Portable Mind: A sort of travel guide

Miracle on Bleeker Street, Nor'Easter on Commerce

Last Sunday might have been the first perfect spring day in New York, and we - along with many other tri-state area residents - chose to spend it wandering the sunny streets of the West Village.

In search of an easy place to meet some friends, we stumbled upon a small Southwestern restaurant called Miracle. It was warm and welcoming, a neighborhood cantina, and we ordered small plates - tilapia tacos and calamari (mine paired with a French rose, perfect for the spicy kick). The food was mouth-watering, flavorful and perfectly prepared. Unfortunately, we'd had dinner at Dos Caminos a few nights earlier and had spectacular margaritas, so Dan's Miracle version didn't live up; but the food beat Dos Caminos hands down, and the prices are far more reasonable.

On the way home we stopped in at Commerce, a neighborhood place tucked away on Commerce and Bedford, occupying the former Grange Hall. We settled into a corner for early evening cocktails amidst a small group celebrating a co-worker, and bartenders eager to make us whatever drinks we wanted. I tried their version of a mint julep - smooth, refreshing, and cut with ginger, while Dan had a Nor'easter, a drink highlighted in NY Mag. He followed up with a Brunswick, which was so good he Twittered about it. A solid recommendation if ever there was one.

In the WD~50 Lab

People travel for all sorts of reasons, but one that truly resonates with me is the pursuit of great culinary experiences. Food, whether it's intimate and homemade, a dish created by a master chef, or purchased at a street fair, can undoubtedly alter an experience for better or for worse, particularly when away from home.

Liz and Noah arrived in New York last weekend from Boston, to dine. Liz is passionate about food, and she planned their weekend around several locations in the city, most of which I'd never heard of. We were invited to join, but not to alter their plans; and having seen her in action, I understand why. She clearly knows what she's doing (hint: please write a blog. or a book. or Twitter).

Saturday was reserved for WD~50, Wiley Dufresne's much-ado about molecules restaurant, on Clinton street, LES. The interior begs casual chic, but it doesn't feel pretentious - it's almost whimsical. Which is counterpoint to the food, which was, well... complicated.

We'd decided on the tasting menu, with wine pairing ($200pp - but, when you can let the chef choose what you eat, it's usually the best option ). The effort begins with the first second dish. The first was a clean and simple starter paired with a wine I recognized, so I felt ahead of the entire experience. That lasted until the next dish, which was, um - pizza pebbles. Four delicate balls placed on a crisp white plate, with slices of pepperoni and shitake mushrooms in between. The consistency was doughy- but the flavor was rich and satisfying. That is, until Noah commented that they tasted like Pizza Combos - which, they kind of did.

The eggs benedict was a much anticipated dish, as it took Dufresne three months to perfect. It is eggs benedict as a shot, delicate pieces of bacon arranged around a column of egg yolk and cylinders of deep fried hollandaise sauce. It was a spectacular punch of breakfast, but I was more intrigued by the choice to serve Pinot Noir with it. Hello, new brunch drink.

Crab tail with cinnamon dashi was next, and outrageously good. The powerful cinnamon scent floated around the creamy texture of the crab, sweet and spicy, like an exotic dessert. It was the crab and the next dish that really stood out for me, along with the fantastic wine pairings throughout. Mom, hold onto your seat - the next dish was chicken liver spaetzle, with pine needle, radish and cocoa nib. It was delicious, and I am not even sure why I liked it so much. It tasted like... chicken, but better?

If WD-50 is to be taken seriously - and, I'm not sure that it is, because Wiley Dufresne certainly plays with his food - it would be a restaurant with only ten tables, individual servers for each, talking about the food the way sommeliers talk about wine. Our server did tell us about the dishes, and he gave each of us a copy of the tasting menu, but it didn't help as much as it should have. At times, I felt like Violet Beauregarde, handed a piece of Willie Wonka's gum and told to chew through all of the different courses. Still, it was one of the most memorable dining experiences I have ever had, and perhaps that's the point. It is food that inspires you to think about how it was prepared, forces you to taste, then describe it by using more words than 'yum'. A rare indulgence.

(I know, I should have taken photos of the dishes. You can find many of them on Flickr, which is where the top photo is from.)

On the Map

Courtesy of Flickr, one of my photos made it onto a Schmap Guide of New York and is a good alternative to my previously linked Google map - which is really just a list of places where I like to hang out. Like Suba, where you can get Latin American food and an Absinte Mojito, the perfect combination for a cold winter evening.

Home

Stating the obvious, it's been a few weeks since I have posted. I returned from traveling, changed my job and am still coming down from an exciting, interesting, beautiful and somewhat volatile 6 months. I am not traveling again for a few weeks, so I am taking pleasure in getting reacquainted with New York.

I've finally gotten around to creating a Google map of the city to share with friends (and everyone else), making it easy to search for places I would recommend. While the map definitely skews to locations south of 14th street, I think there are key places one should know of in any neighborhood or city when traveling - where to get a good pedicure, great coffee and a stylish cocktail.

You can get to the map from here, and I will add to it as I continue to discover more places.

Saturday afternoon at the Park

Yankees v. Royals in the Bronx on Saturday (and A-Rod's 500th)

I'm not sure there's anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon than sit and watch a baseball game at the stadium. I've been to a few games in my life, but this weekend I suddenly understood the inspiration for a certain kind of road trip that friends of mine have taken over the years - traveling the country to watch baseball in some of the country's most famous places -- Fenway, Wrigley Field, Dodger stadium. Filling up their summer vacation with a week's worth of Saturday afternoons.

Wild Things

Even when the East Village was considered a dangerous urban wasteland inhabited by junkies, the homeless and libertine subculture, fragments of beauty could be found in the neighborhood. Low buildings let the sunlight in and despite the questionable activity that took place there for a good number of years, Tompkins Square Park anchored Alphabet City. In between the abandoned buildings and wasted lots, community gardens grew... the effort of neighborhood residents to turn deteriorating spaces into something beautiful.

I'd forgotten about the gardens until I was wandering through the neighborhood with a friend last week. We entered a private garden on 6th street, cool under vines of dark green Ivy cascading down the side of a surrounding building. It was empty, save for a few tables and chairs, reminiscent of a backyard waiting for a party to start.

Further down the block we passed the 6th & B Garden, a voluminous place that takes up the entire corner of a city block. It is dense and verdant, a wild child barely contained behind an ornamental iron gate; it's main focal point a striking sculpture that rises out of the tangled foliage like a strange urban castle.

The gardens are soulful works in progress that evolve with each neighborhood. They are unexpected pleasures of New York; especially in the summertime, when stepping out of a hazy, sultry evening into a riot of greenery is much needed refreshment... at least until you can get to the bar for a Mojito.

Photo courtesy of Dan Costa and his iPhone. or Treo. or whatever gadget he's currently carrying.

Death at Lincoln Center

This is not the photo I wanted (but thank you NY Times). I wanted a photo that showed an image of principal dancer Wendy Whelan wrapping her body around the male lead in "The Nightingale and The Rose", New York City Ballet's interpretation of the Oscar Wilde story. It was mesmerizing. And who wouldn't want to be able to wrap themselves around another like that... (you can view clips here, in between commentary)
The ballet is escapism for me (you know, the way television is for others). When I'm in the audience I am completely caught up in the moment, spellbound by the entire experience - the dark theater, the gorgeous dancers, the music which, for this performance, had a bolder, Bartok-like feel; and the stories ... almost always dark, about impossible or unrequited love, sacrifice and death. This weekend I realized it is the final scene that we, the audience, wait for - the death scene. In Romeo and Juliet, we anticipate Juliet's last breath; in Swan Lake, it is the choice two lovers make to give up their lives so they can be together. In "Nightingale", she - the bird who has sacrificed her life for love - is poised delicately, beautifully on stage in death and it resonates... because it reminds us of what we live for.

Sunday afternoon

Later, another kind of church - the New York City Ballet performing Romeo & Juliet at Lincoln Center. Enter ROMEO. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

The Catherine Wheel

When friends visit Manhattan, I wage an internal battle over where to take them. Because I keep a running list of "where to go next", I usually deal with the entertaining dilemma by emailing them excerpts from that list. In other words, "you choose". And truthfully, it's better than letting them pick a place unassisted - the last time I did that, I ended up at Dave & Busters. Last week it was the Bowery Hotel that was taken from my list. We'd dined at Kelly & Ping, had drinks at the Merc Bar until my friends were ready to go back to the hotel (pulling me away from sneaking glances at the very hot guy sitting at the table next to us) for a nightcap.

One of my friends, a Brit, said at dinner that night that he didn't like New York because it's just a 'wannabe London' (glad he cleared that up for us). He also commented on a place we went the last time they were in the city (on my suggestion) - a lowdown rock bar called Motor City. He told me that it was 'fake', not a real dive bar. As if the owners of Motor City were at a Lower East Side business development council meeting and said "Hey, we have a great idea for a theme bar! We'll call it Motor City and plaster band stickers all over the walls, play Motorhead really loud and model our bathroom after the one at CBGB's - you know, with a mirror that's blacked out, unflattering green lighting overhead and no toilet paper. Tourists will love it!"

Anyway.

The Brit loved the Bowery Hotel. It's the opposite of Motor City. Eye candy for the Lower East Side where visitors can feel like they're being edgy and experiencing "New York subculture". But the hotel has nothing to do with the neighborhood other than the address. Well, the old neighborhood at least. In some opinions, that's a good thing. For others, the verdict is still out. That said, it's a sexy place. The lobby and main lounge areas are filled with textural elements like mahogany walls, oriental rugs and tapestries in rich jewel tones and velvet lounge chairs. Lighting is low and warm. If the hotel were a person, it would be Marianne Faithfull; if it were music, it would be a Catherine Wheel song. The guest rooms stray from the feel of the lobby a bit, with hard-edged furniture and stark white walls in both bath and bedroom, giving the room a cold feel on first take. It takes a while (or a few glasses of wine) for the atmosphere to warm. Once you settle in, it's the purposeful details you'll start to notice. And my friend Amee says the minibar rocks.

A Tale of Two Cities

On a recent mission to find reasonably priced hotels in Manhattan, I was pleasantly surprised...

When I think about living in Manhattan, my vision does not include a 250-sq ft. 3rd floor walk up for $3k per month in Alphabet City; rather, it is a 2b2ba, hardwood-floored, high-ceiling'd apartment with a view, located in a graceful building on a wide, quiet street. Last week I came close to the dream by staying in a small hotel on W 79th and Columbus called Park 79.

Gazing up at the front portico, the former apartment building surrounded by grand architecture on tree-lined West 79th street inspired fantasies of what lay inside... my perfect pied-a-terre. In reality, the hotel is not glamorous but the rooms are clean, comfortable and incredibly reasonable at $159 per night. The bath felt brand new and was stocked with amenities, more than I expected at such a small property. A simple front lobby and incredibly accomodating staff provided a low key vibe that made me feel right at home. Park 79 is a lovely hotel for travelers wanting to experience a calmer, quieter Manhattan yet be close to great restaurants (Jacques Imo, Arte Cafe) and bars (Evelyn Lounge, Prohibition); or for locals who are tired of the downtown Soho House-Gansevoort-Bungalow 8 scene. On a balmy summer night, it is the perfect neighborhood to relax in.

The following night I moved myself to a completely different neighborhood, perhaps in a moment of temporary insanity - Times Square. Think: sweaty, humid, summer heat; a swarming tourist season and loud theater traffic. And it was garbage day.

Times Square is not a neighborhood I frequent. I spent plenty of time there when I was young and underage (fake IDs accepted)... it was dirty & crimeridden then and it is a neon-corporate-branding nightmare now. It is also the neighborhood where Hotel QT is located and I was intrigued. The vision of Andre Balazs (The Mercer, Chateau Marmont, The Standard), how could such a hip place exist in the heart of the city and be affordable?

Set in the middle of W 45th street with a bright orange and white sign, the hotel appears to barely fit on the block, it's so small. The lobby and front desk act as a newsstand so while you're checking in you can pick your poison (Sapphire Gin? Bikini for the pool? Trojans?). Front desk girls are gorgeous, of course, styled to complement the hotel decor and once you've got your room key, you're handed a card that informs you of the evening happenings on property. Most incredible is the pool that sits in the middle of the hotel, propped up in a glass room like a sculpture to be admired from every vantage point; while waiting for the elevator or chilling at the bar, you can watch the beautiful people get wet (theoretically, anyway).

Room 1401 was the size of my bathroom at home, but no matter - the design is so smart and efficient, I immediately understood it. The bed, situated on a platform with storage underneath, took up 50% of the space and overflowed with a huge comforter and pillows. A plasma television sat on the wall at the end of the bed and a small table with chairs occupied the rest of the space in the room. With a mini fridge in the closet, a lovely overhead shower in the bath and a rate of $169 per night, Hotel QT fit just right.

I felt I'd found two perfect city crash pads, each one telling a different New York story... until I left Hotel QT and noticed a curious building across the street... a gothic-looking structure, painted completely black with gaslights burning over the entrance. I couldn't figure out what it was, so I inquired at the QT front desk and was told that it is the Night Hotel. Sounds a bit scary, but I think I'll take the dare on my next overnight. If you must get into trouble...