Day #9- Thursday

After the huge, carb filled, fattening (but oh so decadent) dinner from the night before, we should have just skipped breakfast on Thursday. But of course we didn't. We justified eating again in that we had to walk 30 minutes to get to our destination. We wanted to go to a place we had read about, called Russ and Daughters. They specialize in smoked fish, caviar, and specialty foods. Since we love fish, we wanted to give it a try. I got smoked tuna, on a wheat bagel with dill and horseradish cream cheese, and wasabi salmon roe (this means fish eggs, for those of you who have never had it). Sounds kind of gross, doesn't it? Well, it wasn't! It was really good!

Scott got a poppy seed bagel with salmon and cream cheese. He said his bagel was really dry, so he didn't like it that much. I also got an Egg Cream, mainly because I'd never had one, and have seen Rachael Ray drink one on her Tasty Travels show and said she loved it. Basically, it's just milk, chocolate syrup, and seltzer. It's kind of like a milkshake, but a much thinner consistency, and with just a hint of effervescence from the seltzer. It was good, even Scott liked it!

After our yummy breakfast, we walked around the Lower East Side for a while and checked out the neighborhood. This is historically a Jewish community, so we saw more smoked fish restaurants, and a lot of discount shops ran by men wearing the traditional Orthodox Jewish robes and hats, sportin the hair do's with the little curls on the sides. NYC is extremely diverse- it's cool to see how different people are, right here in the USA.

We then walked over to SOHO and walked around, took in the sights. This neighborhood is full of young, trendy fashionistas in designer labels. Expensive designer stores and gourmet restaurants are common in this area. So of course we only window shopped here. SOHO borders Greenwich Village (where our apartment is), so after a long morning of wandering around, we ended back up in the Village.

We decided that since it was such a beautiful day, it would be nice to have a picnic in Central Park. So, we went to Murray's Cheese Shop to get some different cheeses, olives, and bread. We also stopped in a wine store to get a bottle of white wine. This was a neat little place-they have miniature trains on tracks set up around the whole store! It was so cute!

They had different scenes along the tracks- this was a train running across a miniature Golden Gate Bridge, and another scene had little trees that were lit up, and grapes hanging along the track with a sign that said Napa Valley. You all know how I love little miniature villages; this one ranked right up there, it was just too cute!

After our picnic supplies, we went back to the apartment to pack our picnic basket and the towels we brought here just for the occasion. We took the subway uptown to the park, and went to this huge grassy area called the "Sheep's Meadow". Here are some pictures from our picnic:

It's nice that in the heart of this huge, noisy, busy city, there is a quiet and peaceful place to relax. We decided to walk through Times Square on our way back. So much for peaceful and relaxing- this place is INSANE! Tourist City! It is stressful just walking through there, it is so crowded and just jam packed with people. Even amongst all the madness, this really is a beautiful area, with all the buildings lit up. It literally is so bright that it looks like the middle of the afternoon, any time of the day.

After being bumped, prodded, and pushed through Times Square, we hopped on the subway back to our apartment.

We had dinner reservations that night for a place called Minetta Tavern. This is another restaurant where you have to either know someone or be someone to get reservations. As we didn’t fit into either of those categories, there are 2 times of the day the normal folk can get a reservation, either 5:30 or 10:30. Since we always eat late, 10:30 was the perfect time for us. We got dressed up in some of our new clothes we had bought this week, and walked on over to the restaurant.

We waited in the bar area for about 30 minutes before we were sat at a table. As we were standing there, Scott mentioned that this is another restaurant that celebrities often visit. So at that point, I was on high alert to try to spot one. Right about that time, he whispered to me, “Don’t look now, but I think that ‘s Brad Pitt standing right behind you.” I about passed out from excitement as I nonchalantly turned around to look. Sadly, it was not Brad Pitt, but he could have passed for his stunt double. This guy really did look like him, so much though that we looked at him for a good 20 minutes before deciding that no, this was definitely not him.

As we sat down at our table, and looked over the menu, I looked around the restaurant at the other patrons. And there, about 4 tables over from us, sitting at a table facing me, was an actual CELEBRITY! It was Lionel Richie, right there! He was not dancing on the ceiling, but eating dinner with some younger women and another guy. (That’s a reference to one of his hits, people, just in case you’ve never heard his music). Anyway, even though it wasn’t Brad Pitt status, I was still thrilled to have seen an actual, real life celebrity, one whom I actually recently watched on E True Hollywood story.

After that little thrill, I then decided to take a look at the menu. This restaurant is known for their burgers, and is the main reason Scott wanted to come here. If you haven’t noticed by now from my other posts, he almost always orders a burger. He told me that he is on a mission to find the best burger in the city, so he usually gets one wherever we go. Minetta Tavern is known for their Black Label Burger, which is a special Pat LaFrieida custom blend of different cuts of meat, and he ONLY allows Minetta Tavern to have this blend. (Pat LaFrieda is a well known butcher here in NYC, and sells custom blends of meats to a lot of the high end restaurantuers. He created the Shake Shack blend for Danny Meyer, for example, and only makes that custom blend for him).

I am not as into burgers as Scott, so I got the Duck. My dish was good, but Scott said that his burger almost won the award for the best burger in town, still coming in 2^nd to the Shake Shack Burger, which is again, King of All Burgers. After reading my blog, if any of you come to NYC and don’t get a Shack Burger, you should be run out of town by the Pace Picante cowboys.(New York City!) It is literally a crying shame to come here and NOT get a Shake Shack Burger. I’m really not even that into burgers, and I literally crave these. Anyway, I’ll get off my Shake Shack high horse, and finish up this post with some pictures. I didn’t take any pictures in the restaurant of our food, as it was dimly lit and a flash would certainly be frowned upon, but I did sneak a picture of Lionel Richie with my phone! See, here he is:

Ok, you can't really make him out, but I promise he is there, against that back wall! Oh well.