A Jaunt to New York City

Andrew and I had the most incredible weekend in New York this past week! It was three action-packed days of plays and wonderful company and fabulous food and warmer weather than we had at home, it really couldn't have been better. Rather than present a wall of text, pictures will tell a better story!

Rushing to beat the airport shuttle behind us

Celebratory Cafe Rio at the Airport? Don't mind if we do! (Also, look at that amazing beard!)

On the plane to NYC! Left at 3:30PM MST...

Arrived about 9:30PM EST, taking the subway out to our hotel.

Nothing like traveling to make you really hungry! For our late night snack we went to Kati Rolls for some killer Indian food rolled into some sort of naan-like tortilla.

The menu took into consideration those who may want some healthy yoga before or after eating (though I think they incorrectly assumed that we wouldn't be gorging ourselves). The Tikka Masala was especially good, and a bit zippy. Not pictured here is the Masala Chai that I also had, which was TERRIFIC. I think my favorite roll was the shrimp masala roll, which we had on the last night.

View from our room!

The next morning after breakfast at the hotel Andrew and I took the stairs back up to our room, but took the wrong stairwell... which spat us out onto a roof that we surely couldn't have been allowed on. What a beautiful morning to be in NYC!

No NYC trip would be complete without the TKTS line (though actually this was my first time in one). This was the Brooklyn booth. We ended up buying tickets on a mobile app before we actually got to the window, but enjoyed the ambiance of the line, the banter of line-standers on a cool-but-not-cold NYC morning, secured tickets for the plays we wanted, and then went on to enjoy our day.

Next up: The Brooklyn Flea Market, for "old and new vintage" goods and hyper-hip food!

It was in a big warehouse with a large central room for the main flea market vendors, an upstairs area for food and alcohol, and a side area with more food vendors. The food was all wacky and delicious-- rice balls with creative filling, the best doughnuts I've ever had (hibiscus? passionfruit with cacao nibs? yes please!), grilled cheese and mac n cheese, adobo, artisan soda... yummy.

Andrew in line for lobster rolls.

I've now completely fallen in love with lobster rolls, by the way. This was Maine style, apparently the only way to eat it because it was to die for.

The 'Porchetta' food stand had this old stereo rigged up as a speaker system that they could plug their iPhones into. So hip.

We had to fight our way through the crowds, but with some effort we also tried Ramen Burgers... which is pretty much what it sounds like.

Burgers with ramen noodle buns, and ramen noodle 'churro' sticks with caramel and chocolate. We all agreed that this didn't totally meet expectations-- the noodles hadn't been cooked in any particular flavoring and the crunchy exterior of the slippery noodles was a little weird. But at least we can say we tried it!

Brooklyn Museum was next on the list, where I was able to see the Dinner Party by Judy Chicago. Amanda mentioned this the day before saying "It's a hall of vaginas... as plates"... and you know what? My expectations were totally met.

Delightful, delightful vagina plates.

Possibly my favorite of all of the vagina plates, Emily Dickinson. All told, this was a really remarkable installation, I'm SO glad I was able to see it.

Other exhibitions at the museum were delightfully challenging. One was an installation of found/fiber art pieces done by a down syndrome artist named Judith Scott who developed most of her work at the Creative Growth Art Center. I feel like one of the great things about modern art is many pieces force you to reflect on your own personal definition of what art fundamentally is, and whether you agree with a piece or not, you've still been led to a place of greater artistic reflection. Scott's work definitely did this for me. There was also an shoe exhibit called Killer Heels that had a wide range of shoes, from the practical to the absurd.

After the museum we caught dinner at Woodland, an American bistro/bar in Brooklyn. Andrew got seafood fettucini, pictured above. The food was wonderful, though the hip hop music was oddly out of synch with the rustic styling of the restaurant.

My rabbit ragu was spicy and delicious.

Will got fried chicken and waffles!

Before Andrew, Amanda and I went to Then She Fell we took a quick pit stop at the Doughnut Plant across the street from Woodland to try some of their doughnut seeds, which were mini filled doughnuts. This one was hazelnut and chocolate.

 Outside Then She Fell! This was just a regular, slightly run down neighborhood of not-particularly-upscale apartment buildings. The little white square behind Andrew and Amanda is the clipboard telling you you are in fact in the right place. Totally nondescript. This was probably the most amazing theatrical experience I've ever had-- every bit worth the hype. We compared all of our experiences afterward and each of us had a unique line up of scenes, and we didn't each experience everything. My favorite was the Tea Party scene, in which the Red Queen smiled approvingly at my picking up fallen silverware, I picked the tea that was used, and we flipped tea cups and plates around with the actors in a frenetic reenactment of the scene. It's hard to distill the experience into a brief description, so suffice to say, mind-blowing.

Starting off the next morning at Le Pain Quotidian!

Then off to the Bryant Park Winter Village Christmas market, getting a little injection of chocolate... good for whatever ails you! The market was packed with every kind of shop, from food to soaps to clothes and art, plenty to explore and look at for a few hours.

I didn't get a good picture of the store, but this is as good a time as any to mention that Amanda and I found a little shop selling terrariums and mini cacti in keychain holders. The owner's name was Amanda too, and we experienced the highs and lows of her trying to win a collection of prosthetic glass eyeballs on Ebay. She thought she had won them but at the last second was outbid by a dollar- "If you two weren't here, I might have cried". "Oh well, they were all just brown anyway, I would like some in different colors... I'd like some like your eyeballs". She was darling, even though that's totally the statement a serial killer would make, and endearingly bizarre.

Next Amanda and I headed over to Soho for a makeup experience I had been looking forward to since I set the appointment a few weeks ago-- custom lipsticks made at the BITE lip lab! I've been wanting to do this for over a year and was chomping at the bit to make it happen this trip. This is their only shop.

The different pigments they can use to make your perfect shade.

Amanda trying on her first mix-- our SA was really talented at creating what you described, and was patient with re-mixing if it wasn't quite what you were thinking.

So pretty!!

I ended up with three, and this mix board shows the process of making two of them.

The evening lipstick, oh la la!

After our lipstick consultation we had some time to kill before the lipsticks were finished, so everyone congregated on Prince Street. Amanda and I found a standalone Chobani Yogurt cafe nearby. Amanda has the mango/avocado savory yogurt, and Andrew has the chocolate/pistachio/honey yogurt. Both were delicious, and we were able to keep the glass containers they gave to us, which they use "because they like glass" and can be returned for a discount... buuuut we're keeping the containers.

After some window shopping we were all a bit peckish, so we went to an adorable Italian place a few doors down called Piccola Cucina that was one of my very favorite restaurants of the trip. The menu was mostly tapas, so many amazing plates were tasted!  

Speck and burrata, and proscuitto and pear behind it. The burrata was UH-MAZING.

Arancini are Sicilian rice balls filled with meat, which were a house specialty. I could have eaten eight of them on my own.

A very simple, delicious tuna tartare.

Next chocolate chip and fudge cookies from the Vesuvio Bakery, huge and delicious!

Aaaaaand showtime! Andrew and I were seeing Hedwig and the Angry Inch and got our tickets early enough that we had a few minutes to nip over to a pub and get a quick drink.

Play time!

I snuck a photo of the set before everything started-- it was a really small set. The background buildings eventually were pushed off stage. The exploding car parts frozen in the air were, according to the play, a part of "Hurt Locker: The Musical" that was shut down after its first night, and Hedwig took over the stage before they could totally take everything down. The Hurt Locker jokes continued throughout the play-- if you were sitting on the main floor you got a playbill for the faux musical, and mid-musical one person got a piece of the score that Yitzhak sang a part of.

Michael C. Hall was a stellar Hedwig! Lena Hall as Yitzhak was probably my favorite member of the cast. It was a loud and bawdy show and the staging was absolutely mesmerizing. During Origin of Love they lowered the scrim and projected a cartoon animation onto it that Hall interacted with during the song, and his drag makeup was spectacular.

Next morning was much chillier, and I've realized I didn't take quite as many pictures because my hands were too cold out of my pockets! We started off the day in Chinatown and went to Mei Li Wah Bakery for some pork buns.

As much as these look like eggs from an Alien movie, they are in fact a hard-won red bean dessert. The first waitress spoke very little English, the second only a bit more, and both were convinced that these red bean desserts didn't exist. Amanda had seen them by the counter and thankfully persevered in ordering them-- I don't even really like the flavor of red bean, but these were great!

The pork buns!! I have been dreaming of these pork buns since we had them. They were soft, slightly sweet, the filling was well balanced, and I'd kill to have some more to nibble on right now. We also had some shrimp dumplings (Will said he was told they were called 'angel ears' by the person who introduced them to dim sum), I had some super-honeyed green tea, and Amanda got a pineapple slushie that was quite good as well.

Next onto MOMA! I love the NYC MOMA, so I was really excited that we were able to go. The place was absolutely packed. Mattise's Paper Cut-Outs were on display in a special exhibit that was way more popular than I would have expected. Despite the fact that I hate crowds, I was inwardly thrilled that so many people were clamoring over excellent art. The Mattise Paper Cut-Outs were also much more exciting than I had expected, and the layout of the exhibit had a beautiful flow to it, ending with the crescendo of Mattise's largest cut out works that really left you with a sense of awe.

I also found a painting that I have been trying to remember the name of for ages. I couldn't locate it online, and I couldn't remember the artist's name, but the first time I came to New York I saw this and it really spoke to me. Here it is! Mme Kupka among Verticals.

Like the Brooklyn Museum, the MOMA presented an exhibit that I really had to chew on a bit to appreciate-- Sturtevant: Double Trouble. Sturtevant replicated existing works of pop art (which themselves were taking existing media and replicating them) to explore constructs of creativity, originality, and authorship, and the issue of direct replication in art and its impacts on artistic merit is an interesting one. Much was considered this MOMA trip.

Post-museum we had a quick repeat of Kati Rolls, plus some halal street food, for dinner before we dashed off to the last show of the trip.

It had a star-studded cast (Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, F. Murray Abraham, Stockard Channing, Megan Mullally, Rupert Grint), and was full of theater jokes. It was a play about the stress of a play's opening night reviews, and all of the human experiences that are bundled within that.

This was my adult wine sippy cup that we bought at the theater bar.

The show had some great laughs and Nathan Lane really stood out in his role. When we saw him in the Adams Family last trip his performance seemed pretty phoned in, but in this play he totally lived up to what I hoped he would be like on-stage the first time. The character Gus was played by the one non-star of the cast and was particularly hilarious. What a great and potentially terrifying setting to cut your teeth on for your Broadway debut, surrounded by so many big names.

My feet were failing me by the end of the trip, so we opted against wandering around the city in favor of stopping for fries and milkshakes at Schnipper's to take back to the hotel, to have something to nosh on while we debriefed the show. 

Andrew and I left the hotel early Tuesday morning to catch our flight home, bringing an end to a fast-paced, action-packed trip! Absolutely wonderful!