Lots of Food, Not that Many Musuems

Mom and Dad came to town at the end of March, it was wall to wall deluxe eating the whole time.
We began by meeting up in Brooklyn, saying hello, and eating at Olmsted, a new "neighborhood" restaurant from a former Alinea chef. It was wild food disguised as normal food, or normal food with a wild side to it. I don't know. It was inventive, fun, not too wacky, and (most importantly) very, very good tasting. Highest recommendation!

Duck liver mousse with tasty toasts

Crab crackers

Deep fried Indian-tasting cauliflower

Kale crab rangoon

Beet salad

Carrot and clam crepe . . . this one is a showstopper among showstoppers

Scallops

Pork and raclette

Duck two ways: laab

and sliced breast

Desserts: the house hot chocolate, Swiss Miss style. Came with a thermos of hot milk

Peanut butter and jell-o.

a nice calm lavender frozen yogurt

and a traditional and delicious chocolate mousse

they have a nice backyard back there at Olmsted

Some Prospect Heights sights:

One of these brown stones is where I spent my first New York nights back in 2003 when I was checking out NYU.

Before heading home we went and saw A Quiet Place so I could watch Mom and Dad jump and worry about that nail. 

Then it was Friday! That night my friend Bryan was leading a tour of the ancient Greek and Roman stuff at the Met, which Mom and Dad were allowed to come on, too

After that we went over to the Flora Bar at the Breuer Museum. Between you and me, I wasn't mentally prepared for how chic and full of Friday night fancy people it was going to be. Mom and Dad handled it well, I was sitting there wondering how we were going to get home afterwards. Food was good, though. I just look at the food pictures and feel fine about the whole thing.

Started off with some Iberico ham

Potato and raclette croquettes

Endive salad

The bar at Flora bar…we also had lamb ribs, a couple steaks, and crab and lobster ravioli. But it was way too dark to take pictures of though. But I had to do my best with this wild Mandarin sorbet and coconut dessert. Consider it the Friday night MVP/VIP

Saturday day we had a nice walk around Inwood Hill Park and Fort Tryon Park, had some family screen time, and went and saw the new production of Carousel.

This new Carousel is good. It's like they said "Hey, let's put on this old musical, but make it REAL good." And they did!

For dinner we went well into Queens to have dinner at SriPraPhai for some nice cheap and delicious Thai. And a visit to the Jollibee bee.

Crispy watercress salad

Pork laab

Beef waterfall

Pad See Ew

Massaman Curry

Me and Dad and the Bee

Sunday, a beautiful day. Before church we had lunch at Ma Peche, soon to be closing. SIgh. Oh well. I had the kimchi burger, Mom had the Chicken and Waffles. Since there was a small chance of the chicken being slightly spicy, Dad had pancakes (not pictured). Food was good, place was falling apart, really seemed they were just phoning it in for their last weeks. Have some dignity, Ma Peche!

After church we went back into Brooklyn for dinner at Claro. This is a delicious place that I was excited to take my parents to, but, oh man, that meal. The food, yes, it was good, but there was about a 20 minute gap between each dish. It got me aggravated old man style, and all they did was comp us a dessert. Sheesh. I loved Claro on my first trip, dinner was delicious on my second trip, but I don't know if I'll go back and recommend it. I mean I chose this place over Cosme. Guess I should've told them that? To illustrate how long we were there, look at how bright the first dish is from the natural light streaming into the restaurant when it arrived. Progresses towards pointless darkness.

Asparagus avocado tostada

Chorizo memela

Shrimp tacos

One of two mole dishes

After dinner we walked over to Ample Hills, with a quick lookaround at Royal Palms before the ice cream

Monday lunch at Carbone. This is where things got seriously serious. A fancied-up throwback to old red sauce Italian restaurants that you might wear a tie to, I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about (there's lots of Carbone fuss), but was excited to finally try it out.

The menus are big

Instead of chips and salsa, they bring out garlic bread, salami, and fresh mozzarella. This garlic bread, it was unbelievable. One bite of the garlic bread and I was like “Oh, ok, I get it now.”

Caesar salad prepared almost-tableside

My serving of the spicy rigatoni

Meatballs

The GIGANTIC veal parmesan. I should have included something for scale, like an elephant, so that you could really understand how gigantic it was.

My third of the veal

And here’s a slice of carrot cake!

It was a very fun meal. At dinner I think the clientele gets supremely fancy, but during the day it was us and idle chic people. I saw two people wearing Balenciaga Triple S's!

For dinner we ate at Hank's Juicy Beef. I had a hot dog.  

And then on Tuesday when i came home Mom and Dad were gone. Just like that! Their five night stay seemed like one of their shortest, but what a good time.

Lots of Museums, Not That Much Food

All right, let's get caught up on some mid-March to mid-April stuff...

For starters, there was this one Saturday when the Homers were in town and we had a dang good time.

One Monday night my friend/bishop Jeff gave a tour of Grand Central because he was being certified as an official Grand Central tour guide. Thanks to this tour I can now point out 4 or 5 things you might not know about the terminal AND I know the way up to the tennis court. (Did you know there's a Grand Central tennis court?!)

There's this eighty year old Spanish restaurant in Chelsea called El Quijote that was being closed down to get turned into something a little more flashy and up to date, so I went to have lunch there to see what it was all about while I still could. Conclusion: Very extremely old school, and very charming in that sense. Food was fine, they gave me a gigantic pot of mussels for fifteen bucks. But, all in all, more of a place that you're glad exists than a place you go to very often. Or more often than once. Or I don't know, probably would've been a party to go there with a gang of homies.

After lunch I went up to the Met to visit Joan

Another day I found myself over by the Daily News building so I dipped in and had a look at the globe for the first time in a while

Easter morning walk through Inwood Hill Park (the part without a hill)

Then, on a Friday, a little West Village, a little Whitney Museum.

The next day, a little Soho time. There was a big crowd having their Nikes marbelized.

One night/day I decided to get out my 50mm f/1.1 and practice with it a little before taking it to Michael's birthday party

And at the end of the week I took my 50mm f/2.0 to work and Brooklyn Bridge Park (and also saw Patricia)

And then, Saturday April 14th, the sun came out and it was nice for the first time. Headed down to the Chelsea galleries from my neighborhood.

And that's a bunch of museums and barely any food, just like I told you it would be!