NYC Part 1

April 29th, 2009 by veronica

I’ll call Saturday our Day 1 in New York since our train pulled in just after midnight on Saturday morning/Friday night. That evening is best left
forgotten, however: we spent nearly an hour on the subway platform at Penn station waiting for a train to take us to Brooklyn.

We did eventually make it and were welcomed warmly into Vanessa’s house along with enthusiastic greetings from Boo and Stinky.

The next morning was rainy and grey, the perfect weather for ramen. We headed into the East Village to go to Ippudoh, but found that the wait was an hour and a half which would make it nearly dinner time by the time we finished. So we gave that up and headed down St. Marks to Setagaya, which was a most worthy replacement.

the cooks at Setagaya keep track of time with a wall of timers.

pickled bambo shoots, an outrageously delicious boiled egg and wowee-zowee fried pork belly.

and ramen, of course.

C and I muscled our way into the crowded Frick Museum after lunch and spent the afternoon wandering through the stately gallery and gawking at Vermeer paintings. There’s nothing like looking at art to make your tummy grumble so afterwards we strolled through Central Park and looked for a place for a snack and landed on a little chain bakery with the less than appealing name “Hot ‘n’ Crusty.”

But the main event for the day was yet to come: we met Craig and Patricia in their enviable Harlem apartment before heading over to Gemma and Jen’s highrise home a few blocks away. Gemma had whipped up a Spanish feast for us which we all readily gobbled away.

tortilla

chorizo

one of our lovely hosts and a pitcher of sangria

Coming from a city that lacks a real Chinatown, I’m always happy to go to New York’s bustling, overwhelming real thing. That Easter Sunday we made our way to Joe’s Shanghai, a place famous for their soup dumplings. So famous, in fact, that as soon as you sit down they ask you how many orders you want. And so famous, in fact, that we waited about quite a while for a table, though not quite as long as the line out the door had us believe upon arrival.

these are the famous dumplings, filled with crab and pork and a fragrant broth

there’s a technique to opening them… be careful and don’t lose the soup!

we also got an order of razor clams in black bean sauce

and some Shanghai style beans

The food was awesome, as always, but the best part was as we were getting up to leave, I found out that I was sitting next to an old co-worker from Portland. ‘Tis indeed a small world after all.

More museum time, this time the New Museum of Contemporary Art which had a special exhibition of artists under 33 (“Younger than Jesus”, the show was called) — it was interesting, but that those little young ‘uns sure made me feel old.

Off to Franny’s, the Brooklyn restaurant where Vanessa works, for dinner.

We got seats at the bar and the very friendly and efficient bartender served us well all night long.

look at ‘er go!