I’m up early and head down to the Times Square area to meet up with Saul Lubetski, one of the men at Harbor Group (whose apartment we’re staying in). We chat about the real estate market and discuss a few pain points and I head out. And down into Times Square and all the nonsense that goes along with that. (And his building sits in front of the area in Times Square that is closed to traffic and set up for pedestrian use – tables and chairs, people meandering, etc):
Including even the naked cowboy:
I enjoy the beautiful day as I walk up to 57th Street and, of course, the Carnegie Deli. I pick up some blintzes and corned beef hash for Michael and my breakfast, and I add a pound of corned beef and rye bread for both Michael and Bert. Walk over two avenues, hop in a cab, and before I know it, Michael and I are enjoying our killer brunch in the comfort of our little apartment.
Appetite sated, we head out for our museum day. We start at the Cooper-Hewitt, and although I researched the exhibits online, we arrive and start laughing because the whole thing is in a shroud and under restoration to be opened again in the fall. So, we walk through a little street fair and head to the Whitney museum. On the way, we stop at the really cool Gagosian gallery where we head up to the 5th floor to walk through a 3-story exhibit of Picasso and Francoise Gilot during their time together. They had two children (Paloma and Claude) and spent time together painting in Antibes, France. Amazing and serendipitous.
We have enough time to hit the Whitney, which has a couple floors closed in preparation for their centennial exposition. We saw a dozen of representative pieces from their collection. Really interesting, including a complete miniature circus created by Alexander Calder.
Finished with the culture tour, we head quickly back to the apartment for another conference call, with a stop on the way for some iced tea – it’s hot out!
Call finished, we hit the road back to Michael’s old hood. We have a glass of wine while waiting for Stacey and Jeff to come in for our much-anticipated and difficult-to-acquire-reservations-for fried chicken dinner at Momofuku noodle house.
In case you don’t believe me, you first have to go and sign up on their fried chicken reservation system. Then you wait until your chosen day is 4 weeks ahead, sit at the computer when the clock strikes 10, then race through the selections until you get a confirmation. The first time I tried, I lost my spot because it was all booked 20 seconds into the process. Dismayed by not deterred, I try again the next night, with Stacey on the keyboard over in Jersey. She didn’t make it, but I did, and had to take a few minutes to calm down the adrenaline rush. We find out tonight that there’s only two tables a night dedicated to fried chicken, and that’s the problem.
We start with appetizers: pork buns, stewed octopus, shrimp fritters and roasted wild mushrooms. Pretty soon they bring out all kinds of sauces for us to use on the fried chicken:
And then the main course: a couple of fried chickens done in buttermilk batter and old bay seasoning and a triple fried korean style, that come with homemade mu shu pancakes. We smiled:
and set to making roll-ups and happy tummies:
What a great time we had! I could def ditch the old bay style and go Korean style all the way next time. We get a couple boxes and all go home with plenty of leftovers (plane food for me!). I head back in the car with Stacey and Jeff and hug Michael goodbye. I’m up early in the morning and Stacey takes me to Newark for the flight home. I check out a documentary on Bob Marley on the way home and so happy to be back in my bed. Until we travel together again, have a great summer!