Travelogue NYC: Enjoying it in spite of myself

I don't really like New York very much. I serve on the board of Mazon, an anti-hunger advocacy organization. Mazon has a yearly board meeting in New York. That's really the only reason why I go there. If it weren't for Mazon, I probably never would go to New York.

And yet ...

It seems like my wife and I always have a good time when we go to the yearly meeting in New York. We walk around a lot. We see a lot of interesting things. We enjoy some good food and hear exciting jazz. Sometimes we visit acquaintances who live there. My wife usually does some shopping.

Our most recent trip in May turned out that way. Here's what we did.

My board meeting was scheduled for Monday. We flew in on Friday. Our flight was supposed to arrive early afternoon. But, first we had a delay taking off from Minneapolis. That put us an hour behind schedule. Then when we landed, at 2 p.m., we encountered horrendous traffic delays getting to our hotel. That took an hour and a half. (Our driver lamented that normally, it should have taken no more than 30 minutes.) By the time we got checked in, it was 4 p.m., and we hadn't had any lunch yet. Luckily, happy hour at the hotel's rooftop lounge started at 4 p.m. So that's where we went for a bite to eat and liquid attitude readjustment.

Our dinner reservation (9 p.m.) was at a jazz club. It was a 2 mile walk down Broadway; took us right through Times Square. Then after dinner, at midnight, we walked back. Times Square was still hopping.

The next day, was a major walking expedition. We walked over to the High Line trail. In case you don't know, it's a walking path that follows the route of an old elevated railroad line. The north entrance is on 34th St. W. and 11th Ave. and it stretches to the Meatpacking District, ending at the Whitney Museum.

The TriBeCa Band performing at a street fair

On a previous trip, we went into the Whitney after walking the High Line. But this time, we had a different destination in mind. After coming down from the High Line, we picked up Greenwich Street and followed that all the way to the 9/11 Memorial and the new World Trade Center building. It was really an impressive and sobering experience. Before beginning our hike back to the hotel, we went into the Oculus, which is the centerpiece of the World Trade Center transportation hub.

At the 9/11 Memorial

Along the walk back to our hotel, we took a break for shopping in the West Village on Bleeker Street. Linda scored a piece of jewelry. The route to our hotel took us through Times Square for the third time. On a Saturday afternoon, it was unbelievably jam packed. I swore that I would not go through it again (at least on this trip).

By the time we got back to the hotel, we barely had enough time to rest up before we had to leave. We had an 8 p.m. table reserved for the first set at a jazz club back in Greenwich Village. After all the walking, this time we took a cab. Once again, the traffic was horrendous. We should have gone by subway. Our 10 p.m. dinner reservation was back up near Central Park. So when the first set ended, we hopped in another cab and headed back uptown. Thankfully, by this time, the traffic had thinned and it didn't take too long to get there.

Total walking distance for Saturday in New York: 10.8 miles.

Brilliant day for the AIDS Walk

Sunday we spent much of the day wandering through Central Park. By coincidence, Sunday was the New York AIDS walk. We went over to the main stage and listened to the speakers for a while, then continued our stroll. We took a break for brunch and to browse through the Greenflea Market. It was fun checking it all out, but we didn't buy anything. Then we went back into the park. It was a beautiful day for walking aimlessly with no destination in mind.

Our dinner on Sunday night was near our hotel. Afterwards, we took a short walk to settle our stomachs. We enjoyed seeing Lincoln Center and Columbus Circle at night. With my board meeting the next day, we didn't go out for music after dinner. Total walking distance on Sunday: 10.7 miles. (It didn't seem that much, but that's what the app on my iPhone said.)

On Monday, while I was at my meeting, Linda went shopping. Rain had moved in overnight. But fortunately the shops she planned to visit were close by. When the rain let up around midday, she even went back to Times Square one more time, this time to stop in at the Hershey Store. In the evening, we were heading to TriBeCa for dinner. The weather was still threatening, but after sitting in a meeting all day, we decided to walk it, figuring we could duck into the subway if the rain got too heavy.

Looking across the Hudson River at New Jersey

After dinner, we fully intended to take the subway back to the hotel. But we'd been tipped off to a walking path along the Hudson River that we'd never walked before. We ended up walking all the way back. Total walking distance on Monday: 7.5 miles.

I'll post some additional information about our hotel, the jazz clubs we visited, and the restaurants we ate at. But I'd have to say that despite my general disregard for New York, we did have a nice time.

Yikes! A 9-mile hike through Manhattan

Our October trip to New York City started with a delicious meal in a French bistro and listening to some great jazz. So my wife and I awoke the next morning with the intent of seeing as much as we could during the day. Fortunately, while the temp was a little brisk, it was bright and sunny.

We are inveterate walkers. When we’re on vacation, we like to pick central city hotels and use them as a base to explore a city on foot. Linda had spent some time investigating sights to see and neighborhoods to visit. She had mapped out a route for us to take.

From our Midtown hotel, we started out down 5th Ave. As we started out one of the things I noticed in particular was the number of men wearing formal business attire. Mostly suits, but if not suits, then certainly jacket and tie. It struck me as quite a contrast to downtown Minneapolis. I came to two alternative, and complementary, conclusions. First, maybe the pendulum is swinging back toward a more buttoned down look for business professionals and away from casual, business casual, and just plain sloppy. The second is that I observed a lot of men’s clothing stores featuring business attire. Sure there were the ubiquitous Jos. Banks and Men's Wearhouse. But there also were menswear boutiques and custom made shops. Lots of choices for looking sharp and professional. (Too bad I’m now retired.)

Our intermediate destination for the morning was the Flatiron Building, then ultimately SoHo. That was 3 miles by way of Washington Square. We shopped around a bit and then made our way through Greenwich Village and the West Village toward Chelsea Market (1.5 miles). Part of Linda’s goal was to find some fun shopping. She really wanted to find stores with unique and unusual clothing or jewelry. Just before lunch, she found a section in the West Village along Bleeker Street that appealed to her.

At Chelsea Market we met a nephew who was working in the Meatpacking District. He took us to a hip grill for lunch. (I should clarify – he took us to the restaurant, but we paid for lunch.) Then after lunch we backtracked to Bleeker Street so we could shop.

After shopping, we made our way to the southern start of the High Line, which is near Chelsea Market. (Add another mile for the jaunt to West Village and then back to the High Line.) The High Line is an elevated railroad line that’s been transformed into green space and a walkway. We walked the length of it – 1 mile.

Then we walked from the north end of the High Line to Times Square; add another mile. This was one of the few things that Linda and I really differed on. She found Times Square to be exciting and vibrant. I found it to be noisy, dirty, and unappealing. Those two things are not necessarily contradictory, I know. But I would have been just as happy to have come and gone without ever walking through Times Square.

We finally staggered the final 3/4 of a mile back to the hotel. Took a rest and then got ready for our evening. Dinner, as I mention in the next post, was at a restaurant right across the street from our hotel. But we weren’t quite done walking yet. After dinner we walked down 5th Ave. again to the Langham Place Hotel where we had a cocktail and listened to a jazz combo performing in the lounge. Log that as another 1.5 miles.

All told, it was at least 9 miles of walking that day. Good thing I have good shoes – Ecco. They’re comfortable and they look good too.

NYC Dinner #2: Fig & Olive Midtown

After a long day of walking, sightseeing, and exploring, I was glad that we didn’t have to go far for dinner. We had made a reservation at the Midtown location of the Fig & Olive. We picked the restaurant because we liked the creative menu. At the time, we didn’t realize that there were multiple locations in the city. This location was right across the street from our hotel.

One of the things that appealed to my wife and me was the prix fixe option on the menu. We tend to like that approach as long as the options look appealing. It’s sort of like a pseudo-tasting menu, only with more flexibility for individual preferences.

For our dinner at Fig & Olive, my wife started with the house salad. Sorry if that doesn’t sound too exciting. But the list of ingredients in the salad were very appealing – fig, apple, manchego cheese, gorgonzola, tomato, walnut, olives, romaine and other greens, scallion, and fig balsamic vinegar. It was an excellent salad.

My meal started with a mushroom croquette. It was made with cremini mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, a béchamel sauce, and was dressed with a truffle olive oil aioli. The crust was very buttery and flakey. The mushrooms were excellent, and the whole dish was quite rich.

For an entrée, Linda choose tuna Provençale. The menu said the tuna would be seared. Linda expressed a preference for it to be cooked to medium. They did a nice job of accommodating her preference. The plate included some potatoes and roasted cherry tomatoes. On the side was a small serving of a roasted eggplant caviar.

My entrée was an individual serving of paella del mar. I thought it was delicious. There was a nice variety of fish and seafood on the plate, including shrimp, mussels, scallops plus vegetables – peas, red bell peppers and artichokes.

For dessert Linda ordered chocolate pot de crème. I ordered a dessert crostini with cherry, mascarpone, pistachios, on shortbread.

While we enjoyed each of the restaurants we ate at in New York, Fig & Olive was definitely the most creative. I would recommend it.

La Mediterranee NYC – good food, comfortable ambiance, jazz

My wife and I arrived in New York on a Thursday afternoon. We were looking forward to a long weekend of good food and jazz music. We did our typical prep for our trip, looking up restaurants in the neighborhood of our hotel (Omni Berkshire Place, Midtown East) and checking menus and online ratings.

For our first night, anticipating that we would be tired from traveling and not yet very familiar with our locale, we picked a restaurant that also had music. La Mediterranee was a 6-block walk from the hotel. We liked the menu (French bistro) and on Thursday nights, in addition to the house piano player (French and American standards), they also have another guest combo.

Because we had had a late lunch, we delayed our reservation until 8:30. We arrived in time for the last few minutes of the house pianist’s performance. Sipping a cocktail and listening to him, we could tell that he really enjoyed performing. He played with intensity and enthusiasm that was easily conveyed to the diners. We were disappointed when he closed his book at 9 p.m.

While the guest combo set up, we ordered our food.

One of the things my wife and I both liked about our past trips to France was the fixed price menus that offer a three-course meal. That is one of the options at La Mediterranee, and that’s what my wife decided to order. She started with the French onion soup, which was very rich, and she enjoyed it very much. Her entrée was pistachio crusted salmon, which also was delicious. For dessert, she ordered mixed berries with cream.

I decided I wanted the beef Bourguignon for my entrée. It was offered on the fixed price menu. But the salad I wanted was not. So I decided to order off the ala carte menu. I started with a goat cheese salad with pistachios, tomatoes and orange segments. Excellent. My entrée was very flavorful and fork-tender. I was very pleased by the meal. Lucky me, my wife shared some of her dessert.

The guest combo that started playing shortly after 9 was great. We liked them so much that we asked where they would be playing the next night. (In the end, we didn’t go listen to them, but kind of regretted it.) They quit playing at 11, maybe a little early for our preference; we would have happily ordered more drinks and stayed until midnight. But not bad for a Thursday in an unfamiliar city after a day of travel.

As the evening came to an end, we struck up a conversation with the diners sitting at the next table. They were a brother and sister and their 90+ year old mother. They all were having as much fun as we were. They told us that they are regulars at La Mediteranee and really appreciate the hospitality of the owner-host. We could tell that the restaurant, perhaps not on the radar screen of the city’s Foodie scene, had an intensely loyal clientele.

It was our favorite restaurant of our visit to New York.