A Country Mouse Goes to the City: August 2012

Home Depot -- NYC style

Monday, it was back to work for Kelsey and back to my explorations of NYC. Since this is my last full week here, I had some places in mind that I wanted to return to as well as a list of some places that I wanted to go for the first time. So it was out the back door and up and down the streets running behind 33rd and between 5th and 6th Avenues. I had read in Kelsey's book that Home Depot was an early morning place to go, but this was not something I even considered doing. I just happened to run upon it and found the outside so unique that I had to snap a picture or two.
I had the smoked beef brisket lunch at Hill Country Barbecue, which had been recommended by one of the chefs on my new app Chefs Feed. It was delicious -- almost as good as Son-In-Law's. And come to find out, Son-In-Law's is quite a bargain. This place sells smoked brisket by the pound for $20.50 per pound for the lean and $23 per pound for the moist (fatty).
I ended up going on down beyond Union Square and happened into to Dean & Deluca, a grocery store/market. I ended up spending so much time just looking at all the ingredients that we don't have at home that they finally asked me if they could help me find something. I assured them that I was just exploring and they told me to have fun. I even found the gold flakes and the gold dust that I see sometimes in Southern Living, and what a bargain :) at only $110 for the gold flakes and just $100 for the gold dust. I guess that's why we don't often seen gold flakes on our cakes! I bought some four-color bow-tie pasta that looks like ribbon candy. I can't wait to try it -- hope the dish turns out as beautiful as the dry pasta is.
On Monday night, Kelsey and I went over one street to 35th to the rooftop of the Hotel Metro, which has excellent views of the Empire State Building as well as the building that we live in. We were able to get up close and personal with the upper levels of the Empire State and the roofline of our building. This was the perfect place to watch the sunset.

Just looked up and saw this -- must be a storage room now

I liked this wall art

A view of the Empire State Building from the Hotel Metro rooftop

The colorful building behind the chimney is where we live and this is the wing we actually live in

The beautiful details near the top of our building

This is our building as viewed from 34th Street. We live exactly across the hall from the bottom left double set of windows.

A sign on the back of Macy's as seen from the Hotel Metro rooftop

The moon as seen from outside the Delacorte Theater in Central Park

When I came in Tuesday night, I was so excited over my day that I skipped a few days and wrote about my Tuesday explorations. Since I am hoping that this will be a sort of journal of my summer, I want to go back and do a weekend catch up.
As you know, Kelsey is off on Fridays, so she usually joins me for our weekend explorations. On Friday, we got out noonish and set off for Soho. With no particular place in mind for lunch, we came upon a restaurant named Lure. It seemed that they specialized in sushi and this sounded good. We were seated at the sushi bar, where we enjoyed lunch-time entertainment of four chefs preparing sushi. It is quite an art in itself, and for me, it was amazing to watch their precision cuts and preparations. We intentionally avoided dessert so as to go back to Vesuvio Bakery (a cute little bakery we had seen previously) for cookies. Here we feasted on a sugar-dusted chocolate chunk cookie that melted in your mouth. I was quite interested in the pictures explaining that underneath the bakery are the original brick coal ovens that remain today, a testament to how long this building has housed a bakery.
Afterwards, we wandered around Soho, stopping in at some very upscale resale shops, a sample sale, and one of my favorites, Revolution. If you remember me writing about Obscura previously, this is a "gentrified" version of Obscura -- not dusty and scary, but still quite unusual. Revolution also sold bats but theirs were of the freeze-dried variety rather than mounted in resin. The freeze-dried bats also started at $65. I'm still lamenting the hundreds of bats we have flushed down the toilet over the years. For anyone who doesn't know, for about 25 years, we had a colony of bats that lived in our attic, with strays who would, on occasion, join us in the living area of our house. It could be quite scary and even entertaining at times as we tried to knock them down with a broom as they dove at us. Revolution is also where the contestants on Project Accessory went to get insects for one of their projects.
We continued roaming and ended up, for our first time, in Washington Square, where we enjoyed the music, entertainment, and assortment of people. On our way back toward the apartment, we explored a portion of NYU.
Our Saturday began by strolling toward Central Park and the Plaza. This time, we were able to locate Eloise and welcome her back to the Plaza. The Plaza has been here on Fifth Avenue for more than 100 years. In 2005, it closed for a three-year renovation. In 2008, after an extended vacation in a New Jersey storage facility, the famous Eloise portrait returned to its official residence across from the Palm Court. Then it was downstairs to the Plaza Food Hall where we enjoyed lunch. I finally got the Luke's Lobster Roll that I had been wanting. It was delicious -- a slice of buttered bread, grilled and creased in half, heavily filled with lobster drizzled in melted butter. Kelsey chose quiche and salad. The man at this counter recommended this particular quiche (which I don't know what they called it), but it contained feta, a little spinach, raisins, and toasted almonds. It sounds like an unlikely combination, but it turned out to be very tasty! After lunch, we had to go shopping in the Eloise shop, which we enjoyed as if we were little girls ourselves. And, of course, it was necessary to get Nora some Eloise books. As we left the Plaza, it began to rain, so we quickly headed to the subway for the ride back home and a nap. It was a rainy afternoon -- perfect for napping.
After the rain ended, we emerged to wet streets but a cooler night. We walked back to the NYU/Washington Square area and had dinner at Tortaria. I had the Pescado Taquitos, which was crispy Red Snapper topped with a mango-chipotle slaw and served in house-made white-corn Masa tortillas, while Kelsey had black refried beans with crumbled Queso and quacamole and chips. This was such a cute little restaurant. The walls were lined with shelves of old cans, oils, and cooking ingredients. When you ordered quacamole, it was made right there in front of you. We sat at community tables and enjoyed the food and scenery. On the way back, we were able to get some good night-time pictures.
Sunday dawned -- make that Sunday noon came and there was no rain, so it was off to the West Broadway and Spring Street area for brunch and to look at the street vendors' wares of arts and jewelry. While enjoying our brunch at The Cupping Room Cafe with a beautiful view of a small courtyard, we got a text message from Rick that I had received an e-mail saying I had been chosen to receive two tickets to Shakespeare in Central Park on Sunday evening. This bit of news certainly contributed to an even more enjoyable brunch. The Cupping Room has rotating art displayed on their walls, which just happened to be paintings of antique dress forms -- quite appropriate for Kelsey, don't you think. It was such a nice cloudy, cool day afterwards that we decided to walk the three miles to the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market and explore along the way. Before we could get there, the sun came out and the humidity went up, and we were extremely hot upon arriving at this outdoor market. So we made a quick tour through the booths and headed back to the apartment to cool off before leaving for Central Park.
We had to claim our tickets by 7, and we arrived at the Delacorte Theater shortly before 7 to pick them up. We had intended to explore Central Park for the hour before the play started, but we had gotten disoriented in our rush to get there and decided to just have a seat on a bench and watch the people go by rather than risk getting lost. The Delacorte is an outdoor theater and Into the Woods is set in the woods, so this was the perfect setting for this play. I thought by the name that only Shakespeare plays would be performed at "Shakespeare in the Park," but that is not always the case. This summer marks the 50th anniversary of Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte, so As You Like It was coupled with Into the Woods. And as is the custom for these summer productions, which are presented free of charge to the public, big names generally play some of the roles. This production featured Donna Murphy as the Witch, Amy Adams as the Baker's Wife, Denis O'Hare as the Baker, Chip Zien, who was the Baker in the original Broadway production, as Mysterious Man, and Glenn Close was the voice of the Giant. The play was wonderful and did make a point that what we think we want isn't always what we really want. It was a beautiful night and we enjoyed ourselves so much. We were not allowed to take any pictures once inside, so we snapped a picture of the moon before entering the theater.
And so ended the next-to-the-last weekend of our summer in New York City.