Entries from May 2010 ↓

A flat white in New York? Yes indeed. The only cafe from the NY Times coffee list that’s in Midtown turns out to be run by Australians, hence the flat white on the menu. We found it last weekend.

I stuck with the cappuccino, The Mister had the flat white. Both were great, good and strong. We got chatting to the guy when ordering and I think he thought we were experts (no I didn’t have my Supreme shirt on!) as he made us a free cup using some other beans they were thinking of trying! My ginger and molasses cookie was delicious too.

As a side note, if you go into a cafe and the barista is wearing one of those trilby hats, that’s a sure sign the coffee will be great – in our trip around the NY Times coffee list we’ve seen a lot of those hats!

Culture Espresso Bar, 72 West 38th Street, New York

One of the scraps of paper stuck into my notebook of things to do in New York was a visit upstate to the Woodbury Commons outlet mall village. So this is what we did on our weekend without visitors last weekend.

We had to leave New York state itself for a bit and drive through New Jersey, our first time out of the state. And when I say drive, I mean the bus driver drove us (and there didn’t seem to be a stigma attached to riding the bus like in LA and there were even a few other husbands on board). Our Caribbean driver was very chatty and told all sort of stories and I was rather amused by his pronunciation of Hudson River ‘oddsen reeeva’. The Port Authority bus terminal that we left from was huge! The buses left from level 3 and there were rows and rows of doors along a corridor, like a wide high school corridor, that you stepped out of and practically straight onto to a bus, angle parked in a line with loads of others, right up at your door. We drove out down a huge ramp leading out of the terminal in a great string of buses – not all going to Woodbury Commons – well, quite a few of them were as they went about even half hour. It actually felt pretty strange to be going so far away from the city but we got some pretty cool views looking back.

The bus trip felt very fast, not in time but in speed, and we figured it was because we hadn’t actually travelled above ground on anything other than our feet for a couple of months so that’s why trees and cars seemed to be whizzing by at extra speed. We travelled through some very green countryside – it was rather pretty.

A woman sitting in the seat in front of us had a store list printed out from the internet plus a village map and she was pointing to something on the list and locating the store on the map, showing her friend and noting stuff down – die hard shoppers who were obviously planning their route for the day to get some serious shopping done. It was about this time that I realised it was going to be very embarrassing to get back onto the bus with no shopping if I ended up having one of ‘those’ days. Luckily (I suppose) The Mister rarely comes home from the shops (even clothes shops) empty handed so I was safe.

When we got off the bus to start the day, some people collected suitcases from the luggage storage under the sides of the bus, made me wonder if there was a motel at the shops, but by the ease with which they grabbed and rushed off with their cases I realised they were empty and to be filled with the days purchases. Indeed watching people at the end of the day, that was the reason. Some suitcases and bags even looked brand new – bought to serve that purpose.

The shops themselves were pretty good – the day was absolutely stinking hot, the hottest one we’d had to date so we were forced to get back into the next shop after coming out of one. The place wasn’t a mall but seemed like a small town now deserted, lots of low rise peak-roofed sections of 2 or 3 buildings, like an old motel, with quite wide ’streets’ with hardly anyone outside – the heat was probably the reason for that. All the big name brands were there, not just clothes but homeware, jewellery, sunglasses, shoes, department stores, sports stores with mostly last season’s or odd sizes. The shops were fairly orderly, not like bargain outlet stores in the city, these had nicely arranged racks of clothes, but when you got to them it was a bit of a search for anything resembling your size. However, I didn’t embarrass myself getting back onto the bus, I had a couple of bags containing (you guessed it) some jeans and t-shirts. Great prices if you could find what you were looking for.

Not much in the way of food out there – was forced to Starbucks for only the 3rd time in our nearly 3 months in the States.

Saw a brown furry badger type animal on the grass verge as we were leaving – was about the size of a big rabbit or wombat, with a big tail, but not a squirrel. Must Google and see if I can figure out what it was. >> UPDATE: it was a groundhog! There’s a picture on Wikipedia of one.

Two weekends ago we had the last of our visitors, this time from not so far away, San Francisco. SF Girl plays netball in a West Coast rep team and Netball America had arranged a West Coast – East Coast game to be played following a WNBA game at Madison Square Garden – such an honour!

So we tromped them around New York in between practice and games, doing some of the same stuff, and some different stuff – being practically American themselves now there were some things they didn’t really need to see.

The run down:

Whistle-stop one day tour of: Madison Square park, Financial District, Fika, Central Park, Iron Man 2 (at the most ginormous digital picture and sound theatre we’ve ever been to in Times Square), Shake Shack.

While SF Girl was at netball we took our Chef Friend around some old and new (even for us) spots: Saturdays Surf, Little Italy, Katz’s Deli, Bryant Park (where I left the boys having a beer while I went for a wander), saw American Idiot on Broadway and Times Square.

A bit of a rest day for the rest of us on the netball day: it was a pretty cool outing to Madison Square Gardens and being a women’s game of basket ball it was a bit slower so I didn’t get too lost, the netball was fast (with an American commentator trying to explain what was going on) and we had seats 6 rows from the front! SF Girl is WA. The Mister had great fun with the noise-makers.

On their last day we finished up with some more of the usual spots: Chelsea Market for breakfast, the High Line, Central Park, 5th Avenue and a parting view from our roof.

When Mother & Father were here we finally came across one of the Joe’s coffee spots in Grand Central – one from the NY Times coffee list. It was a walk-in closet of a place & when we got there I saw someone holding an orange cup which got my hopes up – but it turned out to be one from the Mud Truck (which we’ve not got to yet, but must).

Coffee was excellent again, not so strong as some but great flavour again and I was glad to have found it.

Joe’s Coffee, 44 Grand Central Terminal (Graybar passage off Lexington Ave), New York

This is long overdue but with the recent batch of visitors I’ve gotten a bit behind! Plus it’s taken me a while to catch up getting all the photos uploaded.

So, Mother & Father’s visit a couple of weeks ago. They were here the longest – 7 days so we managed to cram the usual stops on our visitor’s tour in plus a bit more!

They arrived safe & sound & fairly awake after 3 flights all the way from Whakatane – we went out to the airport (via 3 trains!) to meet them. I was quite surprised that the whole journey on the E train was underground – I thought for an hour’s ride it would pop out somewhere but it didn’t.

So then the dragging of parents around the city began. The daily highlights, many of which you’ve read about before but they were new & exciting for Mothers & Fathers!

• Chelsea Market
• Circle Line – excellent boat trip around the island which was a great orientation exercise & our guide was very informative on the history & location of landmarks & other little tips. Plus excellent views of the city.
• Coffee a Fika & rest stop in Madison Square park
• The Mister went to a work function at the Stock Exchange on Wall Street – wives not invited! And no pictures allowed

• Financial district tour & lunch stop at Big Fika
• Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge & dinner at Henry’s End
• Nighttime wander along the Brooklyn Heights promenade

• Grand Central Station
• Mother/daughter hair dos while the boys went to the Apple Church (the only Apple store The Mister had yet to visit here)
• Central Park with picnic lunch of sandwiches from Zabars
• Shake Shack for dinner
• Gelato from our block eaten up on the roof

• Bloomingdales
• The Met
• Wander down 5th Ave & around the Rockefeller Plaza
• Dinner & Morrell’s
• Late night out in Times Square

• Mother’s Day! Brunch at the Breslin in the Ace Hotel
• Hell’s Kitchen flea market (nothing like what I expected, it was a few tables spread out clumps out in the street which seemed quite junky to me. But it was utterly freezing so perhaps it’s usually busier)
• Macy’s to hide from the cold
• Mother’s Day bubbles & pizza

• Top of the Rock
• High Line
• Shopping for dinner supplies at Chelsea Market
• Orange Kitchen experiment with duck confit & rice

Then they were off on their way to Canada.

And now bad news. Just got word this morning that Mother has broken her ankle on a lake trail in Canada & they’re on their way home now, 2 weeks early. VERY SAD. I really hope this doesn’t put them off travelling! I guess the sad truth is that as you get older your bones become more brittle. At least they were having a fantastic time up until then and had just spent a week with their friends in Montreal.

WOW – got a GREAT surprise today when I saw a message come through for me in my Twitter stream:

Tweet 4 Your Tee have changed their homepage to recognise me for a day! I’ve only ordered 4 t-shirts from them, some posted all the way over here, some hiccups when I got a man size instead of a girl size, not to mention the SPECIAL treatment that allowed me to have my Twitter username written in orange!

I feel very special today. And strangely compelled to buy another t-shirt!

Along with other American mysteries like scalding hot milk in coffee, high tide-line in the toilets and deciduous trees, what is this little orange marker light on top of streetlights?

My theory is that it can’t be for low-flying aircraft, in manner of plastic containers strung on a wire across valleys in the New Zealand countryside, and can’t be to mark the road in snow drifts, because that would be a hellava lot of snow, so it must be to guide our flying/leaping super heroes – saves Batman, Spiderman, Ironman and friends from crashing into buildings when they’re speeding through the city!

Our New York Cousin came for dinner at the weekend & we’re classing him as our first ever New York guest  (sorry visitors who’ve stayed & I’ve cooked) because he arrived, buzzed, ate, chatted & left all on one night.

So with our limited food supply, very limited pot/plate/dish & glass supply, none of our recipes & some uncertainty about the easy location & identification of ingredients we might need, we did wonder a while about what to cook. Settled on a simple menu that had the chance of being impressive & that didn’t require recipes. Cousin is like 6 foot trillion tall & made the point that he didn’t get to be that tall being a fussy eater so we didn’t have to worry about the meal being anything other than an Orange Kitchen one-pot special!

Canapes with pate & caramelised onions
Spinach lasagne & salad greens
White chocolate mousse with summer berries

So off we went on a very hot day to a sweltering Union Square (into the middle of a protest on the Arizona law change to challenge anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant) to get our ingredients – of most concern to locate & identify (not because we didn’t think it existed, just a recognition/name thing when it came to packaging) were ricotta & gelatin, & of next concern re pack size were frozen spinach & mozzarella (there is SO much frozen stuff & cheese ’stuff’ here that those items had the chance to be troublesome). However, we got everything we needed & even saw Mario Batali signing books in the crowded Union Square. Thought he might notice us because I had our orange Moore Wilson’s bag, but he didn’t!

Then we cooked all afternoon in our glass house with one rest stop to Fika for afternoon tea. All went well: no oven dish but the onions caramelised nicely in 2 Pyrex dishes (which then had to be recycled for the lasagne), not much spinach was lost down the plug hole after draining in the giant-holed colander (no sieve), The Mister still has all his fingers after slicing the mozzarella with a blunt knife & I made a make-shift whisk out of one of the beaters from the electric beater!

Turned out we did need one recipe, for the white chocolate mousse – iPad to the rescue! Lucky I’m such a clean cook though & there were no splatters!

Bit of a dilemma when it came to what to serve the mousse in – we found some great shaped plastic cups in the cupboard, a bit like the glass parfait glasses in the original recipes – but with these being plastic we worried Cousin might think we’d just bought ready-made ones, so chose the lady’s tea party floral teacups instead!

The Mister did a fine job assembling & presenting the canapes – the caramelised onions were delicious.

Was *very* impressed to see actual layers in the lasagne – our dish at home is solid so we never get to see this. Not bad!

The mousse definitely looked handmade & impressed Cousin so much he prompted me to photographically document the evidence – voila!

Laughed and laughed and laughed like no Twilight groupie should at a screening of New Moon at The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on Sunday night. It was shown on a screen out the back of the club, attended by a mix of people wanting to see a comedy show and some true die-hard Twilight fans in their Twilight t-shirts – the difference being the alternate script via voice-over from comedians The Raspberry Brothers.

I wrote a bit about it on the Xero blog so please read that to save me re-typing everything here!

Letter from New York – records & film night

At the end of our wandering around Williamsburg we headed to Variety Coffee & Tea to wind down for an hour or so before setting off again to find The Knitting Factory to attend their Sunday night comedy show that we’d gone over to Williamsburg to see. Sounds a strange name, and we didn’t know what to expect, but as it’s on the NY Times coffee list we were definitely going to give it a try. All looking good from the outside, what we’re coming to expect from the good coffee places in New York – a little bit funky, with a definitely ‘groupie’ vibe from anyone hanging around the entrance way.

It was dark and narrow inside but that meant it was quite cool down the back where we headed with our coffee and cookie. Free wi-fi meant I could deal with a bit of work for a while (bet our customers don’t realise they’re being helped by a girl down the back of a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn!) and then we passed some time playing an ancient game of Connect 4! I won just about every time and The Mister blamed it on him not having as many pieces as me …

Variety Coffee & Tea, 386 Graham Ave, Brooklyn