Taking a Nibble out of the Big Apple

This past weekend, I took a fun, but very short trip to NYC. My SIL, Jean, and I met up with Jill & Jim and Holli & Sean to take in some of the great food, shopping and sites that the city has to offer.

Friday evening, we ate a scrumptious dinner at Gramercy Tavern. Much like eating a nice dinner in Europe, the meal took 2 1/2 hours. We sat in the more casual Tavern portion of the restaurant and I ate the portobello tart with goat cheese, chicken with winter vegetables (I love those tiny cabbages!) and red wine and finished the meal with the warm blackberry streusel with blackberry lime sorbet.

By the time our stomachs were full, Jean and I were ready to get some sleep. We went back to our room at the Gershwin Hotel, which was also rather European in ambiance. Although the accommodations weren't luxurious, we agreed that we were quite comfortable during our stay there and appreciated the money we saved by splitting a double room with Holli & Sean.

After a brief but good night's sleep, we were up early to get breakfast at Les Halles, which served wonderful eggs, chocolate croissants and the most wonderful home fries seasoned with rosemary. Once we were refueled, we hit the town to shop. I found a lovely dress at Zara, which I plan to wear to Justin's graduation, along with a coordinating jacket at H&M. We then headed to Soho for more shopping and Jean and I both picked up Little Uglies (2 for me, 1 for her).

Then, we headed back to the hotel to change for our evening on the town. We had a nice tapas dinner at Tintol and then caught a performance of Hairspray. The show was lighthearted and featured great dancing and signing, as one would expect from Broadway.

Sunday, Jean and I were on our own. We had a tasty breakfast at Cafe 28, where I was confused by the cook's question and ended up ordering my egg and ham on the bagel with cream cheese. Fortunately, it still tasted great.

After snapping some pix of the Little Uglies around the deli, we headed to Central Park, where we walked around and rode the carousel. Afterwards, we picked up a bus tour of lower Manhattan. We hopped off and shopped for the kind of things you can only get in Chinatown: $5 pashminas, knockoff Tiffany's and handbags and bootleg dvd's. We even gained entrance to the secret back room of one of the stores.

We crossed over into Little Italy for a late lunch and I ate two wonderfully massive manicotti. We caught the bus again and completed our tour with just enough time to squeeze in a brief visit to Grand Central Terminal. Then we were off to the airport and home again.

Although two days is definitely too short for a trip to NYC, I had a great time. I was able to do a lot of quality bonding with Jean and meet Holli's fiance, Sean, who is a really great guy. The weekend provided just the right combination of everyone together, in fours or in pairs. And, while I would have liked to stay longer, the trip was short and busy enough that I didn't get sad about being apart from Justin. Now I can't say that I will be as brave during his upcoming ELEVEN DAY trip to Hong Kong.