New York City did not disappoint! Maybe the perfect weather had something to do with it!Friday, May 23rd:
We were able to get a direct flight from Savannah to La Guardia airport and had no troubles with the flight, everything was on time. We arrived in NYC shortly after 2pm.
Thanks to posts on Fodors I reserved with Carmel car service to pick us up. I did this since it was a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend and I am glad I did!
When we got to baggage claim I called the car dispatcher and within 5 minutes our car pulled up outside the door. We loaded our bags in and off we went. The car was clean and comfortable. The cost was $28 without toll and tip. With toll and tip we paid the driver $40. We paid cash, but they do take credit cards. Traffic was pretty heavy going into the city, although going out was pretty heavy too. It took us about 45 minutes to get to our hotel. We stayed at the NY Hilton at 6th Ave. and 53rd...great location for us.
Once we checked in and got settled into our room we decided to walk up to Lincoln Center. I purposely hadn't planned anything for this afternoon so we could roam wherever the mood took us. We chose Lincoln Center because "back in the day" my parents had a Lincoln Center subscription and mom wanted to just walk around the area. We were a bit disappointed because at the moment the center of the plaza area at Lincoln Center is under renovation...couldn't see the fountain. Mom was more let down then me on this adventure, but we walked around a bit and took some pictures in front of some very pretty azaleas!
We then walked back down to Columbus Circle and made a slight detour into the Wholefoods store there. Not that I haven't heard of Wholefoods before, I have, but we don't have any here in the Low Country and I had never been in one before (you can see a food theme starting here and now!). All I can say is WOW! The prepared foods section is enormous...if I lived near there, I would never cook! Well, I don't really cook much now as it is!
After wandering through Wholefoods for a bit we perused some of the other shops in this mall and then headed for our first New York adult beverage of the trip. BIG, strike that...GIGANTIC thanks to Neopatrick from Fodors for recommending Divine Bar on West 54th Street....we LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it!
For 3 glasses of wine and the crostini the bill was $59.85 with tip. It was a great way to toast the start of our NYC trip.
After a couple hours we decided it was time to head downtown for our dinner reservation at Lupa (http://www.luparestaurant.com/). We had a 9:30pm reservation but thought we would try our luck to see if they could seat us early. We figured if not, we could always have a drink at the bar.We took the subway down to Houston Street. Once we came up to street level it took me a minute to get oriented, but I finally got us going in the right direction! We walked about 3 blocks to Thompson Street and found Lupa with no problem. The hostess was very accommodating with our early arrival and after about a 25 minute wait we were seated early.
We started the meal with a couple glasses of an Umbrian Chardonnay and 2 antipasti dishes. The asparagus with pecorino cheese was a bit spicy and the cheese added just the right flavor. The scallops with prosciutto was flavorful and tender. Both dishes were excellent.
For our main dishes we both decided to have pasta. Mom had the Buccatini Amertriciana (not sure of correct spelling!) and I had the spaghetti carbonara. Both dishes were slightly spicy and delicious.
To cap it all off I had the black pepper panna cotta with rhubarb which was both (slightly) spicy and smooth and creamy and we both had espresso which was excellent. The total bill with wine, 2 antipasti, 2 pasta dishes, 1 dessert and 2 espresso came to $120 including tip.
A few observations about Lupa. We really liked this restaurant, and we do enjoy Italian food. The restaurant was packed with people the entire time we were there, they never slowed down. People were continuing to come and every table was full when we left at about 10pm. The bar at Lupa is fairly small, maybe 10 seats and it is located in the front dining area. The front dining area seats about 40 +/- people. There is a back room, but we didn't see it, however when we looked in that direction it appeared that every table was full. Overall we really enjoyed our meal at Lupa and would go back again.
Saturday, May 24th:
Today was another great weather day and it remained that way the whole weekend! We started the day with breakfast at Maison located at 1700 Broadway (at 53rd Street). It is just down the block from the Hilton so was very convenient.
I had read about this restaurant in a post on Fodors and it struck me as being the kind of place we would like and I was right!Maison is a french bistro type place that is open 24/7 (http://www.maisonny.com/) When we arrived shortly after 8:30am it was not very crowded, but this did not deter us...it was a Fodor's recommendation!
Service was very good and the food was great...typical breakfast fare. Mom had asparagus crepes and I had an omelet with spinach, mushrooms and goat's cheese. The best part of the meal was the fresh squeezed orange juice. The cappuccino isn't bad either! Our breakfast with tip was $35.
After breakfast we hopped on the E train (it was just across the street from the restaurant) and we went down to ground zero.
WOW is all I can say. This was our first time back in NYC after September 11th and a visit to this area of the city was something both my mom and I wanted to do.
When we came out of the subway we were right next to the Church of St. Paul. I had never heard of this church but mom suggested we go inside. I am glad we did. There are memorials set up inside the church, for me, it was incredibly moving. Maybe it's because I grew up in New York City's "backyard" and worked in the city for a few years, but I got pretty choked up. It was incredible to me that this church, right across the street from the site did not have one window broken or shattered or any damage at all.
After spending some time inside the church and looking at Ground Zero, we walked down to Battery Park, it was such a beautiful day and perfect park weather.The park was teeming with people.
There was a swimming event and competitors in wetsuits were milling about. Others were kayaking in the water and we even saw a wedding. All of this activity in a matter of a few hundred feet!
I took lots of pictures and then we decided to head uptown to Macy's. Before getting on the subway, while walking down State Street we stumbled upon the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Shrine and went in for a look. It's a pretty little church/shrine wedged between some hi-rise buildings.
Once uptown we meandered through the first floor of Macy's since we didn't really have enough time to do any kind of "major" shopping. At about 1pm we left Macy's and started to walk over to 50th Street to the New World Stages were we had tickets to see the 2pm matinee of Altar Boyz.
We really enjoyed this show. I thought the music and dancing and performers were great. The lyrics to the songs were very clever...if you are catholic I think you can relate even more to the lyrics! It was definitely a fun show. The showed lasted about 90 minutes (with no intermission)...those boyz really get a workout in this performance!
By 4pm we were exiting the theater and walking over to Rockefeller Center. We walked around and window shopped and took more pictures. We headed down to Bryant Park to have a look around. We planned to have a drink at the Bryant Park cafe, but with such great weather every table and chair at the bar was taken. We decided to walk over to an old stand-by my parents used to frequent on their many forays into the city "back in the day" and that was the Marriott Marquis. 
We were hoping to have drinks in the 8th floor lounge that looks over the street and revolves, but it was closed for a private function, so the Atrium lounge fit the bill and we sat and had a cocktail and a snack there. My first $16 drink, a lemon drop martini, but it was sooooo good!For 2 glasses of wine, my lemon drop martini and a flat bread pizza the bill was $69 with tip.
Shortly after 7pm we left the Marriott and walked over to the Longacre Theater (just 3 blocks away) for Boeing Boeing.We LOVED this show. We thought it was funny and well acted. In our opinion Christine Baranski and Bradley Whitford were terrific, but Mark Rylance (played Bradley Whitford's comic friend) was really the icing on the cake...he was hilarious.
I had heard the show was "dated", but it's set in the 60's and I thought the references were dead-on. I honestly didn't know how funny Bradley Whitford could be. And the actors who played the Air Hostesses were fabulous too! The show was almost 3 hours.
I had signed up for playbill.com several months ago and got the tickets at a discount when I had an email notice sent to me about the show...one of the best evenings we had there.
After reading a review about the restaurant Etcetera Etcetera on Fodors I really wanted to try this place, but I didn't want to eat in between the 2 performances, so made a reservation for 10:45pm. We were a few minutes late and there were only a few other diners in the restaurant but it was another great meal! What really attracted me to this restaurant was that several of the pasta dishes could be ordered in appetizer size, and that is what we did.
I had the asparagus risotto which was creamy and delicious. Mom had the winner of the night though...a veal with raisin stuffed ravioli. It may sound like an odd combination, but it tasted out of this world good! For 2 glasses of wine, 2 pasta (appetizer size)dishes the bill was $50 with tip. We loved it and would go back again, when we have more time to "explore" the menu!
Sunday, May 25th:
It was another great weather day...warm and sunny!
We didn't have to be anywhere until 11:15am, so we took our time getting out of the hotel and stopped at a Starbucks (they are everywhere!!!) for some coffee.
We purposely did not have breakfast because we were taking the Chelsea Market and Meatpacking District Food Tasting and Walking Tour with Food Tours of New York (http://www.foodsofny.com/).
We took the E train downtown to 14th Street and walked over to Chelsea Market at 9th Ave. and 15th Street.We arrived a little early, so we walked through the market looking in some of the shops.Our tour was scheduled to start at 11:30am and we were told to be at the meeting point by 11:15am.
All the people in our group arrived on time (there were 14 of us) and we started right on time. I've got to say this was the best $42 I spent on a walking tour!
The guide (Bob) was terrific, very knowledgeable and funny. We tour though the market learning about the building's history (it was orginally the Nabisco Cookie company!). As we walked through the market we would stop at various shops and Bob would tell us a little of the history behind the business and we would have samples. And the samples were not small!
The first stop on the tour was Eleni's bakery and we had the BEST cookie I have ever had there. It was the cranberry everything cookie. It was so good, that at the end of the tour I went back and bought a few (they made for a great snack on the flight home!).The next stop was the Ronny Brook Dairy shop and we tasted their chocolate milk. I am not exaggerating when I say this tasted like liquid chocolate ice cream!
Then it was onto the Lobster Place...one of the biggest seafood providers to NYC restaurants. We had a choice of 5 different soups to taste. We both picked the lobster bisque and it was soooo creamy!
Just when we thought we couldn't eat anything more we walked over to Buono Italia (an Italian grocer). We had a variet of cheese, olives, cippolini onion (I had never had them before...tasted great!), mortadelo and Amy's (a bakery at the market) grain bread. After the Italian feast, we moved onto Sarabeth's Bakery to sample 2 varieties of spreadable fruit. We had a blueberry sample and strawberry & peach sample, both very good.
We then had a tea sample from T Salon. Very interesting concept...the entire store is green, even the plastic cups and utensils are made from potato and are 100% biodegradable. This is the only shop of it's kind, but the owner would like to expend and has plans to open 350 stores...stayed tuned to see if that happens!
We rounded out the food sampling with gelato from L'arte Gelato, just like the real deal in Italy!
After all the food sampling (which took about 2 hours) we moved over to Morimoto. This is the Iron Chef Morimoto's restaurant and we got to take a peak inside while it was closed. Pretty sleek interior, including an entire wall made of plastic water bottles!
We then walked across the street (10th Ave) and popped into Del Posto (a Mario Batali restaurant) for a peak. Interior here is stepping to a high class restaurant. I didn't get to see the menu, but our guide told us they do have a tasting menu priced at $44, which if that is the case I think that's a pretty good deal.
From Del Posto we walked into the Meatpacking District and got a bit of a history lesson on the area and the revitalization it has gone through in the last 15 years. We worked our way to the Hotel Gansevoort and went to the lounge/bar at the top of the hotel for some nice views and to end our tour. 
I thought this was the perfect finish to a great tour. We really enjoyed it and thought the guide was excellent. I would highly recommend this tour. In fact the next time I'm in NYC I would book one of the other food walking tours this company offers.
After the tour we went back to the Chelsea Market to make a few purchases at the Italian Market (stuff we can't here) and then took a coffee break to re-group and decide what we wanted to do next. Once we were sufficiently caffeinnated we decided to walk (yes, walk) down 14th Street to Union Square.
It really wasn't a bad walk since it was such a nice day, it was about 4 or 5 long blocks, but we broke it up by stopping in Lush to make a purchase of a couple solid shampoos. I will digress here for a moment...I had heard about bar shampoos but never used them and was interested in trying them, especialy for traveling (upcoming 3 week trip to France) and thought this would be the perfect time to try it out, so I bought 2 bars...digression over.
Union Square was packed with people, there was some kind of event going on related to Taiwan, we never did find out what it was all about, but there were other craft sellers throughout the park area too. We found our way a little further down 14th Street to Trader Joe's and popped in to get a few nuts...we just couldn't help ourselves!
Since were were happy with our purchases we thought it was time for a nice cool beverage. We hopped on the subway at Union Square and went up to 42nd Street and went to the Bryant Park Cafe for a couple glasses of wine. The park was packed with people, but this time we were able to snag a small table towards the back of the bar in the shade and we sat for a little over an hour enjoying being outside and people watching.
We left Bryant Park to walk over to Artisanal Bistro at Park Avenue and 32nd Street (http://www.artisanalbistro.com/), it was a bit of a long walk after a long day, but we arrived about 20 minutes early for our 7pm reservation. I had made an early reservation because it was our last night in the city and I figured we might want to have some time to get our bags ready for the next day.
The timing was perfect, the restaurant was not very busy when we arrived but within 30 minutes almost every table was filled. Artisanal was another good choice for us, we really enjoyed this meal. We started with the onion soup and (yet again) this was the BEST onion soup I have ever had. Full of onions and lots of cheese. 
I had the Heritage Berkshire pork dish which was very favorful and Mom had the sea bass special with eggplant puree and she said it was excellent. I had the apple tarte tartin on a cheddar crust with creme fraise it was delicious! I had a cappuccino and mom had an espresso.
With 2 glasses of wine the bill came to $155 with tip.We finished at about 8:30pm and took the long walk back to the hotel.
Monday, May 26th:
We got ourselves ready and walked over to the Stage Deli (next to Maison) and had a quick breakfast (nothing spectacular, just a basic breakfast). We then checked out of the hotel and waited for the Carmel car to pick us up. The car picked us up right at 11am and we got to LaGuardia in 15 minutes...I kid you not! There was no traffic! The flight home was uneventful and we actually landed 30 minutes early!!
We had a great time and are looking forward to planning another NYC weekend in the near future!
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