Manhattan Melodies, Honeymoon Style Part II

Stuff We Did

Eat:

Les Halles -- Mrs. K and I are big fans of Anthony Bourdain, one of the few "celebrity chefs" that's actually a cool guy. He's a great author too, and is owner/head chef of Les Halles, a "French steakhouse" on Park Avenue South. We now know very well that it's 411 Park Ave. South, as we found out the hard way that there is no 411 Park Ave. We got in a cab and headed toward it, but had the cabbie let us out a few blocks from where (we thought) it was, since the people walking down the sidewalks were going twice as fast as our cab, sitting in standstill traffic. We walk a few blocks, realize that the address doesn't exist, look at our info, and realize that it's Park Ave. South. That can't be too far away, right? Well, to make a long story short, we ended up walking 27 blocks (me in the most ill-fitting, uncomfortable boots I own -- as we were walking, Steve Martin's "Cruel Shoes" routine kept looping through my head -- Kris in her usual 50 inch heels) to get there, and arrived at our destination a sweaty, thirsty, wincing couple of ragamuffins. We were smart enough to go around 3:00, the slowest time at any restaurant, so we were able to get seated right away.

The food made the unbearable walk (and subsequent rush-hour subway ride afterwards -- see "Most Embarrassing Moments" later for more details) worth every miserable step. Since I had seen their menu online a few times ('cuz we're dorks like that), and combined with how I already knew that Bourdain has great respect for a simple "steak & frites", that's what I ordered. The steak was a "hanger steak", which is one of the poorest cuts of beef there is, but is also considered the "butcher's cut" because it's delicious if it's prepared right. And this one WAS. As most of you know, I'm a "steak & taters" aficionado, and I've ordered (and cooked, if I may say) some of the best there is. And I'll say right now, with the possible exception of a perfect porterhouse that I grilled a couple of years ago, that was probably the best steak I've ever had. Ordered medium-well, it was still tender as butter, marinaded perfectly, and cooked exactly like it should have been. There wasn't a single sliver of inedible fat on it, which is usually my biggest gripe about restaurant steaks. I found myself saying, "Dear God" about every third bite, which is how I rate my food experiences. As far as the fries -- and I'm even more of a "fry snob" than I am picky about steaks -- these were right up there with the best. They were cooked in peanut oil and double-fried, which made them light & crispy outside and mashed-potato savory inside. Unlike most restaurant fries, there wasn't an ounce of pretension to them. No froo-froo seasonings or garnishes, just damn perfect taters. All in all, one of the best meals I've ever had the pleasure of consuming.

Po -- This was a tiny Italian place in Greenwich Village, on a small side street off Bleeker. And when I say "tiny", I mean it was one room, the size of our 1-1 apartment, filled wall-to-wall with about 50 people. This was "Northern Italian", which leans more toward butter and cream sauces for pasta and meat rather than "Southern Italian", which is more of the tomato sauce, meatballs, olive oil, and checkered-tablecloth Italian that we all know and love. I had pork tenderloin medallions with a balsamic vinegar/pepper sauce, topped with a crispy cabbage slaw (yes, I ate some), on a bed of sauerkraut. It was freakin' heavenly -- tender, juicy, melt-in-your mouth pork, a perfect sauce, and even the sauerkraut was damn tasty. Mrs. K (and most of you know what a food snob she is) had what she described as "possibly the best thing I've ever eaten" -- cold white bean salad, dressed with olive oil, garlic, and basil, and served on a warm crustini. I think she needed a cigarette after she ate it; she's still talking about it. I had a chocolate torte for dessert that, combined with the bottle of Pinot Grigio we'd just finished, almost put me under the table. We walked in the rain a bit till I got us a cab, then headed back to the hotel. A damn fine evening.

Hudson Cafeteria -- No, this was not a cafeteria. It was the restaurant in our hotel, and it was a really nice, upper-crust-casual place to have a good meal. Despite the misleading (and, frankly, stupid) name, they served some great food, had a nice atmosphere and good service. The kitchen was set up in the middle of the restaurant, with seating available all the way around it, separated by partitions that you could peer over and watch the cooks at work. Since we were in a splurging mood (and capability), I had a Kobe steak, with a twice-baked stuffed potato that was somehow balanced upright on the plate, so you could scoop out the tasty innards from the top. I also found out that once you've sufficiently hollowed it out, this is a nifty way to reheat those last pieces of steak that get cold while you're eating your side dishes -- just make sure nobody's looking to see what a low-brow, TV-dinner move you're about to make, and then plunk those bad babies down in there a bite at a time. Good as new, no harm, no foul. I also found out that, while I had heard about how incredible Kobe beef is, it's ultimately not for me. My steak was cooked just right, the flavor was really great, but it was still a little fatty for my taste, even though it was marbled just the way it's supposed to be. I'd say if you are a sushi eater who likes steak, this would be perfect for you. I just can't take that kind of tender-mushiness when I'm eating a steak. We also split a giant plate of some kick-ass fries, which we came nowhere near finishing, and Kris had a big, fancified chicken noodle soup which she really enjoyed. It was also really fairly priced, even for the high-end grub. It's also some good cook-watching -- I was most entertained by watching the poor cooks biting their tongues off trying to remember that they're in the middle of the customers, trying not scream at each other and hurl obscenities and play grab-ass and throw bloody dishrags at each other, which is normally the case in a back-of-the-house kitchen.

Ben Ash Deli -- Let me say up front that Mrs. K is the "deli person", who's into all the cured and salted and pickled deli meats and sandwiches and stuff. Not my bag, but I was up for the experience. Ben Ash Deli is on a sort of "deli row", which houses about five famous delis in a two block space. I had a damn serviceable (and giant) burger and fries, which were fine. The Missus, however, had a pastrami sandwich the size of an Australian-rules football. She had to unhinge her jaw like a boa constrictor to take a bite (shut up, dudes), and I just looked at my plate. Oh, sure, it's a neat trick, but really... ouch. We finished it up with a big ol' stereotypical piece of cherry cheesecake, which severely rocked. Neither of us eat dessert very often, especially for lunch, but we finished the whole rich, savory thing. Then we went next door, bought a knick-knack or two and some postcards, and waddled our goofy asses back to the hotel. We ended up with half a pastrami sandwich in a bag sitting on the AC in our room for the next 2 days.

Drink:

The Hudson Bar -- OK, our two or three trips to the Hudson Bar (the bar in our hotel lobby) were probably the most surreal, cool, odd experiences of the whole trip. As I described a bit earlier, the Hudson Bar is considered a pretty damn hip & trendy place to go, even in Manhattan. The one and only reason we were allowed in was because all guests of the hotel get in free; although, we were always dressed very nice when we went in, since we always went there before or after going out someplace else. We were also never there after 10:00 or so, when the place becomes a loud, techno-beating, asses-to-elbows disco full of slinky-dancing model-types and dudes standing around watching them. Even when we were there in the early evening, the DJ was playing the music ridiculously loud, rendering any attempt at coherent conversation futile. The first time we went, we sat at a table, were told they were reserved, and moved to a different spot. The last time we went in, we sat at a table, and the waitress told us it was usually reserved for "bottle service" (which we found out later meant that to sit there, you had to buy a $200 bottle of vodka), but let us sit there anyway since it was early and we didn't look like total hicks. Each time we had 2-4 mixed drinks (they didn't have beer) which cost about $15 each, and just sat there and people-watched. Also a nice bonus was the fact that, due to their short, highly starched miniskirts, we got a full-on cheek-shot every time one of the waitresses bent over in the slightest to serve a table. And no, this wasn't my original observation, it was pointed out to me by my super-awesome wife.

There were gaggles of gals in pairs and threes, all legs and hair and shoes. There were pairs of dudes there, trying to act like they weren't there to scope chicks. There were the requisite sad loner guys, obviously hotel guests who just sat there and looked bewildered and lonely. These guys invariably made a big show of looking at their Blackberries or sending text messages, as if they had someplace else to better to go. There were large parties of young hipsters, and even a wedding party, with the bride flitting around and being a social butterfly in her wedding dress. There was also a semi-older couple who came in and sat at the couch and table closest to the DJ booth, which was obviously a super-VIP spot. Five minutes after they sat down, two waitresses brought a huge set-up -- about 4 bottles of liquor, a serving tray, and an intricate arrangement of glasses, flutes, and decanters of all types. They sat there, looking bored and above it all, for about 20 minutes. Then, here came the models to the table, both male and female -- they came trickling in one by one, to giant hugs and celebrity cheeky-kisses from the older couple and the wait staff, who seemed to know them all by first name and immediately commenced tossing back shots with them. It was just bizarre; designer clothes, perfect faces, impossible physiques, impossible hair, impossible teeth. And from what I could tell from the vacant expressions and glassy eyes, not a half-dozen brain cells in the whole group. We got plenty of hearty chuckles out of that spectacle.

The Rodeo Bar -- This is a damn cool bar on the Lower East Side, where I've played a few times. Despite the corny name, it's a great place and the only venue for live roots music in Manhattan, as far as I can tell. And they sell Lone Star beer!! Ah, the sweet, flat beverage of the old homestead, a nice treat. We got there late, in time to hear only two or three tunes from the Jack Grace Band, which from what I could tell was a cool, fun alt-honky-tonk band from New York. I had the pleasure of meeting Jack and his wife (who played bass), and sharing some musical pleasantries. It turns out that he used to play with Preston Rumbaugh (the first guy I ever sat in with in Knoxville, played bass with me, Teri, Wayne Hancock, and a bunch of other folks in Austin for awhile, etc., etc.) while he lived there a couple of years ago -- it becomes a mighty small world when you're talking Preston; the guy's lived everywhere and played with everybody. I also found out that Jack did the music score for the movie "Super Troopers", which is a great, goofy, fun comedy from a couple of years ago. Neato tidbit, eh? He and I shared a tequila shot before he left, and Kris & I finished out the night downing Lone Stars and watching life flow by on 2nd Avenue.

Play:

Museum Of Modern Art -- I enjoyed this a bit more than I thought I would, really. I imagined it would be chock full of dudes with wire-rimmed glasses and turtlenecks, and/or women with flowery frocks and hairy armpits. And it was, but that didn't hamper my enjoyment of the excursion. We saw everything from giant Monets to tiny Dalis to Warhol's soup cans. Some of my favorites were Sue Williams, who had two paintings there, that at first looked like big "squiggly lines" paintings, then once you looked at them, realized there were hundreds of smaller works all melding into each other, and both of the paintings centered around a certain motif, mostly based on sexuality. One was overtly sexual, and one was more of a fetish thing, centered around feet. Neither was vulgar or anything, they were just cool paintings that you could look at for hours and not see the same thing twice.

There were also the more modern "interactive" works, that are set in three dimensions and use the viewer to participate and become part of the art. My favorite was called "Waiting For Jerry", although I can't remember who it was by. It was just a small, semi-dark room, illuminated only by a small arching mouse-hole with a bright light inside. Playing loudly over invisible speakers was "Tom and Jerry music", the usually frenetic Merrie Melodies-type orchestra music they used in the old Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. It was really cool to experience something that was both so simple and so effective. It was really like being in a cartoon for about 3 minutes.

Metropolitan Art Museum -- This was about what I thought it would be: giant, interesting, and packed with tourists. It was unfortunate that we didn't realize it closed at 6:00, since we got there at about 4:00. We had to rush to see what we wanted to see, and I know we missed a lot of great stuff. Also, a word of advice if you ever plan on going there -- you can't find anything. Apparently the museum was designed by a drunken schizophrenic off his meds. There are no signs that say "Degas, thataway", or "Van Goghs are upstairs", or anything close to that. They have everything divided up by cultures and movements (Asian, Renaissance, etc.), which is fine, unless you're a normal human and haven't had an art history class in the last 15 years. So if you want to go there, get there early, and don't plan on anything in particular. You pretty much just have to wander around until you happen upon the things you really came there to see.

The one moment that struck me the most was walking into a room that had the original wall-size painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware. It was the one and only room -- in both museums -- where people were looking at a piece of artwork reverently. The room was full of people, and totally silent. People were standing or sitting on a bench directly in front of the painting, and were just looking and thinking. Really, The Met was last place I expected to see an outpouring of spontaneous patriotism. Or, maybe they were just silently apologizing.

"Inherit The Wind" -- One of the few non-monetary wedding presents we got was from my brother, which was tickets to "Inherit The Wind" at the Orpheum Theater on Broadway. He got us tickets to this particular play because it was a play he and I did together when I was in college; actually, he directed it, and I played E.K. Hornbeck, the sarcastic reporter, and otherwise just generally goofed off. In case you don't know, "Inherit The Wind" is a theatrical version of the Scopes Monkey Trials about the teaching of evolution in schools during the early 1900's. Anyway, the play was really great -- the lead roles were played by Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer, and they both did fantastic jobs (I told my brother I wanted to holler out at Christopher Plummer during the show, "Dude!! Do 'Edelweiss!!'"). Plummer was actually really funny, which I didn't expect, and the role didn't even necessarily call for that much humor. He just did a perfect job, as did Dennehy. As far as production, they actually put part of the audience onstage, sitting in old wooden bleachers as part of the courtroom audience. It was a cool idea, but it was weird to be looking at a play set in the early 1900's while a guy in the "audience" was looking at his cell phone. Also cool was that, instead of an overture or piped-in music before the play started, they had a bluegrass quartet, in costume & in character, playing old-time gospel songs. Nice touch.

Anyway, we had a great time (in spite of the fact that we went the wrong direction after we got out of the cab because we couldn't understand what the cabbie was saying), and we both really appreciate my brother & his family giving us such a perfect gift.

(see more stuff in Part III...)

Roger