Statue of Liberty on October 1, which
was the first day of the American Government
shutdown. Of course, it was closed. So, instead we
took one of the boat rides around New York Bay. It
was very enjoyable, and we took some beautiful
pictures. I was particularly impressed by the new
skyline of New Jersey. I was born and raised in the
Garden State and the development of the entire
Hudson River waterfront is absolutely amazing to me. |
2 FINE
LADIES
|
| |
|
|
|
CHELSEA
MARKET
|
We walked the length of
Hi-line Park on the lower west side and ended with a
visit to Chelsea Market, an entire building
transformed into a wonderful little marketplace
mainly filled with food shops and restaurants. We
had lunch there at “Rana”, an Italian restaurant
with wonderful fresh pasta. We also managed to
visit one of our nephews who has relocated with his
family to NYC for a couple of years to work on an
impressive project in Chelsea. |
THE MOST
FAMOUS
BRIDGE IN
THE WORLD
|
| |
|
|
|
HI-LINE
PARK
SCULPTURE
|
I had my mandatory
Reuben sandwich, a hot dog from a street vendor, and
Alisa bought the minimum 2 pairs of shoes. Alisa was pleasantly
surprised by the abundance of “gourmet delis” which
now exist in every corner of the city. What’s a
“gourmet deli”? It’s any deli which has turned
itself into a giant salad bar, where you put
together your own salad (hot and cold foods of all
kinds) and pay by the weight. This is Alisa’s vision
of culinary heaven – lots of salad for lunch so that
we have plenty of room for a gourmet dinner in the
evening. |
FLOWERS
ON COLUMBUS
CIRCLE
|
| |
|
|
| |
And, we did
eat in some
great restaurants. Most were within walking distance
of our hotel. Here’s a summary. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Montebello was the first restaurant we
dined at. We wanted a nice lunch, but didn’t have a
whole lot of time. Montebello is a very nice Italian
restaurant near our hotel and with a bit of old
world charm. We had several dishes and found the
fresh pasta to be excellent. Alisa had delicious
orecchiette (Pugliese style pasta “ears”) with
mussels. It was just right. The service was friendly
and efficient. Our waiter was an Argentinian of
Italian descent, so he spoke both Spanish and
Italian (as does my wife), and we had a very
enjoyable lunch. They had good wine by the glass and
we had a couple of glasses, plus a grappa and a
crème brulé for dessert. I would call the prices
mid-range for New York City. To the right is a
picture of us at our table under a huge painting
with part of the impressive wine selection. |
MONTEBELLO
RESTAURANT
|
| |
|
|
|
BARBETTA
RESTAURANT
|
Barbetta is a classic
Italian restaurant located on “restaurant row” on
46TH Street. It caters to the theatre crowd and has
a special theatre hour menu (2 courses, salad,
dessert and coffee for $58), however they also know
how to serve you if you are not in a hurry. Our
dinner started at 5:30, and the show we were going
to didn’t start until 8, so we told them that we
were in no hurry, and we had a pleasant leisurely
meal which ended at around 730. |
|
| |
We both
ordered from the theatre menu as the dishes offered
suited us. The best dish was Alisa’s Chilean sea
bass with asparagus and a little bit of pasta. The
whole dish was excellent (picture to the right). It's
exactly the kind of dish Alisa loves - simple,
delicious and very Italian. I had a classic Piemontese dish – beef cooked in Barolo wine.
Everything was very good. We also had some very nice
wines (by the glass), including a Terre del Barolo
2008, which was young but tasty. We were even able
to take advantage of a 20% discount on the evening
menu which I found on the web site. |
CHILEAN SEA
BASS AT
BARBETTA
|
| |
|
|
| |
The Atlantic
Grill at which we ate is one of three
restaurants of the same name located in different
parts of the city. We ate with a friend who is a long time NYC
resident who lives right near the west side branch. We
ate at the eastside branch because the menu looked
better to me. It is located on 3rd Avenue near 77th
street.
Our friend from the eastside was quite
surprised by the menu, mainly because of the $35 3
course dinner menu which is served between 5 and 7.
We got there at 6 but not because of this menu. In
any case, the choices were right for all of us, and
the food was quite good. We all had the bisque and
either grilled salmon or swordfish, as well as
desserts which I don’t remember. The food was fine,
the price was right, and the only downside was that
the place is big and noisy |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
Marea is a beautiful Italian restaurant
located on Central Park South not far from Columbus
Circle. It is about the most upscale Italian
restaurant (outside of Italy) that I have eaten in
since Mama Leone’s many years ago. The restaurant is
beautiful, the food was perfect and the overall
ambiance was excellent. We ate dinner there on a
Saturday evening, and it was half full when we got
there, but quite full by the end of our meal, but
the service was perfect throughout. |
|
|
GRILLED
OCTOPUS
AT MEREA
|
They had a
wonderful menu and a great wine selection. We
had chef’s surprise appetizers (salmon tartare),
“zuppa” with Sicilian couscous and shellfish,
grilled octopus,
which was the most succulent and tasty octopus I have ever
had. The picture to the left doesn't do it justice
but it was really delicious. We also had a seafood dish with lump crabmeat, sea urchin
and basil, and swordfish with pumpkin puree, beans,
greens, and almonds. The
swordfish dish was incredible and a picture of it is
to the right. It looks simple, but it really wasn't. |
SWORDFISH
AT MEREA
|
| |
We also had a
couple of glasses of nice wine (a Sancerre and an
Avellino), and washed it all down with Vin Santo and
Moscato d’Asti. The chef also sent out a dessert
surprise (2 tiny profiterols), and we had a portion
of cheese as well. Everything was perfect. The price
was $205 + tip. |
|
| |
|
|
|
CHEF'S SNACK
AT LE
BERNARDIN
|
La Bernadin is
on every critic's list of the 10 best restaurants in
New York City, usually in first or second place. It
is listed as a French - seafood restaurant. The motif is strictly fish and seafood
but it also has 3
non fish or seafood dishes and a single meat dish on the menu,
and they are listed as "on request". It has 3
Michelin stars, and as far as we are concerned,
everything about our meal was absolutely perfect.
The menu is split into 3 categories - first course,
"almost raw"; second course, "barely touched"; and
the main course, "lightly cooked". The
evening prix-fix menu is 4 courses for $130. The
service was excellent without being overbearing. |
LOBSTER
AT LE
BERNARDIN
|
|
YELLOWFIN
TUNA AT LE
BERNARDIN
|
All the dishes
we had were very original and just perfect. To the
left on top is the the chef's opening snack.
The spoonful in the center of the dish is marinated salmon. I don't
remember what was on the edges of the dish but
everything was delicious. The dish directly to the
left is my appetizer - "layers of thinly pounded yellow-fin tuna, foie gras and toasted baguette,
chives and olive oil". The foie gras and baguette
are hiding beneath the yellow-fin tuna. The tastes
combined perfectly and the dish was heavenly. To the
right above is my main course - pan roasted lobster,
charred baby leeks, sea bean and mango salad,
lobster - lemongrass broth. The red rings you see on
the plate are thick slices of the lobster tail, each
residing in its own slice of shell. There were other
dishes of course, and they were all perfect. On the right is a picture of Alisa with our very
efficient sommelier, Gili. They are holding a
bottle of grappa. |
AT LE
BERNARDIN
|
| |
|
|
|
ALISA, RACHEL
& WILLIAM AT
PAUMONOK
WINERY
|
When we left
New York City, we headed to my cousin's house in
Hauppauge, Long Island. We spent a night there, had
dinner with the family, and another cousin who
dropped in, and the next day we drove to the eastern
end of Long Island to visit a couple of the wineries
there. The north fork of Long Island has developed a
vigorous wine industry with about 40 wineries in the
area. We visited 2 -
Paumonok, and
Bedell. We found
the wine "good, but far from great" and definitely
not worth the high prices they were asking. We paid
for our tastings, enjoyed the beautiful views, and
moved along.
Here is the
official web site of the Long Island Wine Council. |
AT BEDELL
WINERY
|
| |
|
|
|
HALLOWEEN
PUMPKINS
|
The eastern
end of Long Island is quite rural and there were
many farm stands. Guess what we found? We found corn
and it was as good as the New Jersey corn! (Picture
to the right.) After a
light lunch, we headed to the farthest point on the
north fork, "Orient Point" where we boarded the
ferry to New London, Connecticut, on the way to the
wedding in Rhode Island. |
LONG ISLAND
CORN
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
