English Tea Time

A bit of England at 108 Greenwich Avenue at Tea & Sympathy.


Tea & Sympathy also has a shop next to their restaurant that sells items imported from England.

The restaurant is a tiny space with about a dozen small tables. And it's always busy here.


In addition to their in-your-face reminders of England, all the waiters have the great British accent. The staff is friendly (our waitress with the curly red hair was especially great) and there's a waitress (or perhaps manager) that reminds us of a British Axl Rose.



They don't sell alcohol here but you can buy beer like Guinness two doors down at Salt & Battery and bring it back to Tea & Sympathy. Tea and Guinness - a bit of an odd couple but it works, especially when food is involved.


Thier afternoon tea come with your choice of three sandwiches (I chose egg salad, chicken curry, and cheese and Branston pickle), scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, banana cupcake, and chocolate cake. Comes with a pot of tea of your choice. Everything was good.


But their mushroom Shepherd's Pie special was just so so.


Tea & Sympathy's other menu items include steak & Guinness pie, bangers and mash, chicken & leek pie, tweed kettle pie, lentil casserole, scotch egg, Welsh rarebit, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and cornish and onion pastry. And their tea selection is excellent.

Shaved Ice in New York City

We found shaved ice in New York! Then again, you can find everything here. Azuki bean bowl with condensed milk reminds us of our hometown treat, except this one has green tea. This is the perfect cool-me-down summer treat. Worth the brain freeze.

The Hotel Chelsea

The Hotel Chelsea is New York's legendary rock n' roll hotel. It's where Sid Vicious supposedly stabbed Nancy Spungen to death on the bathroom floor of room 100 in 1978. It's where Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road. It's where Arthur C. Clarke drafted 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Other artists, writers, and musicians that have stayed there include Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Arthur Miller, Joni Mitchell, Tennessee Williams, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, Jimi Hendrix, and Patti Smith. Musicians have always loved this hotel for its sound-proof rooms.

This twelve-story hotel is located on West 23rd Street between seventh and eighth avenues and was built in 1883. It was the first building to be listed by New York City as a cultural preservation site and historic building. There's been books written about the hotel and its artistic and ghostly past, there's been documentaries about it, and countless movie and photo shoots have taken place (and is still taking place) at the hotel, including the well known black and white photo of Sid Vicious smoking on his bed in the hotel.


Appropriately, the hotel lobby contains artwork from past guests.

We love the look of the Hotel Chelsea's rooms (at least what we can tell from pictures). The design of the rooms are fitting for the kind of artistic people that are drawn to this hotel and it beats the look of the Hiltons and the ones that are too uber modern. There's 240 rooms and what's interesting is that half of the hotel's rooms are occupied by permanent residents. What kind of people live here permanently and how much do they pay for rent for crying out loud?

MoMA

We spent our Friday holiday at the MoMA. Located on 53rd Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues), The Museum of Modern Art in midtown has been described as the most influential museum of modern art in the world.



One of our favorite parts of our visit to the MoMA was the James Ensor exhibit. The exhibit took up the entire 6th floor of the museum. His range of work is incredible. You really have to see the whole collection (and up close) to truly appreciate it. One drawback was that no photos were allowed. It was also the most crowded area of the museum and people were elbowing each other to get a glimpse of Ensor's paintings.


This is a bird's eye view of Song Dong's Waste Not installation.

The Waste Not installation consists of the complete contents of Song Dong's mother's home - everything from shopping bags, cloth, shoes, pans, wrappers, garments, plastic bottles, and everything else you'd pretty much find in a home if nothing ever got thrown away.



This little one's first art performance in Measuring the Universe. Her height, name, and date finding it's place on the wall.


Great Polish poster.


Music was represented.


This older gentleman made us smile. A man getting lost in the music.


Forever young. How we hope we will be at his graceful age.


It was thrilling to see the art work of one of my favorite artists, Marc Chagall.


If only I could have a wall of Chagall in my own home.


Although the James Ensor exhibit was by far the most crowded floor, the floor containing the well-known masterpieces was almost as crowded. But this floor felt more claustraphic since photos (without flash) were allowed and everyone was fighting for space to take pictures - Dali, Picasso, Warhol, Mondrian, Pollock, Matisse, Kooning, Kahlo, Miro - it was insane.








We admit, we were one of those annoying insane picture takers. We couldn't help ourselves. We took about a hundred photos and our camera died. But how could we not? Look at the beautiful art work. We wanted to take home a piece of it.







We spent four hours looking at the artwork. Really, you probably need a good five hours to comfortably see everything at this museum (and originally we thought we could finish in two hours like the Guggenheim). We ended our day with a glass of wine and beer at MoMa's Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. That's the best way to wrap up the day there.

And thank goodness the museum is open til 8 PM on Fridays. We look forward to returning for MoMA Thursday Nights.

Tukish Delivery

Istanbul Grill on W 14th Street at 8th Ave serves affordable Turkish food and is one of our favorite neighborhood hole-in-the-wall joints. We've only eaten inside the small restaurant once, but we've had Istanbul's food delivered to our door a dozen times for dinner.

Here's the reason why Istanbul is one of our favorite food spots - their chicken kebab plate, which is different from any chicken kebab plate we've had. The chicken is always tender and cut perfectly, and it's served with great rice, onions, tomatoes and lettuce. The portion is also very generous.


And the chicken kebab is made more perfect by Istanbul Grill's red sauce - sweet and almost like a ketchup and light peppery barbeque sauce mix.

Istanbul Grill's lamb and falafel are also good, but the chicken is really the only thing we normally order from here.

But their baklava is a bit of a let down - a bit too gooey and soggy. This particular plate tasted a few day past its prime.

And their pita bread and hummus are just average.


Like we said, it's all about their chicken kebab plate for us and we're all about getting plentiful, affordable food delivered to our door in under 15 minutes.

Drink Brass Monkey

It was a fine day for a pint of Guinness at Brass Monkey on Little West 12th Street. Brass Monkey has an impressive beer menu and their food menu is what a beer bar should have.

On their third-level rooftop bar with views of the Hudson.



No complaints about their omelet, home fries, and toast.


Unfortunately, the burger and fries were disappointing. The bread on this burger was overly grilled and disgusting.


This is their second level bar area. This is the kind of bar that gets extremely crowded, and the thing about going to a bar like this during the day is the lingering smell of spilled beer and vomit from earlier in the morning.

The food might not be the best, but you come here for beer. And since we're long past our college years, we'd rather come for beer at a place like this during the mellow hours when you can sit down and relax, don't have to wait to order, or stand in line for the restroom.

4th of July in New York City

Our main goal on our first Fourth of July in New York City was to watch the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks. This year the fireworks took place over the Hudson River in honor of Henry Hudson's voyage 400 years ago. The fireworks were set off from six barges between 24th and 50th Streets, and during the day we tried to scout out some viewing locations. We finally decided on Pier 54, since it's in short walking distance from our apartment and we just happen to like this pier. During the day, the NYPD were already on every street from 13th Street all the way to probably the last barge. We saw them obviously checking for bombs on Pier 54. Oddly, that didn't make us feel quite as nervous as the prospect of either not getting onto the Pier or the horrific crowd. We got to Pier 54 at around 8:00 PM and it was the perfect time as it wasn't too far in advance of the 9:20 fireworks showtime (thereby allowing us to bypass the nasty porta potties) and we made it just in time to get some prime seats on the ground by the barricade. We also got to watch the sky's changing colors while waiting for the fireworks.


We saw so many families, probably from all parts of this world, huddled together on this Pier. Then we started to see the different boats, water taxis, and ships taking their prime water spots (and that might have been great for us if not for the $100 to $250 price tag). The fireworks show started slightly past 9:20 PM and lasted for over 25 minutes. Apparently this year's fireworks show was eight times more high-level than last year's show. It was a stunning work of art in the night sky. It's amazing how they put this show together. We will never forget this night.




The fireworks included red, white and blue stars, happy faces, dice, shooting stars, and what looked like colorful Pollock paint splatters on the sky's black canvas. Our favorites were the fireworks that buzzed around in different directions. It was too hard to capture the full breath of the images with our camera.


Although we were still a bit far away from the actual location, we were so surprised at how good our views were from 13th Street. People with great rooftop spots on the West side, or the few 250 people that were able to get their spots on top of the Empire State Building must have had breathtaking views. But when we think about our experience being gathered together with all those New Yorkers and tourists on that Pier, it makes us glad that we chose the spot that we did. And it was FREE. One thing we wished was that we could have heard the New York pops performing the musical scores synchronized to the fireworks - we're not sure exactly which location that took place but it must have been a goosey skin experience.


The fireworks show felt like it only lasted 3 minutes because we selfishly wanted it to last longer. The NYPD did a fantastic job with crowd control, and before we knew it, we were at the Pizza truck on our way home.


$7 for two slices of our favorite oily comfort food.


One we got home, we ended our first fourth with a nice $6 BOTTLE of Pinot and Star Wars and Beetlejuice. The one thing we missed today was Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest held on the corner of Surf & Stillwell avenues in Coney Island. Joey Chestnut defeated his rival Takeru (Tsunami) Kobayashi for the third year, beating him with 68 hot dogs in just 10 minutes (Kobayashi finished 64.5 hot dogs). We would have gone there if the subway ride to and from Coney Island wasn't so miserable.