Cynically Optimistic

I had a wonderful, wonderful pre-weekend. Josh and his brother Jared were in the area for a Bar Mitzvah, and decided to come a couple of days early to sample some of New York's fantastic restaurants. It started out with gigantic portions, included a lot of foreign tastes, and ended like so many things in New York - at the Bus Station.

We stayed at the Amsterdam Court Hotel on 50th Street, which was a decent hotel, not very expensive, but the rooms were small. The showers were impossible to adjust. To steal a measurement term from Eddie Izzard, "you have to adjust the shower knobs to only one nano-millimeter to get the correct water temp" or it's freezing-cold or scalding-hot. But we all lived.

We headed uptown and stopped at Zabar's Grocery where Jared lusted after many copper kettles. The first meal we had was at Carmine's Restaurant. They have very greasy, filling food in large portions, served family style. We ordered the ravioli and double split lamb chop with a nice chianti. Good food, hearty, and very very satisfying. Afterwards we ended wandering around Time Square, where we bought a cannoli for $4. This was not the most ridiculously priced item that would be purchased during the weekend. Then we chilled at the hotel for a while, and ended up just having a few drinks in the bar and talking. I really miss sitting around and having long discussions about lives and politics and, well, the universe basically. It's very satisfying. Unfortunately the conversation just doesn't flow quite as well with people who have English as a second language, and I end up speaking to those people more ofthen than old friends.

The next morning Jared decided it would be a good idea to wake up at 4:30 AM to go downtown to the Fulton Street Fish Market, where all the wholesalers buy the fresh fish for the day. Apparently it was cool, and he's promised to send me some photos - but I was sleeping like any normal person.

Josh and I had more pressing matters anyway - a 10:00 appointment with an Uzbekistani barber at his barbershop, Paul MolŽ. Actually, Josh's barber was Italian. Mine was Lev, the owner, an Uzbekistani immigrant with a thick accent and incredible skills with a straight razor. This was an experience that I hightly recommend to anyone with an interest. At first, when I said I wanted a shave and a haircut he said, "No, you look good with the beard, you keep the beard." I finally had to convince him that I'd made up my mind, and I wanted him to shave me. He starts with a hot towell on your face, followed by some sort of oil which he rubbed into my beard for about two minutes, followed by more hot towells, followed by actual hot shaving foam. Then the shaving begins. First with the grain, then against. I was seriously smooth after the whole process, and extremely cold when we went outside.

We met Jared at Grand Central Station, and decided to have pizza for lunch. Not very exciting. Then we went to an independent movie called The Dreamers. It was good, and a little weird. After that we went to stand in line to see a taping of the Daily Show. We got to see Samuel L. Jackson, but overall the taping wasn't as good as the last one I saw. In fact, it ran long and we had to kind of rush to get back to the hotel and change clothes before we went to dinner.

Jared made reservations at Aquavit, which is a really really great restaurant in midtown. You can see pictures of everything about the place in my photo album. I'll have a list of everything I ate, because Jared requested a copy of the menu. I think I consumed at least 10 species of animal, and about 7 types of alcohol. If you've got $200 burning a hole in your pocket, it's a great place to eat. I can't justify eating there more than once a lifetime - unless someone else is paying.

After dinner we stopped at a deli and grabbed a variety of beer to sample back at the hotel. Josh and I sat in the "Cappuchino Bar" area of the lobby and drank our beer and talked again, for 3 hours. We drank a lot of random stuff, including Arrogant Bastard Ale. More great beer and great conversation, and a lot of looking forward to skiing in two weeks.

The next day we got up and went down to SoHo to wander around before lunch at Nobu. It was another really nice restaurant, and I love Japaneese food, so it was a great lunch. Then it was time to figure out how to get the boys to New Jersey. The lady in the customer service booth at the New Jersey Transit station told us that the only way to Teaneck was on a bus, and it was scheduled to leave on the 3:15 bus out of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, one stop up the subway. I left Josh and Jared at 3:11 as they went through the turnstiles. I later found out that they made it to the hotel in Teaneck, and there was a surly bus driver involved that ended up dropping them off directly at their hotel, but only after stopping for a deli sandwhich first. Love that east coast mentality.

Also, I'm soliciting opinions on the new look which is only temporary, I promise. Please ignore the bow tie.