New York Monday
New York on a Monday started out with me meeting my cousin Miel who was staying in New Jersey with her relations to wander the city and hit Central Park.
While searching for Mario Battali's Otto we ended up in West village and found this charming park:
Mario Battali is this famous American-Italian chef, who has several shows on TV. We went to Otto, his pizza parlor which is quite affordable. We got the special pizza, rigatoni con sausage e escarole, and this fantastic anchovy appetizer that Miel found a bit too sour. I loved it tho, it was soaked in just the right amount of vinegar, mixed in with scallions and crutons to absorb much of the flavor. The food blog that we may start some day will have more details.
In the meantime, here is a photo of me devouring the pizza, which according to my notes was sweet and flavorful. Never mind that I forgot to write down what kind of pizza it was. All I remember was that it was the highlight of the meal.
Here is Miel outside Otto. I wanted to go back another day and try the pizza lardo, but we ran out of time. Oh well, next time!
Next, we went to Central Park but not before popping by the friendly neighborhood Starbucks that was right at the end of the park. We met up with my friend Andrea, who is from Melbourne and was also visiting the states at the same time. We all headed out to Central Park and we went to the zoo.
This is a Lemur from Madagascar. It looks cute but is probably vicious.
We also saw polar bears who looked very hot and stifled and sweaty (they must love winter) and a whole lot of cute penguins that did all this jumping and gliding around.
Afterwards we wandered through the park in an attempt to find the statue of Alice in Wonderland. We managed not to get lost so much. (Andrea had gotten lost previously and was worried it would happen again) So we stopped and asked for directions repeatedly, just in case.
We finally found the statue and I must say we may have gotten a little obsessed with taking pictures on the thing. (We have at last count 14 pictures with this statue.) When we got there, there were all these kids climbing all over it, so we had to wait for them to go. Then we had to wait for this lady to stop taking pics of her kid, until finally I started climbing on the statue and she got the hint and said, Just a couple of more pictures, girls and we said, oh no you're all right. There were also these teeny boppers with amazing agility - you may see one of them posing in the background to the left, sitting on top of the "tree".
Here is one of our Alice pictures.
We continued our wander thru Central Park, where in typical fashion we tried to figure out which movies were shot where. At this particular moment where I am fairly sure they shot a bit of definitely maybe further down the row of benches, we took a few pictures. Here is Miel reenacting a musical. (Possibly Enchanted. McDreamy, where are you?)
After wandering around for quite a bit we found Strawberry Fields and the John Lennon Mosaic. I thought there would be a bit more to it then that (I thought there might be a memorial wall as well to commemorate his death anniversary or something) but apparently not.
Here's me getting really dirty lying on the ground next to the John Lennon Mosaic.
After Central Park, Andrea left to go home and have a rest at her hostel. Miel & I went around a bit, hit H&M and then ended up in Borders where I grabbed my first round of books. (Y'all knew that was going to happen.) Then I went home.
Andrea came down to the lower east side where I was staying and we had dinner nearby at Schiller's which is a fantastic liquor bar/restaurant that has the best macaroni & cheese ever. (I once saw M.I.A. at this restaurant and Lia had to point her out to me) We had a great dinner.
This is a picture of our dessert, sticky date pudding, which was fantastic
After dinner we wandered around alphabet city checking out the bars that Andrea's friend recommended but they turned out to be dives so we headed back to near my house and ended up in a tapas bar having cocktails (that weren't too great but oh well its the company that matters). It ended up being a great night.
While searching for Mario Battali's Otto we ended up in West village and found this charming park:
Mario Battali is this famous American-Italian chef, who has several shows on TV. We went to Otto, his pizza parlor which is quite affordable. We got the special pizza, rigatoni con sausage e escarole, and this fantastic anchovy appetizer that Miel found a bit too sour. I loved it tho, it was soaked in just the right amount of vinegar, mixed in with scallions and crutons to absorb much of the flavor. The food blog that we may start some day will have more details.
In the meantime, here is a photo of me devouring the pizza, which according to my notes was sweet and flavorful. Never mind that I forgot to write down what kind of pizza it was. All I remember was that it was the highlight of the meal.
Here is Miel outside Otto. I wanted to go back another day and try the pizza lardo, but we ran out of time. Oh well, next time!
Next, we went to Central Park but not before popping by the friendly neighborhood Starbucks that was right at the end of the park. We met up with my friend Andrea, who is from Melbourne and was also visiting the states at the same time. We all headed out to Central Park and we went to the zoo.
This is a Lemur from Madagascar. It looks cute but is probably vicious.
We also saw polar bears who looked very hot and stifled and sweaty (they must love winter) and a whole lot of cute penguins that did all this jumping and gliding around.
Afterwards we wandered through the park in an attempt to find the statue of Alice in Wonderland. We managed not to get lost so much. (Andrea had gotten lost previously and was worried it would happen again) So we stopped and asked for directions repeatedly, just in case.
We finally found the statue and I must say we may have gotten a little obsessed with taking pictures on the thing. (We have at last count 14 pictures with this statue.) When we got there, there were all these kids climbing all over it, so we had to wait for them to go. Then we had to wait for this lady to stop taking pics of her kid, until finally I started climbing on the statue and she got the hint and said, Just a couple of more pictures, girls and we said, oh no you're all right. There were also these teeny boppers with amazing agility - you may see one of them posing in the background to the left, sitting on top of the "tree".
Here is one of our Alice pictures.
We continued our wander thru Central Park, where in typical fashion we tried to figure out which movies were shot where. At this particular moment where I am fairly sure they shot a bit of definitely maybe further down the row of benches, we took a few pictures. Here is Miel reenacting a musical. (Possibly Enchanted. McDreamy, where are you?)
After wandering around for quite a bit we found Strawberry Fields and the John Lennon Mosaic. I thought there would be a bit more to it then that (I thought there might be a memorial wall as well to commemorate his death anniversary or something) but apparently not.
Here's me getting really dirty lying on the ground next to the John Lennon Mosaic.
After Central Park, Andrea left to go home and have a rest at her hostel. Miel & I went around a bit, hit H&M and then ended up in Borders where I grabbed my first round of books. (Y'all knew that was going to happen.) Then I went home.
Andrea came down to the lower east side where I was staying and we had dinner nearby at Schiller's which is a fantastic liquor bar/restaurant that has the best macaroni & cheese ever. (I once saw M.I.A. at this restaurant and Lia had to point her out to me) We had a great dinner.
This is a picture of our dessert, sticky date pudding, which was fantastic
After dinner we wandered around alphabet city checking out the bars that Andrea's friend recommended but they turned out to be dives so we headed back to near my house and ended up in a tapas bar having cocktails (that weren't too great but oh well its the company that matters). It ended up being a great night.