New York City
Day Two
We started the day by walking through the Farmers Market at Union Square. It ws a bit odd to see so much great produce out on the sidewalk in the middle of the urban city but if I lived here, I would be coming down every Saturday.
We took the Subway 6 Train to Spring Street and got off at Spring station in the Soho area. MrsWT73 wanted to shop through Soho so we walked the Canyon of Soho and I spent most of the time taking pictures. It’s a bit touristy but I can still find some things to look at in this neighborhood.
After a morning (and early afternoon) of shopping, it was time to eat. We went with the tried and tested 3 PM Brunch at Balthazar. Call it what you will: conveniently placed, a tourist trap, a place for the housewives of New York. As always, it’s an enjoyable atmosphere and a great location in the middle of shopping district. Today’s visit had it full of the housewives with Amex Platinum cards.
A solid bistro ambience inside with an authentic décor.
I had the Norwegian Eggs Benny with smoked salmon with sheer mountain of pomme frites and a glass of sparkling to go along with it. No disappointments here!
We took the train back uptown after a brief walk through Little Italy.
We took the train back to Union Square and hit up DSW warehouse one last time before a bottle of wine from Trader Joe’s Wine Shop immediately next to NYU on 14th St before we walked back to the hotel.
We were a little tired from the walking around over the last two days, so we stayed close to the hotel tonight for dinner. We opted to eat in the hotel restaurant Irvington. It had reasonable ambience, a nice décor but pretty average and forgettable service.
Some entertaining art to go along with the setting...
I had pan seared sea bass with carrots and chili. It was unfortunately pretty unexciting.
In summary, a pretty bland meal experience followed up by even blander service. The restaurant did offer room charging privileges. When the highlight of your dinner is that you’re able to charge it to a room, and earn 6X SPG points on the meal via a stay charge (4X $1 as a SPG Plat 75 + 2X on the SPG Amex Card), you know that the experience wasn’t all that outstanding.
Without being done for the evening, we did happen to walk two blocks up to a Spanish wine bar Bar Jamon. Bar Jamon is run by the Casa Momo people almost immediately next door. We had a few snacks there in a standing room only area at Bar Jamon that maybe could hold 25 people. The pictures are from the next morning.
We had some terrific Roija and Manchego cheese that was miles ahead of the food up the street. They offered fresh Iberoco ham sliced off the leg on our visit. I left the big camera at home but I’d highly recommend this place to visit if you can get in. The bar has been quoted in Wine Spectator as one of the best restaurants to get Spanish wines and the restaurant is Michelin starred, so they must be doing okay.