(Caution: extended reading required!)
Earlier this month, after a much anticipated evening with some great friends (Sandy, Terri and Gary), I left to board a flight for TO. After lugging my bags through the public transport system of the MUC, I learned a valuable and interesting lesson - the better dressed the business man, the lesser chance you have of them offering to help you with a cumbersome piece of luggage. Give me a guy in jeans and a t-shirt any day, those are the gallant ones!
After arriving in TO, we spent a quiet evening watching Hell's Kitchen and had dinner at The Lion and Firkin. The next day was pretty gloomy and drizzly but that mattered not because I was lunching with my Robbie! I drove into town that morning and after parking in some lot, headed to Indigo. Bought a couple of books (on sale, yay me!) and then went to pick up Robbie. He looked smashing (as usual!) and I had a great time (as usual!) but time went by too quickly (as usual!) and he eventually had to head back to work. I headed back to the underground parking garage, which I easily found. Finding the car? Not so easy. In my excitement to see Robbie, I dashed off and forgot exactly where I had parked my friend's car in the garage! (Of course, it didn't help that for the first 10 minutes or so, my befuddled mind was searching for my raggedy ass ol' silver Civic instead of the snazzy new red Mazda 6 rental!) I found them after about 15 minutes and headed back out of town. That night, I was taken to see 'Midnight in Paris', my very first Woody Allen film. (It was hilarious!) Later, we supped at Koganei - if you're looking for sushi in TO, look no further than this place. The next day was a quiet one - running errands and an evening in with a pizza, bottle of wine and what I believe to be a marked deck of cards, which resulted in me losing yet another Rummy 500 match. (This now concludes the Canadian portion of my summary. Please take a large step to your right straight over the border to continue ... )
Friday, we headed for the airport. I was curious to see how this flight would play out; after all, the last man I flew with wasa bit of a tight ass slightly neurotic a tad anal wound really tightly not a lot of fun to fly with. This time around proved completely different. We had the very last seats in the back - I mention the location only because it meant that the flight attendant was buckled in right beside my friend for both take off and landing. She immediately started flirting outrageously chatting him up, despite him offering only short responses to her barrage of questions. She continued to try to engage him in conversation throughout the flight and only spoke to me when she passed with the beverage cart. I was nice; I even complimented her on her earrings but I might as well have been decked out in invisible clothing because her attention was focused solely on my traveling companion. We landed in NYC, where my luggage arrived while his did not. (Personally, I think the flight attendant snuck off with it!) After being promised delivery to our hotel in the next couple of hours, we hopped a cab to the Marriott Marquis, right smack in Times Square.
Click here to see a daytime view of Times Square
Click here to see a nighttime view of Times Square
After dropping off our stuff in the room (33rd floor overlooking Times Square!), we headed out for dinner at Dock's. It was a great meal, topped off with a stupendous Key Lime Pie. We headed back to the hotel, meandering through Times Square. For those of you who have never been, walking through Times Square is like walking on Ste-Catherine Street ... except Ste-Catherine Street is on steroids ... and you've taken a mega hit of LSD ... and so has everyone you come across. Add a healthy dose of neon everywhere and you have Times Square. And because it is Times Square, you inevitably run into the Naked Cowboy. (We saw the newer, younger version; apparently, you can apply for a franchise!) We also came across the *shudder* Naked Cowgirl. A word of advice: pasties, applied to body parts dangling at waist level, are NOT sexy. I'm just saying. (On a related note, we saw the newer, younger version of the Naked Cowgirl the following day - she grinned at my friend but totally ignored me. Serves me right for wearing my invisible clothes again, I guess!)
Day 2 - The errant luggage finally showed up shortly before noon. Lunch at Chipotle, shopping at Macy's, and a stop at Starbucks where I was schooled on how to email my kids from an iPhone. On the way back to the hotel, we passed a huge billboard for the Pompeii exhibition. I mentioned my childhood obsession with Pompeii to my friend and five minutes later, we are standing in line and waiting to buy tickets! What an awesome exhibition! So much to see and no one to rush you through either! A great day ended with a great meal in Little Italy at Pellegrino's, whose wait staff has to be among the most attentive and respectful in the whole city.
Day 3 - Crappy weather, so I didn't venture very far or do very much. But then evening came and we were off to see STOMP! I havewanted longed dreamed of seeing Stomp every since catching a performance on TV back in the 90's. IT ... WAS ... AMAZING! A truly mesmerizing blend of cacophony. Never has an hour and a half passed so quickly! I'm really thankful that the weather spared me a migraine! After the show, we dashed through the drizzle a few buildings over and ducked into the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant (suggested by my friend, Terri). The décor is very reminiscent of every Ukie hall I have ever been in. The food was great and made me wonder if they had some Ukie baba stashed away in their kitchen. Our server was a handsome young Ukie boy, who did a great job. That's the good news. The bad? Watching them haul a pile of full Hefty garbage bags on a dolly from the kitchen right through the dining room, past the diners. Wanting to make a pit stop before heading back to the hotel, we found we had to be buzzed into the stairway leading to the washrooms. Yeah, buzzed in! Exiting the washroom, I invited my friend to come back in with me so he could help to identify the wildlife I had found there. It seems I had met my first live cockroach. In a Ukie restaurant, of all places! *hanging my head in shame*
Day 4 - I explored Manhattan a bit, ending up in Little Korea at one point. It's fascinating to walk around Manhattan but you need to be alert. Yellow cabs are abundant (you can't spit in any direction without hitting at least 2-3 of them!) and their drivers are ruthless in their pursuit of a destination. Pedestrians might have the right of way but someone forgot to tell the cabbies that! You've been warned!
Click here to see the plethora of yellow cabs in NYC!
Headed back to the hotel to get ready for our 'dress up date', a recent tradition. Morimoto is nothing short of phenomenal. The decor is slick and chic. The bathroom alone is well worth a visit. It was so beautiful in there, I could have eaten my meal in there! At the risk of being crass, they heat their toilet seats! (I thought that was really nifty until I related the fact to Julia, who promptly pointed out how gross that would be considering she couldn't be sure if the seat had been heated by the restaurant's system ... or the previous user!) I discovered a new drink - Snapdragon - and I want to be pickled in it after I leave this world. My friend ordered the Omakase, an 8-course tasting menu meant to highlight the chef's cuisine. Whoa! In a nutshell: toro tartare, accompanied by a seasoned soy sauce and five dipping options (wasabi, sour cream, kelp paste, avocado paste and Japanese crackers) ... a lightly seared sashimi of skip jack tuna, served with shimeji mushrooms and micro greens ... assortment of vegetables and tempura liver accompanied by a miso paste served in a warmer ... an oyster and foie gras with teriyaki jus (a warm bite of heaven, in my opinion!) ... a plate of assorted nigiri (Outstanding! My fave was the squid) ... homemade ginger ale (meant to be a palate cleanser, but if they had been selling the stuff by the case, I would have been buying!) ... waguyu beef (kobe beef - it keeps following me around!), set atop potato sticks (fancy french fries) and a lobster tail with garam masala ... tofu cheesecake (not ever having had tofu before, this struck me more as a tofu custard but it was deelish!) I'm certain royalty does not dine better than we did that evening.
Earlier this month, after a much anticipated evening with some great friends (Sandy, Terri and Gary), I left to board a flight for TO. After lugging my bags through the public transport system of the MUC, I learned a valuable and interesting lesson - the better dressed the business man, the lesser chance you have of them offering to help you with a cumbersome piece of luggage. Give me a guy in jeans and a t-shirt any day, those are the gallant ones!
After arriving in TO, we spent a quiet evening watching Hell's Kitchen and had dinner at The Lion and Firkin. The next day was pretty gloomy and drizzly but that mattered not because I was lunching with my Robbie! I drove into town that morning and after parking in some lot, headed to Indigo. Bought a couple of books (on sale, yay me!) and then went to pick up Robbie. He looked smashing (as usual!) and I had a great time (as usual!) but time went by too quickly (as usual!) and he eventually had to head back to work. I headed back to the underground parking garage, which I easily found. Finding the car? Not so easy. In my excitement to see Robbie, I dashed off and forgot exactly where I had parked my friend's car in the garage! (Of course, it didn't help that for the first 10 minutes or so, my befuddled mind was searching for my raggedy ass ol' silver Civic instead of the snazzy new red Mazda 6 rental!) I found them after about 15 minutes and headed back out of town. That night, I was taken to see 'Midnight in Paris', my very first Woody Allen film. (It was hilarious!) Later, we supped at Koganei - if you're looking for sushi in TO, look no further than this place. The next day was a quiet one - running errands and an evening in with a pizza, bottle of wine and what I believe to be a marked deck of cards, which resulted in me losing yet another Rummy 500 match. (This now concludes the Canadian portion of my summary. Please take a large step to your right straight over the border to continue ... )
Friday, we headed for the airport. I was curious to see how this flight would play out; after all, the last man I flew with was
Click here to see a nighttime view of Times Square
After dropping off our stuff in the room (33rd floor overlooking Times Square!), we headed out for dinner at Dock's. It was a great meal, topped off with a stupendous Key Lime Pie. We headed back to the hotel, meandering through Times Square. For those of you who have never been, walking through Times Square is like walking on Ste-Catherine Street ... except Ste-Catherine Street is on steroids ... and you've taken a mega hit of LSD ... and so has everyone you come across. Add a healthy dose of neon everywhere and you have Times Square. And because it is Times Square, you inevitably run into the Naked Cowboy. (We saw the newer, younger version; apparently, you can apply for a franchise!) We also came across the *shudder* Naked Cowgirl. A word of advice: pasties, applied to body parts dangling at waist level, are NOT sexy. I'm just saying. (On a related note, we saw the newer, younger version of the Naked Cowgirl the following day - she grinned at my friend but totally ignored me. Serves me right for wearing my invisible clothes again, I guess!)
Day 2 - The errant luggage finally showed up shortly before noon. Lunch at Chipotle, shopping at Macy's, and a stop at Starbucks where I was schooled on how to email my kids from an iPhone. On the way back to the hotel, we passed a huge billboard for the Pompeii exhibition. I mentioned my childhood obsession with Pompeii to my friend and five minutes later, we are standing in line and waiting to buy tickets! What an awesome exhibition! So much to see and no one to rush you through either! A great day ended with a great meal in Little Italy at Pellegrino's, whose wait staff has to be among the most attentive and respectful in the whole city.
Day 3 - Crappy weather, so I didn't venture very far or do very much. But then evening came and we were off to see STOMP! I have
Click here to see the plethora of yellow cabs in NYC!
Headed back to the hotel to get ready for our 'dress up date', a recent tradition. Morimoto is nothing short of phenomenal. The decor is slick and chic. The bathroom alone is well worth a visit. It was so beautiful in there, I could have eaten my meal in there! At the risk of being crass, they heat their toilet seats! (I thought that was really nifty until I related the fact to Julia, who promptly pointed out how gross that would be considering she couldn't be sure if the seat had been heated by the restaurant's system ... or the previous user!) I discovered a new drink - Snapdragon - and I want to be pickled in it after I leave this world. My friend ordered the Omakase, an 8-course tasting menu meant to highlight the chef's cuisine. Whoa! In a nutshell: toro tartare, accompanied by a seasoned soy sauce and five dipping options (wasabi, sour cream, kelp paste, avocado paste and Japanese crackers) ... a lightly seared sashimi of skip jack tuna, served with shimeji mushrooms and micro greens ... assortment of vegetables and tempura liver accompanied by a miso paste served in a warmer ... an oyster and foie gras with teriyaki jus (a warm bite of heaven, in my opinion!) ... a plate of assorted nigiri (Outstanding! My fave was the squid) ... homemade ginger ale (meant to be a palate cleanser, but if they had been selling the stuff by the case, I would have been buying!) ... waguyu beef (kobe beef - it keeps following me around!), set atop potato sticks (fancy french fries) and a lobster tail with garam masala ... tofu cheesecake (not ever having had tofu before, this struck me more as a tofu custard but it was deelish!) I'm certain royalty does not dine better than we did that evening.
Day 5 Our last evening in the Big Apple. Dinner that night was at Frankie and Johnnie's, a no nonsense steakhouse who, judging by the autographed head shots on the wall, sees their share of stars. That night, we saw 1/2 a star. After dinner, we went for a walk and came upon a crowd outside the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, where the Broadway musical production of The Addams Family was playing. We stopped and waited along with everyone else until Brooke Shields and Roger Rees came out. And no snobby star airs either - both stopped to sign autographs, pose for pics and talk with their fans.
Click here to see Brooke Shields
Click here to see Roger Rees
We then stopped in Times Square and sat at the top of the bleachers for a while, taking in the sights and sounds. Another fantastic evening ...
Click here to see a view of Times Square from down below
Click here to see Brooke Shields
Click here to see Roger Rees
We then stopped in Times Square and sat at the top of the bleachers for a while, taking in the sights and sounds. Another fantastic evening ...
Click here to see a view of Times Square from down below
The next day, we made our way to the airport. After waiting in an enormous line to check my bag, I get to the agent behind the counter and made the mistake of asking the gentleman how he was doing. As though he had been waiting all day for that very question, he launched into a tirade lasting several minutes, leaning on the counter and just complaining about how badly things are run (very badly!), how much longer he had until retirement (ten excruciatingly long months!), how deeply his boss' head was lodged up his ass (pretty deeply!) and the whole while, I can feel dozens of pairs of eyes burning holes in my back while everyone waits in line. Hey, what can I say? People just seem to like to unload to me! I head off to board the plane and lo and behold, there's the very same flirty flight attendant, who looks right through me, even though she had positively drooled all over my traveling companion a mere five days earlier. Later, during the beverage service, I smiled and complimented her on her earrings ... again. *grin*
