Winter Wonderland Shopping
As ever New York City is bopping 24/7. During the winter months of January and February 2008 I spent several short weekends in Manhattan to take advantage of the big SALES everywhere - from the major department stores, Macy’s http://www.macys.com, Bergdorf Goodman’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s http://bloomingdales.com and at the chains such as The Gap, Banana Republic. What a buy! More than 50% reductions and up to 65% on all items including winter coats. I got mine at Botticelli at 620 Fifth Avenue on the aisle leading to Rockefeller Center’s ice skating rink. Contact them at http://www.boticellishoes.com. I truly needed that coat since the weather was snowy, sloshing and miserably cold for two days. However that didn’t stop me from gallivanting all over, even though it took more than an hour to hail a cab in the wetness.
Cosmetics, shoes, leather goods, bedding and bathroom items were a steal. A great store for the latter is Bed, Bath and Beyond on 6th Avenue near 20th - 19th Streets. As always the discount department stores are a paradise for those who refuse to pay for designer labels yet want the real stuff. Daffy’s on 5th Avenue near 19th Street and downtown across from Rockefeller Center is Century 21. For these you needn’t go to Manhattan during sale time. Their sales are year round. The big flagship opening of H&M had thousands scurrying into the five story building on 5th Avenue in the 40s. I didn’t bother going in since that’s not my cuppa tea.
Foodism and a Bar
I don’t claim to have even one one-hundredth of the listings since my days were short and my stomach capacity limited. Here are a few worthwhile and disappointing choices made.
SushiSamba has one of the most eclectic and inspiring interiors I’ve seen in more than a year anywhere. 
Located at 87 Seventh Avenue South, tel: 212-691-7885 or at 245 Park Avenue South, tel: 212-475-9377, the chefs, all of whom are Japanese combine their expertise with South American, mostly Brazilian fare. How such a combination could spring forth may have something to do with Japanese immigration to Brazil last century when thousands of farmers settled there. The interior is simply elegant yet funky. With bamboo, stone and colored psychedelic glass, sofas and stools in hot pink, orange, mustard yellow and olive green you feel as if you are in a tamed jungle. Exploding out of this peaceful environment are major surprises on your color-coded plates that match the glass panels on the walls. Ink squid with hot chili peppers, soy sauce and mint leaves, California roll with tempura fried shrimp in the middle, edamame (soy beans in their shells) with a spicy South American hot sauce and Argentinean steak with Japanese enoki mushrooms cooked in sake.
Hudson Cafeteria is part of the Hudson Hotel, the newest entry in the Ian Schrager collection. At 356 West 58th Street, tel: 212-554-6500, fax: 212-554-6301. mailto: Hudson@ianschragerhotels.com .
Entering the hotel up an escalator with reflective yellow plastic against concrete walls reminded me of The New Tate Modern. The high ceilings (upwards of twenty feet) make for an imposing cathedral like atmosphere. Done in muted dark colors of gray and brown, cabinets as tall as the ceilings contain pasta, legumes, dried herbs and other kitcheny items giving one the feeling of an industrial sized home. A metal square sushi-like bar wraps around in a rectangle in the center of the restaurant whilst long communal brown wooden tables are scattered off the bar. The seating is a block slat that you share with other diners or if you’re fortunate, can sit in a king’s chair or a high back Eames repro. The food is reasonably priced and consistent with what’s fashionable nowadays. Pan-Asian, American and “world”. I had a three legume cold salad with Indonesian hot sauce while my friends had a chili soup, Vietnamese rock shrimp salad wrapped in lettuce with three sauces, red snapper with lime juice and soy atop a bed of rocket and spinach with orange slices. The hotel lobby has a bar to die for. Extremely long marble tables are juxtaposed against decorative Louis XIV chairs, modern Italian plastic chairs and leather sofas. The tabletops are ablaze with unusual shaped candelabras. The floor mosaic gives a Moroccan feeling while the wall fresco is utterly post-modern.
MI Restaurant at 66 Madison Avenue near 27th Street, tel: 212-252-8888, fax: 212-213-0275 is Pan-Asian as classically defined, unlike the aforementioned fusion style. Here in a subdued, classy setting of Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Thai and Cambodian antiques, masks, dolls, swords and paraphernalia you can dine on the regional cuisine from the countries mentioned above. For starters we had Korean vegetable pancake tidbits then tucked into a Japanese bento (lunchbox) and Kari Ayam - chicken with red curry in coconut milk with rice. Fantastic price for value.
Pastis at 9 Ninth Avenue, tel: 212-929-4844, fax: 212-929-5676, mailto:frontdesk@pastisny.com is one of those must-see-must-be in places so European, slightly French bistro atmosphere with grandmother’s tiles on the walls in a room filled with twenty year olds looking for Mr. Rich or Mr. Right. It still makes for a wonderfully effervescent atmosphere. Models and uptowners crawl down here to get a taste of the “underground”, that is if they can book a reservation. I went on a Thursday evening at 11:00pm and it was packed.
Florent is right down the block from Pastis at the end of the west village near the west side highway on 69 Gansevoort Street, tel: 212-989-5779. A totally non-pretentious diner serving upscale American breakfast and brunch dishes such as avocado, bacon, rucola and melted cheese on homemade bread and Mimosa’s to wash down your meal. The crowd is the best I’ve seen and rubbed shoulders with for months. Writers, artists, furniture designers, critics, actors and locals in drag or dungarees mingle with one another in a cozy eat-at-your-own-pace setting. Very hip, very small. So don’t bring a whole busload of tourists please!
Kelley and Ping has been around for some years yet it never ceases to surprise me no matter how often I go there. It’s an Asian grocery and noodle shop. You walk in and you feel like you’re in a Vietnamese styled market or Asian cafeteria. You can order three types of noodles that are either steamed, fried or in soup, veggie dishes, rice dishes or mixed veggie and meat/seafood dishes. Cookbooks, Asian sauces and tableware are on sale and kitsch Chinese posters adorn the walls. Simple and very cheap. Located at 127 Greene Street in Soho, tel: 212-228-1212. mailto:kandp@eatrice.com
Chumley’s is in fact the oldest restaurant establishment in New York City dating back over one hundred and fifty years. I read a great review about it in New York Magazine http://www.nymag.com and I used to trust Gael Greene’s food criticisms as holier than thou. So why not I thought. I’ll tell you why not! The charming brownish pub atmosphere sans smoke in a dug out cave-like room was rustic yet filled with twenty-somethings so my reverie of times gone by quickly degenerated into a college campus ruckus I never would have attended. The pert waitress cum maitre’ d was impressively snobbish. My guests aged in their fifties and sixties born in New York City and as street wise as they come asked for a table for four. That wasn’t available. Two tables for two were. My guests asked that the tables be put together. The reply from Ms. Idaho was, “Have you ever been to a New York restaurant Sir?” and with that I gave her the once over and replied, “honey before you were born they swept the streets of New York with the likes of you - country hicks!” With that we got our table however the meal I ordered, lobster was cold and mushy. Ms. Idaho avoided us the entire evening. I recommend avoiding Chumley’s forever.
Quake on 785 Broadway at 10th Street, tel: 212-505-7175, fax: 212-505-7158 has a space agey milky white 2001 setting, lots of round biomorphial shapes and alcoves which are oblong and discreet. Here you can smoke at the bar. They make great mixed drinks. Cool.
The Red Bar in the lobby of the Hotel Gershwin at 27th Street between 5th and Madison Avenue is where you have to be on a Saturday night because when you go to the ‘trendy’ bars all you’ll find are BBQers (borough people from Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens) and that’s not who you want to see, believe me. What’s trendy here is the eclectic mix of people. I met the owner of the Gershwin, a businessman from Switzerland (living in the States for 30 years) who’s got spunk, a film festival producer from Australia who’s hoping to crack the big time with his NY Independent Film Festival, a student from the Ivory Coast studying economics, Scott, yeah Scott the bartender and actor, a wacky girl who was hungry and generous. This Bjork look-a-like bought me and some fellows two grilled bacon, cheese and tomato sandwiches at one in the morning. Everyone hung out together in a rare totally non-pretentious way. It’s a great place to meet terrific people who really converse together.
Coolest New Neighborhood in New York City
What Soho was in the 70s - mid 80s, what the East Village became until the nineties Williamsburg, Brooklyn is now! Artists, writers, actors/actresses live and hang out here. This sleepy little burb was put on the map years ago when tensions flared between the Hasidim who had been living peacefully here for over a hundred years and some rogue criminals who went on a killing spree murdering the chief Rabbi. Nowadays the artists have set up shop with a plethora of clubs and bars. Here’s a shortlist of where to go. Just take a subway to Williamsburg and if you’re a late night reveler a taxi back to Manhattan.
Galapagos - Kent & N6th Street
Kokies Place - N3rd and Berry
Oznots - Moroccan styled restaurant
Pool Bar - near the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway) Pete’s Candy Store - call information (411) for the number and address
Rimulad Party - Bedford & S4th or S5th Streets (they throw a wild basement party two or three times a month. Ask the locals when it happens)
Momix
Take Circque de’Soleil without the clownish costumes and circus apparatus; add a dash of African, rap, Bach and electronic music and you have Momix. An exceptional inventive dance troupe born from the choreographer/director Moses Pendleton who was raised on a dairy farm in Vermont. He probably got so bored of milking the cows’ utters, he needed to spread his wings and develop muscles in limbs other than his hands.
Momix is surrealistic using lighting, shadow, humor, props and the human body as its stage it feels more like a sporting event than dance. There are themed skits. Each skit shows one or more dancers engaged in an activity, a theater play. We saw two skiers on skis who appeared to tilt backwards, a swimmer who hardly moved his body yet moved every muscle in that form. There were two prison inmates who glided between the bars of their bunk beds and a female dancer from the Pleiades with a globus in her hand, which never once dropped, to the floor during her whirling Dervish steps. Momix appeared at the Joyce Theater on 8th Avenue and 19th Streets in Chelsea. If you want to book tickets for shows and concerts try http://www.ticketmaster.com
Hotel Information
I’ll never stay anywhere else in New York again unless I win the lottery and decide to splurge at the more exclusive establishments uptown or in Soho.
The Gershwin Hotel
Is an unbeatable price for quality boutique art hotel. Prices range from $99 to $295 for a suite. The rooms are themed with artists, painters, underground NY musicians or poet’s posters. Brightly lit and painted, ask for a room on the 11th floor.
I stayed in Picasso’s room with a picture of the New York Dolls hanging outside the room door. There’s a comedy night on the weekends (free of charge) plus a lounge area, a small coffee shop for breakfast and The Red Bar. Located at 7 East 27th Street. Tel: 212-545-8000, fax: 212-684-5546. You can book online at www.gershwinhotel.com and mailto:gershwinhotel@pobox.com yet they are usually booked way in advance so try to reserve at least one month in advance especially during the shopping seasons.
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