Ahhh jetlag… what a drag right? Here
I am at 6am writing this; can’t say I’m looking forward to it again on our
return to Australia. Glad we’ve got a couple of days before we start back at
work. So Christmas Day and my 40th
are actually a bit of a blur. We did
some exploring and a lot of eating.
Breakfast was at a local café in the
East Village, I had the Cheddar Grits with poached eggs and himself had Corned
Beef Hash with eggs over easy and a potato pancake (you can take the boy out of
Ireland and all that). We also had a
side of bacon. Happily the meal was not
as huge as I thought it might be...
So grits, right? I know the concept;
it’s a corn grain porridge jobbie, so I figured it would be like polenta which
I love and besides, you need to try all this stuff right? To be honest, a bit
bland, I didn’t get the Cheddar at all and it was runnier than I thought it
would be so it was like a gritty (hah! I see what they did there…)
porridge. Himself enjoyed his well
enough, he’d not tried corned beef hash before, but neither of us would rush
out to try those particular dishes again.
We then strolled up town (I think
that’s the correct ‘I’m a local and totes blending in with my NY lingo’) along
Broadway. Now there’s a drag, everywhere
we go there’s some road, or sign, or whatever that pops a song into my head, so
of course we were On Broadwaaaaayyyy da da da dada… but I digress. We found Macy’s and the famed window displays,
they were okay but Himself reckoned last years were better. I’m looking forward to going in and shopping
tomorrow… More exciting were the
squirrels in Madison Park and Union Square.
We met this guy who was walking through the park with about four
squirrels were following him, when he noticed us giggling he explained he was
making a tutting noise and the squirrels think he’s opening nuts so they were following
him! Ha! True story, we tried it, does work… They also were happy to take bits
of pretzels off me.
We got up to Times Square which was
not as big I expected, it’s a sort of junction where a few roads cross, not an
actual square, but there are as many lights and signs as you’d think though. Also, I’m not sure how they film anything
there for TV and movies, as it was heaving with tourists. Very glad we’re staying where we are it was
really touristy and busy up that end of town.
Also very, very glad we’re not going the Times Square NYE ball drop
thingy, the ball was quite small, and the crowd will be very large. We’re going to a Speak Easy instead…
Up that end of town there’s lots of
guys selling tour bus tickets so aside from the one time I foolishly pulled out
my pop-up-pocket-new-york-map (thank you D&G – it’s AWESOME) in full view
so we had one guy do the “only $60 for a jump on jump off tour special for you
today!!!!!” spiel we managed to blend in with the locals and avoid the constant
hard sell that most gormless tourists seem to be bombarded with (check us out,
livin’ like the locals…)
By now I was speaking a language that
was kind of English but mainly braille so we strolled back down our way and
went to Little Italy for a pizza lunch.
We found a place that was open on Christmas Day and enjoyed a delicious
pizza plus some starters (well, I think we enjoyed it, Himself assures me we
did but my brain was done). So then back
to the apartment for an hour snooze which seemed to do the trick – so off to
dinner!!
As mentioned yesterday we went to the
Waldorf for dinner at their steakhouse called the Bull & Bear. It was nice.
It was a set menu so no Waldorf salad for me alas. They did give me a free glass of champagne as
it was my birthday; that was nice, but back to the food. For starter I had Jerusalem artichoke soup
with truffle oil and Maine lobster (wafer thin slices). Himself got the foie gras. His came as the whole liver on a plate,
grilled with a postage stamp sized piece of toast beside it…. Hmmm bread to
gras ratio fail. One mouthful and by the
peculiar look on his face I could tell it wasn’t for him. My soup was delicious so I did the magnanimous
thing and offered to swap. I’ve never
had it like that, just a big lump on your plate. To be fair it’s not offally at all but it was
cold in the middle – not sure if it was meant to be but I can’t say I enjoyed
the warm-on-the-outside-cold-in-the-middle-is-this-damn-thing-cooked-properly??
feeling …
So on to the second which was risotto
for him and cod in a clam broth for me.
Happily I didn’t have to man up again and eat his second course for him
as well (just saying). He said the risotto
was stodgy and bland and mine wasn’t much better, couldn’t taste the fish at
all, just the clams so it was a clam-and-cotton-wool dish for me.
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Ah well, on to the main (or entrée as
they call it here) we both went with the fillet as it is a steak house. Mine was an over cooked medium but Himself’s
was the correct medium rare. I have to
say, the highlight of that particular dish was the beans… they were nice… The steak was hardly F&B quality but
acceptable. We won’t even discuss
dessert, the waiter declared that yes, pinot noir does go beautifully with
dessert so she’d arrange for it in 5 minutes (this was after we’d said we’d
finish our wine BEFORE dessert – she appeared to know better). Dessert was stodge and ice-cream. The wine did not go, we were not
surprised. We were, however, surprised
at the bill… $570!!! They had helpfully added their own tip of $80 in and we
did not feel the need to add any more.
We decided that while the meal was nice
it was maybe only $200 worth of nice, definitely not over $550 worth of nice
and will be sharing that opinion on various food forums.
Back to the apartment for a better
night sleep – I woke to the symphony of gurgling that is the heating a couple
of times but aside from that, a much better night’s sleep. Today’s a shopping day – can’t wait!!
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