Week of July 25th 2011: See a Broadway Show

Even though I spent a few days wandering around the city and checking out Times Square, Rockefeller Center and the World Trade Center, I didn't feel like I really had enough on each one to write a story about it.
Instead, we are going to fast forward to my last night in New York City. Elissa wanted to get me a belated birthday gift so she decided to take me out to my first Broadway Show. Before my trip, I had given her a few options and since Book of Mormon was sold out forever, she went with my second choice - How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I'm not going to lie, all I knew about the show going into it were that Daniel Radcliffe was starring and the name sounded kind of familiar.
Good enough for me!
Elissa and I had a lot of fun dressing up and going to see the show - which was also hilarious. The plot is pretty straight forward from the name - it's about a young guy who uses a book called "How to Succeed" to quickly climb the corporate ladder. I would say that it's good for anyone in business but really, it's probably entertaining for anyone who has ever had any job ever.
We both thought it was very entertaining that there were many kids in the audience. The show, while very comical, still has a lot of adult themes so we figured they were basically there because of the leading man. It makes me wonder what kind of audience there is now that a Jonas Brother has the part. I also hope these parents didn't take their kids to see Daniel's first play...
Elissa's gift was so fantastic and I'm glad we got to spend my last night doing something so memorable. Elissa and I used to go to shows together in SF so it was also just a great to do one of our favorite things together.

Week of July 18th 2011: Social Eatz

There was one more Top Chef restaurant that I had to check out and that was Angelo Sosa's Social Eatz. His food always looked so good on TV and on the show they had said he worked in a sandwich shop so that felt very accessible. However, just before going to New York, I found out that the sandwich shop closed. Luckily, worry turned to excitement when I found out that instead he had opened up his own wider menu (but still relatively affordable and accessible) Asian-fusion type shop.

I know Asian fusion sounds a little played out but Angelo really attacked it in a new way. Almost of all the dishes seemed like American comfort food on the surface (burgers, hot dogs, etc) but it was easy to see that they were layered with unique Asian flavors. I got tacos and chicken wings and they were very tasty. I can't remember what Elissa ordered or which drinks we got (they have an extensive, original cocktail menu) but I do remember that we were both raving about it. She was trying to find out if they delivered to her neighborhood or office. It turned out that both were just out of their delivery radius and yes, she considered a few wacky, Seinfeld-esque ways to work around that.

The most important thing you should know about Social Eatz though - neither of us mentioned that it was my first time in New York and guess how much free stuff we got? None.

I actually got to meet Angelo a few weeks ago when he was in SF for a book signing. I literally chased him about half a block down a busy SF touristy area before I caught up and was able to ask him for a picture. Even though I seemed like a crazy stalker, him and his wife were very nice and understanding. It's also really nice to be able to tell a chef to his face that you liked his food.

Week of July 18th 2011: Boating in the Park

The famous Boat House

Before I even got to New York, Elissa had been asking me if we could go boating. She explained that a few blocks from her apartment, in Central Park, there was a place you could go boating. Even though I had never been to New York before, I'd of course, seen several movies that took place there (even the night before we had seen a post dinner showing of Friends with Benefits) so of course I had heard of the infamous Boat House. Somehow I did not put two and two together.

stopping for some noms

Once I figured that one out, my excitement escalated. It's always fun to see something in person that you'd only seen in a movie or TV show or read about in a book. Since we didn't have a small fortune or a reservation, we didn't have lunch at the Boat House (maybe next time) and instead got a some park-esque food and cookies before our boat ride.

Can you see our turtle friend?

Elissa and I were so excited about our adventure. She kept telling me how romantic it was and that I would have to row for her since I was stronger. This led to many jokes along the way about how I would be such a good boyfriend for her and that I should propose to her in the boat because it would be the most romantic thing ever.

We rowed to the edge of what we thought was the whole lake rather quickly and began to wonder what we would do for the rest of the hour that we had rented... until we got closer and saw that the lake kept going... and going... and going. Maybe we should have gotten two hours? (this map hopefully illustrates how you can't see most of the lake from when you start out and it's actually about 10x bigger than you initially think)

Our little spin around the lake was so fun. You get to see parks of the park that are otherwise a little hidden. There was a person who had set up a little easel and was painting the scene, people bouldering, lake turtles popping their heads up occasionally, and of course the other-boat-people-watching.

Others enjoying a lake picnic

Eventually we got to the far end of the lake and Elissa insisted on rowing. I'm not going to comment except to say that apparently, the boat doesn't move if you get stuck on the rocks... I may have had to pry us loose a couple of times.

We eventually were getting close to our hour time limit so I took the paddles back and rowed us quickly back to the shore. Sadly, our romantic boat ride had come to an end but I will never forget my fantastic date with Elissa.

On a side note - I mentioned seeing Friends with Benefits for a reason. There is one scene where they are at a really pretty part of the park with a lovely steps and a fountain. Elissa had been wondering where that could possibly be and suggested we look for it. So - a little cell phone googling and we saw that the nearest street was the one we were near... it had been several hundred feet from us the whole time... we had rowed past it. Either way, we had fun taking some pictures there and then walking through a lot of the rest of the park.

Beautiful view of the Upper West Side

Week of July 18th 2011: Les Halles

I'm not going to lie - I basically came into New York with a list of restaurants I had to go to. While I didn't make all of them, I'm very glad I got to try Les Halles.

After reading, Anthony Bourdain's first book, Kitchen Confidential, I felt like I knew Les Halles intimately. It felt odd that I was so familiar with the inner workings of this New York restaurant without having ever tried it's food. So, after my trip to the Met, Elissa and I got all dressed up for our French bistro style dinner. 


Although Les Halles also had a restaurant week special, we decided to order off the regular menu. I got the waiter's suggestion of the pepper steak frites while Elissa got a lovely salmon dish. It was so great. I'm not the biggest fan of a ton of pepper so I probably should have gotten the regular steak but it was still incredibly tasty. I definitely have a French food crush on steak frites after reading a travel book before my first visit to Paris so it was nice to have some again. 


I forget how it happened, but somehow the two of us fell into conversation with our waiter and, of course, I dropped the "this is my first time in New York line." So he asked me about San Francisco and insisted that I make him a list of restaurants that he should eat at next time he travels here. He also gave me a business card that told me which episodes of No Reservations he was on. He was also helpful with wine pairings... so helpful that he gave us a full glass "taste" of something he had recommended. 


As we were finishing our dinner, he surprised us with a bowl of different sorbets. I swear to you - if it is your first time in a new city tell people!!! I think if you're a nice person who is generally interested in the place you are visiting, the worst thing is that people will be nice back to you and the best is that they may leave you a few treats with your dinner. 


I loved the food at Les Halles and even though Mr. Bourdain doesn't work there anymore, the food is still fantastic. I highly recommend it to everyone. 

Week of July 18th 2011: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The next day, I finally got to explore some of New York City. Elissa had to wait for some couches to be delivered to her apartment (she had only moved in a couple of weeks earlier after all) so we got lunch and then she left me to explore the Met on  my own.

To be honest, I kind of like exploring museums like this on my own. It's such a big museum with so many varieties of art that it's nice to just get lost and figure out what kind of things I like best. I quickly found a few things that I really loved about the Met. Since this trip was a while ago, my memory is a little fragmented so this post is going to jump around a little bit.

The thing I love most - was just the age of the building. One of my favorite things in the old European museums are the worn down steps that show just how many people have traversed over them though out the years. Another thing that I really loved about the Met were the buildings inside the building. Apparently when the Met was built, it was significantly smaller than it is now. In order to expand, they just continued to build around it, leaving the original pieces intact. This makes for a really cool aesthetic where you can often see parts of the original. I was so fascinated by this. It is so fun to see history as part of your surroundings - it's why I love the Paris museums so much as well.


I continued to wander around the museum in no particular order. The photography wing had a highlight that the nerd in me went crazy for. There was a wall that was covered in identical photos of the Lincoln side of a penny at different stages of oxidation. I was so amused by how different the penny could look depending on how far along it was. I think the exhibit itself focused on those kinds of intricacies in every day life.

I was excited to see Degas' ballerina statue though. I had learned about it in art class years ago and saw it at the Musee D'Orsay the first time I went. I knew the museum was under renovation so I figured this was where the original was hanging out until the renovation was done. I would soon find out how wrong I was.

Near the end of my trip to The Met I just wandered around the contemporary and modern art wings. Like I had mentioned before, contemporary art has really been growing on me. It definitely made my day to see a statue of a man crouched against a wall. It had a very fun Nightcrawler vibe to it and even though it's missing the tail, I decided to think of it as the Nightcrawler statue.


I really wish I had taken more notes about the museum when I went because I'm at a huge loss for things to say even though I know I really loved it. I guess I'll just scatter some pretty pictures through this post and call it a day.

Week of July 18th 2011: New York City and Colicchio & Sons

If you are a constant reader of my blog, you know that I have a consistent New Year's Resolution to travel to a new place. The reason this one is so important to me is that even though I've don'e a good bit of international travel, I've been really terrible about going to places that are more domestic. Up until July of last year, I hadn't even been to New York (aside from changing planes at JFK). This was way at the top of my list of places to go but I knew that if I was going to go I'd want a companion or place to stay. Well, after my friend, Elissa, moved there earlier in the summer, I knew I had both.

Elissa had given me the directions to get to her apartment from the airport. After several transfers, I soon found myself stepping out of a subway and into the sweltering heat of New York in the summer. For someone who grew up in a city that frequently had over 100 degree summers, it's funny how quickly I've adapted to the mild seasons of San Francisco.

After Elissa got off work, she helped me settled into her lovely Upper East Side apartment and then we changed to go out to dinner. I had luckily showed up in New York during Restaurant Week (similar to dine about town with $35 prix fixe menu) so I was excited to try a lot of places that were otherwise out of my price range. As a big Top Chef fan, I was really happy to see that Tom Colicchio (long standing head judge of the show) had a restaurant on the list and I was able to snag a reservation!

We showed up at Colicchio and Sons which was located just by the meat packing district and the elevated park and were instantly impressed by the modern decor. I personally loved the wine bottle tree. I gave my name to the hostess, but she couldn't find my reservation so - I pulled up the Open Table email on my phone... and quickly realized that I had been off by a week. I was so sad about messing up the reservation and told the hostess that it was my first night ever in NYC and had really  looked forward to dining there. Luckily, the hostess team was very nice and said they'd find a way to squeeze us in if we wouldn't mind waiting a the bar for a bit. We were so happy that they were accommodating, that we didn't have any problem finding something off of the impressive drink menu.

Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of our dinner so it's a little harder to remember exactly what we got. However, I do remember getting an extra course of rabbit sausage pizza mysteriously delivered to our table. We quickly began to realize that mentioning that it was my first time in New York was a great way to have people give us really good service (aka freebies).

We also got a chance to meet up with my friends Anthony and Ian who were roadtripping across the country and happened to be in New York at the same time as me. We end up at several college-esque bars that felt quite appropriate as a meetup with some of my college friends. Anthony has a blog as well and he wrote about our adventures with only a week lag instead of 11 months. You can read that here.

It was definitely a great start to the first of many adventures that we were going to have that trip.

As an aside - the next few posts will be pretty picture free. I had dropped my camera in a creek while in Southern California and my phone had terrible battery life. I took what I could between my broken camera, phone and tablet (yes, I was that awkward person taking tablet pictures - I was desperate) but there will be a lot of barren posts. I know they are less interesting. I'm sorry.

July 2011

July was a really great month for me last year. When I was working on the chronology page of this blog, I also decided to start listing the things I plan to write about and July had a ton. July really was about new things.

In the beginning of the month I decided to take a road trip to visit my family, by myself, for no special occaission. I hadn't really done that before.There was something so nice about having the freedom to stop and do what I wanted. Whether it was making a pit stop at the beach to go jet skiing, or stopping by a little factory to buy new sandals - the whole trip was on my schedule. I know my family also really appreciated me taking the time to visit them when there wasn't really a special occasion. From my Aunt to my parents to my brothers, I could tell they appreciated me finally making good on my promises to come visit.

But July wasn't only about visiting family, I had a lot of friends who were wondering when I was going to see them as well. For over a year, my friend in Washington D.C. had been asking when I was going to see them so after Elissa moved to New York, I decided to make one big East Coast trip. The fun thing about visiting people is that it's really nice being someone's guest and they're usually really excited to show you what's amazing about their city... but they have lives too so you also get a lot of time to explore on your own and I loved that. Whether it was boating or going to a baseball game with company or explore towers, memorials and museums on my own - I loved every bit of my East Coast trip.

I didn't go anywhere exotic (in fact, quite the opposite as going to SoCal is always a little like going home), but the trips were so remarkable. Whether the new thing was giving myself the freedom to take a trip on my own or or being a complete tourist in some of the biggest cities in the country, there were a lot of them. There is something special and important between finding that balance between independence, family, and friendship; between exciting new adventures and comforting old ones.

Trying to pick just a few snapshots from my adventures just reminded me how much I did that month and I can't wait to share it with you.